Meatloaf and Ovaltine

It's meatloaf and Ovaltine, Poison Control and bathroom behavior bartering, chards of glass and new shoes.

I was on parental-assistance duty for Thanksgiving this year while my sisters frolicked about in the Tennessee sunshine. As my sweet mother is in pain and recovering from double joint replacement surgery, and my beloved father is, well, my father, it was an interesting, although not unusual, visit. This recap is provided mostly for my sisters' entertainment, but as it's pretty amusing in general, I'd like to share with y'all a typical day at home, as a temporarily-only-child, assisting parents upwards of 65. Enjoy...

8:00 - Awake to Dad's voice-alarm booming, "Annie, get outta bed. I wanna find the list of Cool Tools judges on the computer internet service world wide web monitor machine so I can send them my garden seeder."
8:15 - Arrive in kitchen, clean Dad's sticky "Magic Juicer" slop from walls, counter, and floor, before getting my sanity-saving coffee.
9:00 - Clean bathroom number one.
9:30 - Clean bathroom number two.
10:00 - Make deal with Dad that I'll help him with the internet if he'll promise to start flushing toilets.
10:05 - Help Dad find list of judges from a DIY Network show based on the first name of a judge from a 2007 episode.
10:45 - Explain to Dad why typing "My Email" into the Google search bar is not the best way to access his Yahoo account.
11:30 - Call hospital on-call number to track down doctor on duty, on vacation weekend, because Mom might have accidentally taken the wrong mix of post-surgery pills.
11:35 - Prepare to call Poison Control before getting call back from on-call doctor.
12:00 - Make lunch for 82 million cousins stopping through to say hello.
13:00 - Go grocery shopping for weekend, fielding a question from Dad, on my cell while in the dairy aisle, about how to change font size in Microsoft Word.
14:30 - Do laundry of Mom's hospital-esque bed's 24 pillow cases.
15:00 - Buy new pair of Anne Klein shoes on Mom, as "thanks" for coming home to help.
16:00 - Fill up tank of premium gas on Dad, as "thanks" for coming home to help.
16:30 - Arrive home to living room floor of Dad's shattered glass of juice.
16:35 - Clean Dad's shattered glass of juice.
17:00 - Clean bathroom number one, again.
17:15 - Clean bathroom number two, again.
17:30 - Say hello to cousin installing a downstairs, walk-in shower in bathroom number three.
17:45 - Make dinner of World's Largest Ever Meatloaf, so the parents, and the cousins stopping through, can be fed the following week.
20:00 - Peacefully watch Forrest Gump in living room, with volume actually at a controlled level because Dad has his "audio ears" headphones on and working, while sipping Ovaltine and eating pie, being thankful I have two working legs, a place to call home, and two married parents who love me a whole lot.

It's not always pretty, and it's sometimes very messy, but that big, old, beautiful house on Summit Street with the creaky floors that is full of family love and cherished memories, will always be home sweet home.