I ate a platter of smoked salmon with my sister. It was drizzled with seedy mustard and accompanied by cream cheese, pickled onions, capers, and a warm sliced baguette. I usually appreciate any occasion for eating smoked salmon, so this was no exception, but I was surprised by the quality of the fish and the strength of the flavors contained within the spread. We ate and felt happy. Afterward, we walked through the rain over to a small bookstore on the other side of the street. This bookstore only sells new books, which at one point in my life would have turned me away, but I've come to realize that browsing in an independently owned bookstore can be nice regardless of their wares.
My sister and I entered and we looked around at the books. I looked at the suspense section with her and talked about the few sci-fi novels I have read. I spoke about Raymond Chandler and the interesting kind of mystery fiction that is coming from Scandinavian countries in the past decade or so. I talked about Jo Nesbo and Harry Hole, mentioning that this is a hilarious name to give to a character. I talked about other things. I walked over to the classics section and looked around for a bit. I looked at George Eliot and Italo Calvino and Camus and poetry by Louise Gluck.
I walked up to the front desk/checkout area. Two older ladies were sitting there talking and I greeted them by saying hello. They turned to face me and I asked frankly if they had any books written by Stephen Dixon in their inventory. An American writer. Short fiction. I said these things to specify. I spelled out his last name as well to ensure that she could accurately check. The woman checked and mumbled something about children's books. Maybe there's another writer named Stephen Dixon who writes for children. She said something about new things coming in soon but they wouldn't have Stephen Dixon. I thanked the women for their time and walked away to find my sister. While I walked away, I heard the woman who was not on the computer say to the woman on the computer, "that was so funny." The whole interaction seemed odd to me and I wasn't sure what would be so funny about a person asking about a particular book at a bookstore. Maybe she wasn't talking about the interaction we'd just had, but this thought seems a bit too convenient. I wondered if there was something strange about the way I had approached them and the way I inquired about the literature of American writer and professor Stephen Dixon.
I decided not to buy any books at the book store. My sister and I walked through the rain again and got into her car to drive back to our parents' house, which is also my sister's house in a way. Not in the sense that she owns it, but that she lives there consistently and it is more or less her home. As we walked to the car and got into the car we spoke about abortions and becoming parents. I said that I wasn't sure if I will ever be a father, maybe I'm not cut out for it. My sister told me that she thinks I will be father [sic]. She said that even if I am not father [sic] then I could hang out with her children and be uncle [sic].
Before we left our parents' house to look at new books at the bookstore with the women who thought something was so funny and to eat lunch which included the beautiful salmon platter, my sister woke me up around 11:30 am. This is a bit later than I would like to be waking up. My father was in the living room watching TV and my sister mentioned that we would be going to get some coffee or eat food or look at books, or something. My father said something about going to get sushi instead, and my sister mentioned that we might go to Jacksonville for coffee or whatever, and he could join us. She suggested that we eat sushi for dinner. My father said no to all of this because he didn't want to go to Jacksonville. He seemed quite firm in this. Instead, he went to visit his father, my grandfather, in the hospital.
My grandfather had some kind of surgery involving his heart yesterday. I don't know the details about it but we went to see him the night before last to wish him luck and contribute to high morale going into the surgery. It is, apparently, a very common surgery that he had done. My mother said something about praying for him and my grandfather said something like "I'm not dying yet. You're not getting rid of me yet. Who else is going to bother Emily and Owen?" and we laughed. My grandfather then said something about my dad being pretty good at bothering us too, but my dad still has more to learn before he can be as bothersome as himself. We all laughed at this too, and I hugged my grandparents two times each before walking back across the street to my parents' house. My grandfather made a joke about all the hugs I was giving him. Then he said that I could give him as many hugs as I want. My sister made a lighthearted comment about the fact that I couldn't hug them whenever I wanted to, so I had to get all of the hugs in during a concentrated period of time. Even though it was said jokingly, this is true. I worry that I won't be able to hug Grammy and Pops enough times in that short amount of time. My mother insisted that there are many reasons to pray for someone that don't involve fear of death or dying.
After my sister and I ate the smoked salmon platter with cream cheese and pickled onions and mustard and bread, I sent a photograph of the platter to my friend. We were texting about kindness and what it means to aim for genuine, all-pervasive kindness. We agreed that this is a very hard thing to achieve and requires setting important boundaries and knowing how to work with others, even when others do not apparently want to be worked with. This discussion was caused by my explanation of the bookstore exchange in which nothing was funny. She said that she wished she was me at that moment of eating the smoked salmon, and she called it her dream spread. At that moment I also wished she was me, or at least that I could share the dream spread with her somehow.
My grandfather's heart stopped for a few minutes during his surgery. Nobody told me this because nobody ever tells anyone anything. He has three cracked ribs from CPR compressions but they managed to surgically implant a catheter in his heart. I don't know what this sort of procedure is called, but I'm going to go see him and give him a hug after I ask how he's doing and he says "I'm good" even though his heart stopped and he has three cracked ribs.
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