Hocus-pocus, the times I have "tried it", has let me down with a constance that would even impress Robert Schermer, so I have to say a general omen from today follows the illusion of forcing a result to conform to the original thought. Have I lost the reader? I'm feeling quite lost myself.

The omen was how unimpressed I was with the details to what was supposed to be the last time I took my parents to an errand from their old digs. Hey, it's only the house in which I basically grew up. The errand was a small one with impressive gravity: The parents would have their tuberculosis "jabs" read at their physician's office and receive the papers he would sign for their admittance to an assisted living home. My very active brother and his wife in the next valley have been working hard on this next step.

The day was of the type airports called 75-miles visibility before this function became at least partially automated. Cirrus clouds rode high in a sky that suggested this part of southern California was not only a coveted destination for many this time of year on for several more months but had a kinship with so many vibrant areas of the west; the surrounding hills were hard as the diamonds many would trade to live here if they had them and soft with vegetation from recent rain the fine, for us, air brought into nice detail.

The doctor went over the details of the documents with me as I periodically looked out a small window that seemed so much bigger with the pleasantly blurry shadows below still packing the sharp punch of the Valley hard sell. One more drive home and the brother would be by later that afternoon in the latest of figuring what the folks would initially take with them; I made sure Dad had papers in hand, in a manila envelope and safe from Mom's disingenuously rapacious eyes, and I drove off without the frisson of the "final look". The folks would be initially in place and I would have my first really free weekend since April of 2006.

This evening the cell rang and it was the one brother from further north in the state. Dad is balking and it appears a visit my brother was on track for this next month will be spent in a fervid discussion of, "It's time." Well, of course, it's not fun being my folks and this is, well, a move frought with "-ality's": those of the final- and mortal- variety for bare starters. But I want to temper-tantrum blurt that it's been four and a half years and Dad's gratitude carries little more quality than the grade schoolers who would rock a window at my work and extend a middle finger.

Right; suddenly I'm not very flighty or rational, emotionally 60 to zero in a second. Just as Dad could go from steadfastly insisting on having things just so to trembling at the idea his absolute refusal to accept rides and other things from others was a revelation of character and suggestive of using those of us who did these errands.

"Using"! What an expression. To the traditionalists who love the idea of the oldest son standing like little John-john Kennedy in a dazed salute while the casket and riderless horse with the reversed boots went by, all the attaboys are easily erased and to say such a thing is a disgrace.

As the Jamaicans say, "Who feels it knows it." I'm feeling a lot and appreciate my fellow feelers all the more.