Eating As an Option

This morning at 7 a.m., I woke up to my dad eating a piece of cheesecake left over from Just Pasta. He must have been hungry, since last night he didn't really eat anything.

We went to eat breakfast about an hour or so later, and he ate a little more. But I'm worried about the way he eats. Well, it's not really eating, more like inhaling. He's gulping and because of that, he's getting gas. And then when he gets gas, he feels uncomfortable. And then he makes weird noises which he says makes him feel better, but it sounds like he's grunting. It's uncomfortable for me when he does that, because I can't tell if he's in pain or what.

I thought last night was just an anomaly, maybe he really couldn't eat the dumplings. But no such luck at lunch today.

We walked around and there wasn't any place that offered good, clean food. So we settled on this cafe that had pasta. It seemed safe. My dad ordered this spaghetti in Japanese miso sauce. We asked for no green onions. I got a spicy chicken spaghetti. But they came back and said that the pasta sauce came pre-mixed with green onions. So he got the vegetable spaghetti instead. When we got our food, it was OK, I thought. But my dad took three bites and stopped eating.

I asked him what was wrong and he said that the pasta wasn't any good, it was too sweet. I ate it and it seemed a little sweet, but it wasn't inedible. I told him it wasn't that bad, but maybe he should get something else. He said no, that he was full already. For a few minutes, I tried to convince him to eat it, that he needs to eat food to give him the energy to fight cancer, but he wouldn't listen to me.

Then he just stared off and just seemed to be absorbed by all the people talking in the cafe. When I tried to re-establish contact, it was like talking to a brick wall.

It was pretty upsetting, so I just gave up. We sat there for 15 minutes without talking to one another. Then I took him back to the hotel.

For most of the afternoon, I called around a few places renting apartments, the ones that I saw yesterday. I also went to look in the Zhongzin area, where the last hotel was, and it's a little more peaceful. On the street, this lady saw me taking down numbers for places to rent. She told me her boss was going to rent out an apartment in the building - a one bedroom. I thought that was great, it turned out to be right above a flower shop and the building was in pretty good condition. However, when we got there, the boss wasn't ready to show it or want to provide any details, so I just left our info with them.

I then went into the Yungching Realty office and a nice man named Mr. Chien helped me look for postings that fit our needs. He was really nice and we found a couple of postings that I think will work. Only problem now is trying to get my parents to increase their budget from NT$15,000 for a studio with no kitchen (which is like 1990 prices if you ask me) to NT$28,000 for a one bedroom with a kitchen and even laundry.

For dinner, I picked up for my dad a NT$200 roast beef sandwich from fancy food purveyors Dean & Deluca, which I surprisingly discovered near our hotel at Breeze Plaza. It was the first place that I actually saw real roast beef in Taipei.

My dad only ate half of the sandwich. He said it was just "OK," as he picked out the onions. And he refused to eat any more because he was full.