“Is it cold in here?” Dad lobbed the question into the middle of the family room.  Mom and I looked at each other and shrugged.  Dad pulled his favorite soft burgundy fleece up around his neck.  I moved to Mom’s kitchen desk to affix a return label to their quarterly tax return envelope, leaving the kitchen can lights in the non-blaring off position.  Mom, bless her, struggled to her feet and tottered over to the kitchen, switching on the blare: “Don’t you want more light?”  This is what I heard: “I know better, son, and I love you, so I’m turning on the lights you don’t think you need.”  And I decided to try drawing a teeny-tiny itty-bitty boundary: “Thank you, Mom, but please don’t hover.  I know how to turn the lights on, and if I wanted more light, I would turn the lights on.”  “Alright, dear,” she bit, her face shrouding, and she tottered back to her chair with that arthritic hip-knee-ankle stagger.  I know she had acted from a place of love, but perhaps love could have observed that I was happy in the daytime dim and trust that I will act in my own best interest, and let me be.  “I’m cold.  Should we turn on the fireplace?” Dad ventured from his chair.  Brother-in-law Mike had come to repair the wound to the bathroom tile resulting from installing a wider door, prompting me to get in gear and calk around the door molding and frame and fill the nail holes.  After two months, the project is nearly finished.  “I think maybe I’ll turn on the fireplace,” said Dad, the hint growing more apparent.  The night before snow fell and the temperature dipped.  Dad had emailed me at work: “Roger, the weather report says a strong storm will come through this afternoon.  Snow, wind, white-out conditions.  They recommend persons leave work early.  Dad.”  It’s nice to be loved and cared for and worried over.  But I am 59 years old, and am always cautious driving in snow.  And, yes, when snow is coming, I leave work early.  “Yep, I’m going turn on the fireplace,” and I finally took the hint and flipped the switch to ignite the gas so he could warm up.  Before he had ridden down the stair lift that morning, I had heard him scream, “Owieow!!” from his shower.  Mom had started the dishwasher, which diverted alternatingly scalding and freezing water from his shower stream.  “I’m scalded,” he complained an hour later.  “My skin is still red and sore.”  And mom promised not to run the dishwasher in the mornings anymore.  Sometimes it can be hard to get the temperature of things just right.  The fireplace burned with yellow flame, and the fan coursed hot air into the family room.  “Is it hot in here?” Dad lobbed.