As many of you may or may not know, one of the most important things to consider for any person like me who has a disability like Cerebral Palsy who has to live and go through life with it is the need to have a very dependable and very reliable set of caregivers to help take care of our daily living needs.
For me my primary caregivers right now are my dad Darryl and my mom Letty. Throughout my 30+ years of living, both of my parents have done a very good job of taking care of whatever care giving needs that I have faced on a daily basis throughout my life.
There are and have always been times though when both of my parents have needed a break for some time off from the daily grind of my own personal care giving needs. In an effort to come up with a solution for giving both of parents some time off throughout the years, we have been very fortunate and blessed that my grandmother on my dad's side of the family named Rosemary has been very able and very more than willing to take a few hours out of her day during every Tuesday night usually to watch over me and attend to any care giving needs I may have while my mom and dad get to go out for a weekly dinner by themselves and enjoy some well deserved time without me for a change!
These weekly couples only dinner gatherings have become such a big family tradition and staple in the Musick Family that my dad started referring to them by name officially as "Mom and Dad's Night Out" on his personal Facebook page with posts about where they go to dinner every week with pictures of whatever food item or dish offering they had at a given restaurant for that week.
This weekly respite time for my parents and I has been a part of our weekly routine for as long as I can remember and goes all the way back to when I was just a baby! As a matter of fact, my grandmother still lives at the same house that she rented out to my parents and I during the first eight years of my life.
The main thing that I remember about living where we lived for the first few years of my life was that it was quite a rough neighborhood. Luckily for me and my family though from what I can remember, not a lot of bad stuff happened to us while we were living there other than one incident of a violent crime that happened at the house of the babysitter that I used to go to and a robbery that happened at our own house while my family and I were living there.
For those of you who may be curious or want to know what the neighborhood is where my parents and I rented my grandmother's house for the first few years of my life, that would be the city of South El Monte in California.
I think that I've talked enough about some of the tough things that happened in my old neighborhood at this point. There really is no need to bore you with even more unnecessary details about what life was like for the three of us back when we lived there.
Getting back to describing in further detail what the Musick Family tradition of Mom And Dad's night out is all about these visits with my grandmother Rosemary and my grandfather Benny Joe (we called him Joe) took place a little more often during the week than they do now. Back when I was a kid, I used to go over to their house and visit with them for two days during the week for a few hours during each visit.
Unfortunately and on somewhat of a sad note, my grandfather Joe is no longer with us and hasn't been with us for the last 17 years or so.. He tragically passed away during Memorial Day weekend in 2000 after a lengthy battle with leukemia at the age of 71 just a couple months shy of what would have been his 72nd birthday in July of that year. It is somewhat hard to believe that if he were still alive today, he would be 89 years old and almost pushing 90!
That does not change the fact that in the many years that have come and now since his death, there is no doubt in my mind that he has been missed very much by everyone in my immediate family including myself. To that I say that I hope he is still resting in peace today and everyday! I hope that he might be still enjoying reading some of his favorite books or riding his favorite Indian or BMW brand name motorcycle!
If he was still here with us, I am sure that he would also be more than happy to find out that in the years since his died, that I have not only graduated from both high school and college successfully, but I have also used what I have learned from both places to write many stories like this about traveling, family life, sports and other various subjects that I enjoy talking and reading about everyday.
Even though my grandfather Joe is no longer with us physically, I still consider myself to be very fortunate that my grandmother Rosemary is still alive and doing reasonably well in terms of her overall health for a woman of her age. In any case, in the days and years since my grandfather has passed away, the time that I get to spend with my grandmother has not only been a good source of rest and relaxation for my parents, but it has also been very beneficial to me in that I actually have someone else in my family who can come over to our house that I can talk too other than my parents for a couple hours each week. I don't really get out of the house all that often to begin with because of my disability and the fact that I don't work or have an actual paying job to go to everyday for working purposes. That aspect of my life is another long story that I might write about some other day but not right now.
As it has always been over the last several years of my life including now, my grandmother Rosemary has always been very nice and more than willing to bring me over some dinner on the days when she comes over to our house for a couple hours to watch and take care of me while my parents go out and enjoy their dinner and some much needed and well deserved quality time alone.
The weekly dinner portion of Mom And Dad's Night Out for me consists of placing a fast food order for my grandmother to pick up and bring over to my house where I live with my parents from a rotation of three or four fast food places. Those places are Wendy's, Wienerschnitzel, Burger King and sometimes McDonald's. The food orders from these four fast food places places usually consists of a double cheeseburger or a the Baconator burger with a side order of fries or a baked potato from Wendy's, an order of chicken nuggets and fries from Burger King, a polish sandwich or chicken schnitzel sandwich from Wienerschnitzel with fries and lastly a quarter pounder with cheese and fries from the restaurant with the golden arches that is McDonald's.
After I finish eating dinner from whatever fast food place that I have placed an order for in a given week from the places that I have mentioned up above, my grandmother Rosemary will then help me get set up to watch some TV in the front living room of my house by putting on the lap tray that my mom Letty made many years ago for as a place to put the various remote controls for the TV so that I would not have to hold them in my hands all the time. I should also mention that there are times where before my grandmother attaches the lap tray to my wheelchair, she will also set me up to go bathroom beforehand if I need to do so.
Once the lap tray has been put on my wheelchair and all my other care giving needs have been taken care and squared away, my grandmother will then sit down on the couch and relax as well and watch TV with me too until my parents come back home from their dinnertime out together.
Since both of us are big baseball fans and fans of the Angels, we will try to watch whatever baseball game is going on at the time. Since we have the MLB Network channel at my house, I will usually turn it to that channel first to see if they are showing a game during that time of the night. If the Angels are playing a game while my grandmother is at our house, then I will put that game on especially because she does not get to see too many of their games anymore since she does not have any cable or satellite TV service at her house.
When we do get the chance to watch an Angels game on TV together, things usually do take a not so funny turn at some point because if they are losing in a game, my grandmother Rosemary will usually start complaining about why Mike Scioscia does not go to the bullpen earlier than he does sometimes to replace a pitcher who might be struggling. For my grandmother, this kind of scenario can play out as early as the first or second inning of a game.
Given that the Angels team has not been as good as it should or could have been over the last few years, both she and I have gotten very used to talking about why the team has not been that good for the last few years and the lack of moves made or not made by Mike Scioscia and the rest of the Angels team during a game.
If there are no baseball games going on during this time, then I will usually turn the channel to either one of our local news stations here in the Los Angeles area or to the FXX channel to watch a few repeat episodes of The Simpson's which she does not really care too much about. Other than those channels, there was a time when I would put it on the NBA TV or NHL Network channel but my grandmother is not a big fan of the sport of basketball and she also has a hard time keeping track of where the puck is while watching the action that is going on during a hockey game.
So there you have it. That is pretty much the whole story behind the Musick Family weekly tradition or ritual of Mom And Dad's Night Out! The last thing that I always do at the end of the night each week is to say goodbye to my grandmother before she goes back home to her house and wait until the following week for the fun to begin again at the same bat time and the same bat channel in the same bat location that is Casa de Musick or more simply put: my house!
Tim Musick
Copyright 2017
All Rights Reserved.
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