This weekend, my 45-going-on-85-year-old body announced that it was going on strike.

I had some bug that kept me in bed almost all Saturday and then Sunday, all ready to pack two days in one, I had a back spasm that had me on the floor in excruciating pain.  My son tried to make me feel better with many kisses and I was sad that he realized that his remedies were not efficacious.  It is heartbreaking when children grow up in these ways.

Nevertheless last night we had the ganza mishpocheh (the whole family) over for Sunday night dinner.

My father who has newly diagnosed heart disease looked good and was very excited to give us batteries and power bars and assorted other things that he bought at CostCo.  One opened in the city and he takes the bus there and buys in bulk and then doles out to the “kids”:  SOB (sister of blogger), HOSOB (husband of sister of blogger), POB (partner of blogger and) and B (me).  As he was telling us about the good deals he got on all of these items, he stood taller, had better color and didn’t look or sound like a man in heart failure.  It is crazy what a good deal can do for an old man who is the child of poor immigrants and raised in the Depression.

As I reclined on a chair in the living room with a heating pad strapped to my back, I marveled at my father’s energy.  The conversation reminded me of my father’s endless price comparisons.  For a time, he focused especially on the price of bananas.  If he went to Chinatown, where he uses a sculpture studio, he could buy bananas for X cents a pound, but on the East Side of Manhattan where he lives, it is X+10 cents a pound.  I tolerated the banana story for years and then finally — this was when my mother was still alive — I said to Mom, “The banana story has run its course.  Make it go gently into that good night.” Mom nodded knowingly and I knew that was the last I would hear about the price of bananas.  Mom had a way with Dad.

Sure enough, Dad never mentioned the banana story again.  But he did start talking about the relative price of salmon.  I let it unfold for a few years (mind you, it is the SAME story over and over again about saving a few cents on the price of a pound of salmon0.   By then, Mom was gone.  So I said to SOB, “The salmon story has run its course.  Kill it.”  (I ceased to be gentle about these things after my mom died.)

But last night, as I sat alternatively in pain and extreme pain because of my back, I listened to my father tell us the good deals he got on the batteries and the power bars and I looked at him — he looked excited, proud and decidedly not sick.  And, I thought, I can live with these stories for a few years.  Happily, even, as long as my dad looks as good as he did last night.

But, please, no bananas or salmon stories.