It’s July 7th!

Happy 35th Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!

Every year, as 7/7 approaches, we get all excited about Mommy and Daddy’s anniversary.  They get so happy, it’s hard for that not to be contagious.  This year, their anniversary comes as reminder not just of the happiness of marriage, but of all the other stuff that comes with those vows.

Daddy had emergency eye surgery just a bit ago and while he’ll most likely be alright and be able to see again soon, it’s a long and difficult recovery period.  Munchkinhead and I have been helping out, but nothing is as important as Mommy and Daddy’s patience with each other right now.  Daddy’s frustrated by what he can’t do – which is pretty much everything except sit or lay down.  Mommy’s tired and worn out by what she has to do, both in picking up the extra parts of running the house – like cooking all the meals; that’s Daddy’s job – and in caring for Daddy and helping him with his eye drops and such.

It’s rough on everyone when a family member is ill or somewhat incapacitated, no matter how momentarily, but watching Mommy and Daddy together is like watching a hug from God. 

Mommy’s doing her best to make sure Daddy’s as comfortable as he can be, which isn’t very.  She helps him out whenever he asks – even when he asks for stuff he insists on doing himself when Munchkinhead or I offer.  She quickly gets a towel when he knocks over his water, again, because he can’t see it.  She carries his special chair and special table headrest to wherever he needs it.  And you can see Daddy appreciates it and really is trying to make the best of an unpleasant situation.  It’s sweet.

It may not be the anniversary of their dreams, but it’s one that truly exemplifies how much they love each other.  And it’s one they’re unlikely to forget anytime soon.  Happy crazy, curve ball anniversary Mommy and Daddy.

Pool Time!

Daddy loves us so much that he always made sure we had fun things to do outside.  He put up a swingset, or 3.  He built  a sandbox, or four.  And each summer, he’d put out a swimming pool for us.

When we were very little, it was a plastic, put anywhere and fill with water do-dad.  When we were older and moved into the new house, it was maintaining the in-ground swimming pool that came with the house.  That was a lot of work.  But the ones I remember most fondly were the couple of small above-ground pools he put in the backyard at the old house.

Munchkinhead and Alfred in the pool

He had to start by clearing out a perfect circle in the grass, leveling it and laying a base of sand.  - I just put all the super hard work in one sentence like it could be done in a day. – Then he’d unfold the crazy, floppy, vinyl pool side and he and Mommy would fight with whatever other parts went with it to get it into a circle shape on that flat, sandy base.  I think the only easy part was filling it with water once it was up.

I loved that part.  I loved splashing in the first rush to come out of the hose.  The water would feel so nice and warm, heated from the sun.  It would quickly turn cold and the full pool, on it’s first day open, was often quite chilly.  It would warm as the summer went on, well theoretically.  Alfred and I splashed so much, the pool needed to be topped off frequently.

We had so much fun playing in those little pools.  Daddy taught us how to make whirlpools.  How to get the water going round and round where we could lift up our feet and be carried away by the currents.  He taught us how to float and how to dive for things that sank – or at least reach down and pick them up.

My favorite part of the pool was when Daddy would come for a swim.  Or rather, a sit.  He’d take up almost the whole pool!  Stretched out across the middle like a diameter line, a barricade of Daddy down the middle.  He’d relax with a large cup of ice tea and a newspaper while Alfred and I would use him as a shield in splash fights or something to jump over.  And by “relax,” I mean sit there until it was impossible to read or sit or do anything other than get wet and go deaf from squealing girls.

We were so lucky.

Green!

When we were little girls, we rode in the car with Daddy a lot.  He took us most places we needed to go, especially to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Even when Mommy was going somewhere with us, too, Daddy drove.

Daddy had magical powers when he drove.  He used to show them off at the intersections on Howard Ave, particularly Whitnall and Howell.  Daddy could make the lights change.

We’d be sitting in the car at the intersection, stopped at a red light.  Daddy’d ask if we were ready to go.  He’d pause, he’d smile with this twinkle in his eye, and then he’d command “Green!”  And the light would change from red to green!  “Daddy! How’d you do that?” we’d exclaim.  Daddy had very magical powers indeed.

Eventually we realized that Daddy was just watching the lights for the cross traffic and knew how long the delay was between when the cross lights turned red and our lights would turn green.  Still, it was quite neat when Daddy would appear to make the lights change.  And it hardly hurt Daddy in our esteem when we stopped thinking of him as magical and thought of him instead as very clever.

When I sit at traffic lights with one eye on the cross-lights, waiting for the lights to change, I hear Daddy’s voice in my head, “Green!” Occasionally I say it out loud, too.  Green!

The Big, Round 6 - 0

In case you haven’t had enough birthday posts this week, here’s one more.

 

My daddy is 60!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Believe it or not, his eyes still look the same.  That’s about it.  He has much more hair now, a reconstructed nose, and he doesn’t smile with his mouth open.

I get to see Daddy nearly every day because we work in the same place.  It’s very fun, in spite of all Mommy’s worries it would be quite the opposite.  Daddy’s always very busy this time of year because he does taxes for work, but I’m sure he’ll take a little bit of time out of his day to celebrate his best present ever – Mommy.

 

Daddy’s not getting a big long speechy post because I’ve already done that and he doesn’t really like being on the blog. 
Instead, here’s more about Daddy:

 1 2 3 4 

5

6 7(warning, PG-13) 8 9

It’s that Time of Year…

Tomorrow is a very special day.  It’s Mommy and Daddy’s 34th wedding anniversary.  My sisters and I made them a present and they aren’t allowed to open it until tomorrow.  I can’t wait to hear how they like it!  No, no, it’s not snakes in a can that pop out at you.  Though that would be very fun…

I have lots and lots of great memories of spending time with Mommy and Daddy, but some of the best are actually when their squabbling.  Not angry fighting, just old-married-couple bickering. 
(Photo: Mommy and Daddy at their 30th Wedding Anniversary vow renewals.  Daddy doesn’t like his photo online, so I edited it.)

My mommy has this delightful way of saying my Daddy’s name in a manner that seems to say, in one little syllable, “that is totally inappropriate and you should not be doing it and don’t you dare do it again even though I know you will but I still love you dearly anyway.”  It’s adorable and makes me giggle. Makes Daddy laugh, too most of the time.

One of the best things is when they’ve been arguing over something factual that can be checked and the moment when Daddy realizes Mommy was right the whole time and he doesn’t really want to concede that she was right but can’t honestly keep claiming he’s right.  Somehow, those conversations just sort of end and Daddy suddenly has something he needs to do somewhere else.  Though there are the rare occasions where he goes, “ok, ok, you’re right; I was wrong.”  Then he tries to hug Mommy, and she’s still so upset about being told she was wrong to begin with she scowls.  It’s so cute, like little bunny rabbits munching in the garden.

Here’s to plenty more years of nice little squabbles, and plenty of non-squabble moments, too – Happy Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!

Other Posts related to Mommy and Daddy’s Anniversaries:

Mommy and Daddy in love

Their song

The importance of beer in a relationship

The Road to being Stuck in Your Room is Paved with Good Intentions

It was June, the summer after 6th grade.  My sisters and I had some sort of fake slumber party on the hide-a-bed.  I don’t remember the details.  The middle of the day on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy had gone out for a walk.

My sisters and I wanted to make Daddy something for Father’s Day but we needed supplies.  There was a JoAnn’s not too far away; Alfred and I rode our bikes there frequently, just over a mile.  Munchkinhead was too          Us, a few months later
little to  ride that far; she was only about 3 years old.  We decided we’d walk.

We cleaned up our slumber party.  Sort of.  Figuring we’d want to play again later, instead of folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, we made the bed up and tucked all our stuffed animals into it. 

We cleaned anything else we’d been playing with.  We left a message for Mommy and Daddy in the living room, checked that all the doors were locked, took our house key and set off for the store, pulling Munchkinhead in the little red wagon.  We took an umbrella with us in case it rained while we were away.

We were pleased with ourselves, feeling we had remembered to do everything we were supposed to do.  We were having fun together and excited about making something nice for Daddy.  How were we supposed to know Mommy and Daddy hadn’t taken a house key with them?

They couldn’t get in.  They couldn’t get our message.  They didn’t know where we were.  And, it had started raining.  Apparently, these circumstances make parents freak out.

Mommy and Daddy found us with the little red wagon, next to the McDonald’s, heading out of the Plaza parking lot.

I don’t remember what Daddy got for Father’s Day that year.  It couldn’t have been good because I remember we spent a lot of time looking at puffy paint supplies.  I know what I got though.  Grounded.  For being irresponsible by not anticipating the facts I didn’t know.  And for making my sisters go with me.  They didn’t get in trouble at all.  “They’re too young to know better.”  Harumph.  And yes, 20 years later I am still bitter.

But I’ll tell you this much, as a grown-up, I’m pretty darn good at anticipating a whole lot of “what-if” scenarios and preparing for most of them.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is my Daddy’s birthday.  He doesn’t like having his photographs on the internet, so I drew this picture of him.


Daddy’s very fun.  He taught me how to ride a bike.  Something I miss very much (only crazy bike fanatics ride in the Bay).  And he taught me how to make oatmeal and Cream of Wheat.  He used to make those for breakfast for us before school when we were little.  They’re still two of my favorite breakfast foods.

He also taught me how to walk away from a fight…. but that one wasn’t by example.

My favorite memories of Daddy come from two places: the breakfast table and family vacations.   Daddy didn’t just make sure we ate breakfast before going to school; he made sure we were fully entertained as well.  I don’t think he was actually trying to entertain us; he was just being Daddy.  Everything from songs to reading bits of the newspaper to explaining things from whatever book he’d been reading lately, usually something about physics or the Civil War.

Family vacations were awesome!  Daddy would start planning months in advance, ordering AAA books and visitor guides directly from cities and towns we would be visiting.  He’d read to us the descriptions of museums we might see and blurbs about the towns’ histories, building anticipation for everything we’d see.

Every detail of the trip would be planned out, what time we’d leave home, when we’d arrive at museum A, when we go to zoo B, when we’d check into a hotel, when we’d have dinner.  Every route would be mapped out in his mind, planned based on his studies of the AAA maps that would soon be piled in the glove compartment.  Daddy always seemed to love planning those trips as much as we enjoyed actually going on them.

When it was finally time for the big adventure, we’d pile in the car with our carefully packed suitcases, cooler of snacks and busy bags for the back seats.  We’d watch the scenery go by, play Cows in the Cemetery, Road Bingo, the Alphabet Game and all sorts of other silliness that Daddy so nicely put up with.  And we’d sing! 

We went so many interesting places.  Old battlefields – while walking on the grounds of the battle of Tippecanoe, Daddy said to rather young me, “you know, people died where you’re walking,” – children’s zoos – the one in Fort Wayne, Indiana is awesome, – parks, houses some distant relative lived in, a town with my name, and museum after museum after museum.  We learned so much on those vacations.  One of my favorites was the Ball Glass museum in Munsee, Indiana, simply because it’s so ridiculous.  It’s a room full of glass jars. 

I love meeting people and asking them where their from and watching the priceless expression on their face when I say, “Oh, I’ve been there on vacation!”  That’s thanks to Daddy.  He rocks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO

AN AWESOME

DADDY!!!

More posts about how great Daddy is:

Daddy picking us up from daycare

General awesomeness about Daddy

Breakfast songs with Daddy

Coming of Age in a Bubble

A few weeks ago, I caught an episode of Frontline about the housing crisis and accompanying recession.  It answered so many questions that I had asked back when I was in college.

How it’s Supposed to Work

My parents raised us in a frugal environment focused on needs, balance and temperance rather than wants and extravagances.  We didn’t resent our classmates’ name brand clothing; we thought they were stupid for spending so much extra money for a logo.  We loved our quirky hand-me downs and our “Made with Love by Mother” labeled clothes.  Mommy and Daddy taught us to keep debt to a minimum, that there were trade-offs and wanting two things meant needing to make a choice and that sometimes you just have to wait.  They taught us the basic rules of living within your means and led by example.

And the Credit Flowed

By the time I was in college, I was questioning everything they’d taught me.  It was the turn of the century and the credit bubble was inflating.  The method of using business loan risk as its own investment product invented by young bankers at Chase had started spreading to other banks and other types of risk.  Credit was as free-flowing as water.

Mommy and Daddy had taught me that you needed to pay off the credit card balance each month or you would lose a lot of money to interest, eventually have a maxed out card and be unable to get more credit.  But life was telling me a different story. 

I was 20, a college student with a part-time job that paid barely above minimum wage and I had close to a dozen credit cards all with ridiculous limits. My Victoria Secret’s store card alone had a several thousand dollar limit.  (Who needs several thousand dollars worth of lingerie?)  Nobody turned me down. Nobody I knew was ever turned down.   Somewhere along the line, I stopped paying the full balance. Further along, I was only making minimum payments.  Whenever a balance approached my credit limit, I’d receive a letter in the mail telling me my credit limit had been increased.

I didn’t understand the logic of what Mommy and Daddy had taught me.  Why would anyone ever pay the whole balance each month?  It didn’t make sense when you could pay $30 – $100 each month and go out and buy as much as you wanted and basically never pay for it.  There was always another credit card to get, another limit to increase.   And there were no repercussions.  There was always more credit.

Luckily for me, the teachings of childhood were resilient.  Even though I couldn’t make sense of things, I believed what I was taught, figuring my parents must understand something I wasn’t getting.  So I started to work on getting rid of that debt while the bubble was still inflating.  During the summers, I worked two jobs, nearly 60 hours a week. I took a less-than-ideal job because it paid higher wages and I attempted to go bare bones on further spending.* 

Banking in the Bubble

That less-that-ideal job was as a loan collector for an American bank.  A bank that, while I was there, purchased a whole bunch of defaulted mortgages.  Again, life in front of me was going against my upbringing.  I phoned customers who were behind on their house and car payments.  I listened to their stories, and I couldn’t understand why the bank had made the loans in the first place.  People’s jobs had not changed; they just spent too much. 

They wanted to put their mortgage payment on a credit card.  Interest on top of interest.  But who cared when those cards came with unlimited credit?  A doctor whose mortgage was in default yelled at me that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I told him he could lose his house if he didn’t catch up on the mortgage.  “I filed bankruptcy before and I’ll just do it again before they take the house.”  Even a bankruptcy history didn’t stop the credit from flowing.

POP!

When the bubble burst, I blamed the spenders.  The people who didn’t follow Mommy and Daddy’s rules, the rules of the depression and previous recessions.  The people who did exactly what seemed to make the most sense.  The people who relied on the banks and credit lenders to make responsible business decisions.

I didn’t understand why the banks would make so many bad loans. It was downright stupid lending to people who couldn’t pay, people who already had mountains of debt.  I thought banks couldn’t survive if they made bad loans.  But I didn’t realize, the banks weren’t considering the risk of each loan because the banks had no plans to keep the risk.

By the end of the Frontline program, I still scorned the spenders for attempting to live beyond their means, but I also pitied them some and I was mad at the banks.  I was mad at the banks not for taking advantage of people, not for encouraging the lavish excessive of the ‘90s, not even for being lavish themselves.  No, I was mad at the banks for being so incredibly reckless that they weren’t even paying attention to their own best interests.  They broke the market.

 

*Honesty disclaimer: it took my college fund helping before I was fully bailed out.  On my income, I wouldn’t have been out before the bubble burst. And note, that said “attempted;” I have this thing for shoes.

Adventures from Home: Hanging out with Daddy

When Alfred and I were little girls, our grandma would watch us while Mommy and Daddy were at work.  We’d spend our summer days running a muck around Grandma and Grandpa’s old Victorian home.  Playing tag around the outside of the house, swinging on the wooden swing on the front porch, imagining what it might be like to slide down the banister, jump over the railing from the floor above or do other crazy things our Uncle Steven had done has a kid.  (Though I don’t think we ever imagined launching ourselves through the plate glass front window.)

Grandma and Grandpa’s house was like a giant castle to us, full of games, toys, surprises and spooks.  The basement terrified us.  A trap door into a damp and murky 100+ year-old place is creepy enough, but those added psychedelic paintings my aunts put on the bricks in the 1960s were even more frightening.  The servant stairs also scared us a bit, but they were still one of our favorite places to play.  And of course, there were the piles and piles of books, the dollhouse with its adorable pink appliances and the puzzles Grandma was always doing.

Being at Grandma and Grandpa’s was great in itself, but there some adventures on which Grandma would take us that beat any fun we could have inside.  On really, really special days, we’d get to go visit Grandpa and Daddy at work!

The office was just a few blocks from Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  We’d go out the backdoor, through the laundry room that always smelled like a mix of dryer vent and fresh air, down the cement steps, past the iron water pump, to the back corner of the yard.  Here, there was a magical hidden gate that only Grandma and Grandpa could find.  (Probably because Alfred and I were too short to see it among the vines.)  Grandma would open the gate and help us down the steep stone steps into the alley.   We’d head down the alley to the main street, turn up the street, pass the large cemetery where my namesake is buried and head to the busy street of the Office.

The Office was built by my great-grandpa many years ago, along with several of the buildings surrounding it; including the house where he lived and my great-aunt still resides.  With it’s regal red brick, white painted shutters, high columns and green ivy wrapping around the corners, it always look steady, important, classic, and just like the doll house at Grandma’s.  All things that made me love it.

We’d have to be very quite going into the Office, in case Grandpa or Daddy or one of the other lawyers in the building were meeting with clients.  As soon as we knew the coast was clear, we’d go bounding into their offices.  Daddy’d say “hi”, wiggle his moustache, sit back with his feet up on his desk.  Across the hall, Grandpa’d reach into his secret drawer and pull out treats for us, packs of oyster crackers and breadsticks that he’d saved from the restaurants he visited.

If we got to stay for awhile, we’d photocopy our hands on the giant Xerox machine behind the counter.  Grandpa would pull out his automobile accident reconstruction stamp collection and we would make pictures of auto accident scenes to our hearts’ content.  We’d get multi-colored paper from the cabinet and write our own stories, illustrated in highlighter and felt pen.  We always had a lot of fun and felt very special to be “behind the scenes” in the Office.

The Office is still a special place to go. Grandpa’s no longer there to share his breadsticks.  But the paintings he used to hold us up to see still hang on the walls and I imagine him asking the same questions, “what do you think is at the end of that road?”

Daddy still says “hi” and puts his feet up on the desk, but now he also says, “There’s this thing going on with these people and we need to figure out this. Can you help?”  Now there are new reasons to visit Daddy at the Office.  And they’re even more special.

Daddy and me at the office.

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs pt. 1

I was hoping for hot weather. You know that beautiful heat wave the whole rest of the county’s been having lately?  Yeah, the Bay Area has it, too.  It means we get temperatures in the ‘70s.  So when I was heading to Wisconsin, I was really hoping for some nice 80 degree weather.  I wanted to go swimming, wanted to go swimming so much that we even helped Daddy open the pool.  Of course, opening the pool means cleaning the pool, skimming and vacuuming, getting rid of all those dead bugs.

(World take note, I’m not wearing shoes in that picture. Look hard now; you won’t see that very often.)

We probably could have actually gone swimming despite the cooler air temperatures if the filter hadn’t been broken.  After all, mid-70’s is decent pool weather when the pool water is also decent.  But the filter being broken meant the water couldn’t run through the solar heater.  Sixty degree water is not fun for swimming. 

The closest we got to getting in the pool was Munchkinhead and me playing Follow-the-Leader on the stairs.  The water near the surface was warmed a bit by the sun, so we were ok on the first stair.  The second stair wasn’t too bad either, but the third stair, brrrrrr, frigid.  That just made the adventure even more fun as we scrambled to get across the stair and out of the pool as fast as we could. 

Alfred was not interested in playing Follow-the-Leader with us, nor was she interested in getting wet, so she took lots of pictures for us.

Sufficiently soaked and amused, we wandered off to our next adventure.

Adventures from Home: Daddy’s Day

“Trains, planes and automobiles,” we would always say, laughing. Describing how all three of us had come home for whatever adventure or holiday.  Alfred would drive, Munchkinhead would fly, and I’d come choo-chooing in.  But not this time.  This time it was only planes and automobiles.  I suppose you could add feet if you count Katrina’s walking out of her bedroom.  But no matter how we all got there, the important part was that we were all home.  Home and going to church together.

You see, it was Father’s Day – which is a special enough reason – but, this was an even more special day.  Daddy was worship leader. 

Mommy, Alfred, Munchkinhead and I shuffled into a pew behind some familiar heads and beamed proudly at the back of Daddy’s head in the front pew across the aisle.  “That’s our daddy"!”  we thought. Well, not Mommy; but you get the idea.

Suit and tie, microphone in hand, Daddy stood up front welcoming everyone.  He always looks so spiffy when he wears his suits. I think I especially like it because seeing him in a suit reminds me of when I was little and he’d come into day care to pick us up. From across the room we’d spot him coming in the door, the tall guy nicely dressed in a suit.  And here he was again, easily spotted from across the room; the tall guy nicely dressed in a suit.

There was a guest preacher that day, from a different denomination.  She seemed pretty nice.  Reminded me a lot of a kindergarten teacher. Although, for some reason, most female pastors remind me of kindergarten teachers.  my current pastor in Cali may be an exception.  I was super excited to hear Daddy’s children message, but the guest pastor got to do it instead.  Oh well, Daddy still did a great job and it was wonderful to be back in church with my whole family.

 

One Hundred Thousand!

Yesterday, January 1st, 2010, was a day for celebration.  A real monument, a landmark in time, an event so special that it required champagne.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, my mommy’s minivan hit 100,000 miles on its odometer.

It was a very big deal, and throughout the preceding week, Daddy had been preparing for the great celebration, purchasing champagne (well, sparkling wine from Spain, but in the US it’s all the same to us), placing glasses in the garage, and threatening anyone who dared drive the minivan that they better not take it over 100,000 miles without him in the car or else.  Mommy even had strict instructions that should the van approach 100,000 while she was on her way to work, she was to pull over to the side of the road, call Daddy and wait for him to come meet her wherever she might be.  Luckily, no such extreme measures were necessary.

On Monday, my sisters and I borrowed the van for our annual trip to the museum.   We kept a close eye on the odometer.  “Thirty-five!”  I yelled out as we drove out of Leon’s parking lot and the van turned 99,985.  On Thursday, Daddy made Mommy take his car to work, because she works too far away.  Daddy only works about 5 miles from home, so he took her van.  And drove it just a little extra.  On Thursday afternoon, when he pulled into the garage, the odometer said 99,999.

All day Friday, the van sat there.  No one dared touch it.

Then came Friday night.  Time for the big event.  All the fun people – Nathy-Boo’s words since he and Alfred elected to stay behind – piled into the mini van.  Daddy driving, Mommy in the passenger seat, Munchkinhead and I in the middle seats and the Belgium in the back.  As Daddy backed the car out onto the street, we all craned our necks to watch the little digital numbers.  Down the street to the corner, up a block, over a block, up a block, over a block, still 99,999.  Around a corner, back towards, around another corner, onto our street.  And then, just as we pulled up in front of the house, ready to turn into the driveway, 100,000!

 

Daddy pulled into the garage as we all cheered loudly.  Then he and Mommy popped the cork on their champagne, poured it into glasses waiting on top of the recycling cart and toasted to the great achievement.  This was the first, and probably will be the only, vehicle they bought brand new and drove to 100,000 miles.

Life certainly is exciting in Wisconsin!

Time to Go Home

There’s a little in-home daycare that I pass everyday on my way from the bus stop to my apartment.  Usually there’s some contingent of small children running around on the sidewalk or yelling from inside the kitchen, which opens onto the street.  But yesterday, there was a different scene.  A father stood on the steps of the daycare, holding his young daughter in his arms, saying goodbye to the others inside the building.  It reminded me of when my daddy used to pick my sister and me up from day care.

Alfred and I went to the Teaching Center on Whitnall, back before Whitnall Square existed.  It was just Teaching Center (later named Children’s World), the Balley’s across the street and the Hardee’s on the corner.  The rest of that now-giant shopping plaza was all field.  The older children took field trips to catch butterflies out there, beyond the fences of our play area.  I longed to be a big kid and run after butterflies, hand wrapped tightly around the plastic handle, the long net streaming behind me as the grass brushed against my knees.  I never got to run after those butterflies.  By the time I was big enough, the plaza was under construction.

Anyway, as the evening wore on, Alfred and I would get anxious for Daddy’s arrival.  By late afternoon, the caregivers themselves were worn out and tired.  We’d have some fun play time in the big center area – I loved the mini one person trampoline – and then they’d turn on PBS for us.  If we saw Sesame Street come on, Daddy was late.

It wasn’t hard to spot Daddy when he came in.  Besides being one of only a few fathers picking up their children – it was the mid ‘80s after all – his tall, well-dressed person stood out starkly against the tiny rugrats and casually dressed staff.  Plus, there was that head of thick curly hair, then still mostly jet black, that made him seem even taller.

I remember Alfred and I running up to him, “Daddy!” and throwing our arms around his knees and waist, respectively.  I don’t know if we really did that every time we saw him, but it sticks in my mind most vividly.  He’d smile, maybe politely chit chat with one of the staff for a bit, make sure we had all our belongs and then wisk us away in his grey Olds, home for the evening where he’d start cooking dinner.

Daddy would pick us up from Grandma and Grandpa’s, too, when Grandma watched us.  And it was much the same.  By the end of the day, Grandma would set us up in the kitchen with the small television (right) on PBS.  If Sesame Street came on, or if Grandpa came home, Daddy was late.  Even now, I can hear the distinctive tinkle of the bell on the back door, the sound of the inside door opening, the pwop of the weather stripping on the door separating from the doorway, shoes on the stone floor.  “Daddy!”  His knit hat sticking up on top of his head, battling with his poofey curls to stay put, and that long multi-colored knit scarf we called his Dr. Who scarf.

Some talk with his mom while we gathered up our coats, mittens, scarves and hats.  Then home to start cooking dinner and wait for Mommy to arrive so we could run and jump on her, “Mommy!” before she even had a chance to take her coat off or put her purse down.

If I remember correctly - which I might not, but that’s what Mommy’s for – we were more often at Children’s World in the Summer and at Grandma and Grandpa’s after school.  Though I know there were some times we went to Children’s World after school and some times we were at Grandma and Grandpa’s in the summer. 

I wish Daddy was coming to pick me up tonight to take me home.  Oh well, guess I better get ready to take myself to the bus stop so I can go home and cook my own dinner, without any giant hugs.

Daddy and Alfred after picking us up one day (and taking us to see some houses being destroyed for the new 794 extension).

My Daddy

As we get older, we look back and realize there are things we didn’t do enough of, things we should have done, things we shouldn’t have done.  Not necessarily regrets, but more like lessons learned.  Now that I’m big - no Mommy, I am not going to say ‘grown-up’ – and far away from home, I’ve realized one of those things I never really did enough of growing up.  I didn’t appreciate my daddy enough.

Daddy and I are a lot alike.  Mommy says two peas in a pod.  Both stubborn as a mule.  And, boy, can we slam doors, throw shoes and stomp our feet!  As you can imagine, this didn’t always make for the most pleasant home environment for Mommy and my sisters.  Mommy used to tell us to stop fighting just so she could have some peace.  She didn’t care who was right, she didn’t care who was wrong, she didn’t care what we did, but she wanted us to just be quiet.

Despite our occasional outbursts, driven more by our Aries’ fire than any real disagreement (and my insanely high aversion to being called a liar when I’m not lying), we actually have a lot of fun together.  Well, at least I have fun.  You’d have to ask Daddy if he has fun.

Daddy’s a great daddy.  For starters, he was – and is – always there for us.  I never really thought of that as anything special, but I don’t have to look far through my close circle of friends to see that having a Daddy around isn’t the norm.  But even if it was the norm to have a Daddy who was always around, there’d still be few to compete with mine.

When Alfred and I were little girls, Daddy used to help us get ready for school.  Eat breakfast with us, get us off on our way or drop us at the day care center.  It was the mid ‘80s and in Mr. Mom fashion, it took him a little while to get used to all those little things peculiar to little girls.  Pigtails don’t just do themselves, and tights don’t come with built in underwear.  But he learned.  And you know what, we don’t really remember that stuff – that’s the stuff we know about cuz Mommy told us.

What I remember from those mornings is breakfast in the kitchen nook with Daddy.  Oatmeal with brown sugar from the yellow tupperware containers.  Daddy would show us how to make neat little patterns in the oatmeal with our milk and brown sugar, swirling it around.  Sometimes it’d be Malt-o-Meal, sometimes cereal. 

And Daddy would tell us stories, usually something about how he met Mommy or how she broke his heart a bunch of times.  And of course, the best part of breakfasts, and the most memorable, was how Daddy would sing to us at breakfast.  “One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small….”  “I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can….”  “…see her shake on the movie screen, Jimmy Dean…” 

The best songs were the ones he wrote for us,  “I used to love my girls when they were all curls…”  (There’s more, and it’s quite good, but if I put the whole thing up there, Daddy will probably claim copyright infringement and I’ll get in trouble.)

Music is very important to my sisters and me; I think Daddy has a lot to do with that.  He and Mommy shared their music with us.  They let us blast the stereo – of course, after Daddy blew out the subs on the speakers playing Frisbee on the front yard at Grandpa’s house, those speakers didn’t blast that much – and had music on pretty much all the time.

Some of my fondest memories are of being in the black yard while Daddy’s paint splattered little yellow radio blasted KLH as he worked on some project, painting the house, trimming the birch tree, mowing the grass, and Mommy hung up the laundry.  Daddy would have on short cut-off shorts and a T-shirt, his white socks with the single colored stripe near the top pulled up as high as they went, far above the tops of his red Chuck Taylors.

He built us several sandboxes in that back yard (and in the back yard of our ‘new’ house) and showed us how to make sandcastles.  He put in an above ground swimming pool at the old house.  (2, I think)  Then he would get in the pool and take up the whole length, and Alfred in I would make a game of trying to get over, or under, Daddy.  And he would let us – sometimes making it easier, sometimes harder, sometimes balancing his large plastic cup of iced tea on his knee.

Daddy taught us to play games too, like cribbage and sheepshead.  Even though Mommy won’t play with him cuz she says he remembers everything and harps 5 hands later about how Mommy shouldn’t have taken the queen to the prom, we still like playing with Daddy.  You just have to know what to do.  For example, never agree to a trade with him in Monopoly, it is not in your best interest.

Outside, we’d play Frisbee; Daddy managing to never spill a drop of his iced tea (or beer if it was a family get together).  He’d even play T-ball or catch with us for a little while, until he got to dizzy and motion sick and had to sit down.

When we were really good girls, Daddy would give us a special treat and let us go shopping with him!  Mostly, it’d be grocery shopping at Pick N Save or possibly Piggly Wiggly.  Grocery shopping with Daddy was great cuz we’d get to be the coupon holder and help pick out which of the ‘any four varieties’ we wanted.  And, we got to help pick out the cheese flavors, or maybe even plead for some cheese curds.  On especially fun trips, Daddy would take us to Goldmann’s Department Store to shop for clothes for one of his clients (and a relative of ours) who lived at a nursing home.

When I was a young teenager, Daddy would take me to the hobby shop and help me pick out new model cars and airplanes to build.  We’d walk up and down the aisles of the big store, looking at all the neat stuff, and stand squinting at the tiny jars of paint, looking for just the right colors.

In high school, during the summers, Daddy would come home from work at lunchtime.  We looked forward to it all morning (most of the time, sometimes we were doing something secret and didn’t want to get in trouble).  He would make his lunch and sit at the table to eat it, clean the pool for us and take a nap.  We didn’t always go in to sit and talk with him, but it felt good just knowing he was home and there.

Even as I get older, Daddy’s right there whenever I need help.  Taking me to visit schools, helping me draft my Will, doing my taxes, sending me important documents.

But you know what one of the best things about Daddy is?  He shares the things he loves with us.  As far back as I can remember, Daddy would tell us about Milwaukee, the city’s history, how our family fit into the picture, what things used to be, why the roads were where, the ships that sank and the men who made the bridges not line up.

He took us on the most fascinating and fun vacations all over the place, to tiny museums where we were the only visitors.  Those vacations were always so well planned, and Daddy knew so much about all the places we visited, having researched and read about them before we left or in the hotel room.  Piled in the car with our soon-to-be-half-melted crayons, our stuffed friends and all the enthusiasm little (or big) girls can hold, Daddy would drive us down long stretches of highways to childrens’ museums and zoos, through the cities to Presidential monuments, and along dirt roads to city with a special, and very pretty, name.

At dinner, he would always share with us some interesting tid bits from the books he was reading.  Explaining to us how throwing a broken teacup into a black hole wouldn’t destroy the evidence of its being broken, but preserve it forever.  Or about how some Civil War general did the most amazing thing to win some battle.  Sometimes he’d just pull an encyclopedia off the shelf and share with us random facts about whatever was on the page he had opened up to.

There’s so much more I want to say, but this post is very long already.  And I’m getting sleepy.  I better go to bed now.  Have to get up early.  I have a flight to catch tomorrow.  I’m going home to give my daddy a big hug .

Yogurt, Sandcastles and Physics

I don’t consider myself a health food nut (that’s my Daddy) – I just eat what I find yummy - but today, as I opened my lunch box and pulled my light blueberry yogurt out from under my rice cakes, I had to wonder if anyone else would agree with me.  Oh well.

Yogurt, it’s a fun, nice little treat.  One of those things I only buy on sale.  This particular one was my favorite brand, Yoplait.  I remember Daddy often buying Yoplait when I was a little girl.  Back then, my favorite was the custard style, banana.  Now, my favorite is the pineapple coconut with the pieces of fruit and crunchy little coconut shavings in it.

I was always fascinated by the shape of those Yoplait containers.  I remember once carefully washing out my empty Yoplait cup, being careful to get all the yogurt out and not break the plastic.  I took that little Yoplait cup into the back yard, to the sandbox Daddy had made for us.  I thought it was going to make a really neat sandcastle, cuz the top would be bigger than the bottom.

It didn’t work.  Cuz the top was bigger than the bottom.  I packed my sand into the container, mixed with just enough water to get a good, strong castle, and I flipped that Yoplait container over exactly where I wanted that piece of my castle, and I pulled up the container, and …. nothing.  The sand was all still inside the container.  Cuz the top was bigger than the bottom (when the Yoplait container was upside-down in sandcastle mode).

I tried to help ease the sand out, as if it could squish through the smaller opening and come out in the proper shape – like Daddy Bunny in a suitcase.  The sand came crumbling out of the Yoplait cup into a big pile of, sand, just a big pile of sand.

No neat little Yoplait shaped sandcastle for me.  Boo. :(

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

Sometimes Mr. Trizzle is so much like my daddy, it scares me. It’s not stuff I knew about, like not apparent when we started hanging out together. (My daddy does not listen to hip hop or wear grills.) In fact, when Mr. Trizzle and I met, probably the only thing I thought he had in common with my daddy was going to law school. But lately, daddy-like traits have been coming out of the woodwork!

Yesterday, Mr. Trizzle and I went to the A’s game (A’s vs. Giants in Oakland). We were late (not like my daddy) and I was a bit annoyed cuz I like baseball and I wanted the free McGuire jerseys. Oh well. We met up with Mr. Trizzle’s friends, including The Legend, and were enjoying the game. Then, in the sixth inning, Mr. Trizzle turns to me and says he wants to go soon cuz he wants to beat the traffic. We took BART! So like my daddy.

Daddy once made us leave a tied Bucks game in overtime so he could get out of the parking garage easier. Chances are, if you go to a sporting event with Daddy, you will be leaving before it’s officially over. Apparently, the same goes for Mr. Trizzle.

Mr. Trizzle was feeling generous last night though and we stayed until the 7th inning stretch so I could sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (no polka songs). Then we left.

No peanuts or cracker jacks, but I did have a snowcone and cotton candy. By the time I got home, I felt like my teeth were going to fall out!

By the way. The A’s have these three guys dressed as dots that race during one of the breaks. Colored dots are so not as cool as running sausages. ;)

Let’s Go to the Movies

My sisters and I used to have these funny glasses things that we picked up at some hands-on science museum or another once upon a time.  They were shaped like a plastic headband, with two clear plastic rectangles through which to view a rainbow colored world.  We used to put them on and pretend to be Geordi.

We spent hours practicing pulling our fingers apart, arguing over whether it was better to put the hand straight up and down for “Live long and prosper,” or sideways for “nanu nanu.”  We pulled on our ears in attempts to make them pointy and put Tribbles in our hair.

I’m sure we were the same as many kids; Star Trek culture deeply intertwined with the mass amounts of pop-ness shaping our young lives.  But for me, there was a sharp line between welcoming that influence and barely going beyond tolerating it.  I was about sever years old. 

Actress Denise Crosby decided she didn’t want her part anymore, so she was written out – her character sucked into some black bubbling alien creature.  Seven-year-old me knew nothing of this of course.  I knew two simple things: (1) this yellow-wearing lady was sucked into a giant mess of tar and (2) there was lots of tar on the street outside, on the playgroup at school, and in many other places encountered by a common seven year old.  That was the end of my participation in the family’s Star Trek watching.

Alfred continued to stay involved, becoming quite the Trekkie.  She even tried learning Klingon once.  I think it was mostly her enthusiasm for the show that kept me at all informed about it.  At least with regards to the Next Generation and all subsequent generations. 

The stars all pretty much belong to Alfred: Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Starburst…  (Ok, maybe not the last one; she doesn’t eat a whole lot of candy.)  So, when I went to see the new Star Trek movie with Mommy and Daddy and Mr. Trizzle, I felt like I was stealing Alfred’s parents from her.  This was a movie that should have “belonged” to her, been hers to talk about with Daddy.  But here I was, standing in line an hour early with Mr. Trizzle, excited to see the show.

The “Old Generation,” as I call it, was always my favorite.  It was sillier, less scary than the yellow-person-eating-tar-pit generation.  Plus, I loved that the ladies had those cute skirt outfits and tall boots, instead of the ugly pants suits.  I think I was also amused that I had a cassette tape with Captain Kirk and Spock singing Bob Dylan songs.  (The cassette also had Mae West singing The Doors.)  The movie kept the skirts!!  That may have been my favorite part.  Ok. well that and several other things, including the old fashioned weapons and gear, but I don’t believe in spoilers.  You’ll just have to see it yourself. :D

Hoppy Easter

[guest post by Daddy Bunny]

My mom seems to like to use me to deliver surprises.  When she came home for my Auntie Munchkinhead’s 16th birthday, she put me on Auntie’s sink and hid in the sewing room.  Auntie Munchkinhead came into the bathroom still rubbing her eyes from sleep.  “Daddy Bunny, what are you doing here?” she said to me.  Then she went into the hallway, holding me in her hands and saw my mom.  Group hug!  Mind if I kiss the rabbit?

Well, this morning, my mom got up very early, and before she went to get ready for church, she placed me outside my grandparents’ bedroom door with some candy in my paws.

Friday night, mom came home from church and started packing.  She was smiling so big!  I had no idea what was going on.  She usually tells me if we’re going somewhere.  She hadn’t said anything.  The next morning, she placed me and my sister, Whiskey, next to the bag she had packed the night before.  Next thing I knew, Whiskey and I were buckled in the front seat of the car and we were off somewhere.

Whiskey told me she guessed we were going home because she had said next time there was a visit to Grandma’s she wanted to go along.  I watched the familiar highway go past and decided she was right.  But then, our car got off the familiar highway.  We were on these teeny back roads, going through strange towns.  The stuff outside the window was all very pretty, but I had no idea where we were.

Turns out Whiskey was right.  After many hours we saw home.  We drove past it slowly and went to a gas station.  Whiskey and I were very confused.  We came all this way, weren’t we going to go home?!  Our mom got out of the car and came back sometime later in her pajamas.  Then, we went home. 

We parked down the street and walked up to the house.  Our mom had taken a key off her keyring.  She put the key in the lock, it didn’t turn.  She took another key of her keyring.  It worked.  Very, very quietly, we all snuck into the house.  Our mom took her shoes off as soon as she got in, picked us up and went into Grandma’s living room.

Whiskey and I were confused again.  I had told Whiskey that when we go home, we sleep in Auntie Alfred’s old room that now has two beds and this strange greenish color on the walls.  This was no bed in Auntie Alfred’s old room, this was the couch!  But the three of us piled onto it, covered up with Grandma’s orange afghan, and took a nap.

The next morning, Grandpa got up and saw me sitting outside his door.  He said, “there’s a Daddy Bunny outside our door.”  Grandma ran over to me, “if there’s a Daddy Bunny, that means Daddy Bunny’s mommy is here too!”  She picked me up and we started looking through all the bedrooms.  Nothing.  Then we went downstairs and looked.  Finally, Grandma found my mom, sitting at the breakfast table, dressed like the Easter Pirate.  (Whiskey wanted to be an Easter Bunny too, like me, so she was wearing the bunny ears and our mom was left with the pirate hat.)

Grandma was so happy!  It was wonderful.  Then Grandma helped me find my Easter basket.  It was full of yummy carrots. :)  Whiskey and I spent the day sitting before the fireplace, watching everyone play games and have fun.  Happy Easter!

Spring Break Day #8: Almost Like a Real Vacation (or Help, I'm Turning into Daddy!)

I wanted to go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for my last Saturday in the Yay. But, with a forecast of high of 58 and the boardwalk being on the ocean and stuff, that idea was vetoed. So, I told Mr. Trizzle he had to come up with something fun that he hadn't shown me yet. He did a great job! We went to the Tech Museum in San Jose and then to the Oakland Carnival. (Even Daddy would have had a tough time planning a better day.)

The Tech museum in San Jose was not at all what either of us expected. Based on the on-line information, we both expected a museum about tech. Here's an old computer, here's how technology has advanced, here's where we're headed - that sort of thing. Nope, it was basically a hands-on science museum, aka full of kids.

The line to get tickets was super long, and there was one person working the counter. The membership line was non-existent, but there were two people at that counter. Since the line was so long, I said to Mr. Trizzle, "can I just run into the gift shop really quick to look for something?"

"What?"

"A thimble for my mommy. She collects them, so every time we go somewhere, we get one for her."

"What's a thimble?"

"(suppressing giggle) A thimble is something you put on your finger when sewing so you don't prick yourself."

"Oh! The Monopoly piece."

"(failing to suppress giggle) Yes, like the Monopoly piece."

"Why would they have a thimble there?"

"Because people collect them. It's one of those random collectors items. Most museums have them."

Mr. Trizzle continued to assert that he thought it was ridiculous that I would look for a thimble in a tech museum and that he strongly believed I would not find one. I came back about two minutes later with this:

All he could say was "w-o-w." Hee hee. Point for goldenrail! Mommy, you'll get your thimble as soon as I mail it.

The museum itself was pretty cool. I would have had a lot of fun there with my sisters, especially in the giant Tinker Toys playroom. But Mr. Trizzle was some fun, too. He played a quiz game with me (and won) and he took a picture of me as a hockey goalie.

Museum admission also came with an Imax ticket. We saw a film narrated by Robert Redford about the saving the Colorado River. At one point in the film, they're touring these old Native American ruins and this lady says, "you have to admire the Anasazi for building their homes where there wasn't any water." And, true to what Daddy would do, I thought, "no you don't! That's stupid; that's why they all died when there was a drought and now it's just ruins!" The movie was a bit annoying because it's Berkeley-ness was a little over the top. I also found it kind of ironic in an amusing sort of way that this movie was being shown at the tech museum because it kept talking about how bad all these technological developments were for the river.

After finishing up the museum, Mr. Trizzle was given an opportunity to one of the things he likes best - jam sticks in The System's spokes. He was given this opportunity in the form of a parking ticket. The ticket was for an expired parking meter. But see, here's the thing: the meter wasn't expired, it was broken. They didn't ticket him for parking at a broken meter, or for being parked there too long (there was a two-hour time limit, but the ticket was given an hour and a half after we parked). So what did Mr. Trizzle do? He took my camera and took pictures of the area and the broken meter and he's going to send them with a letter in that little ticket envelope.

The freeway was gridlock at some point on the way back, so we got off and took a nice tour of Hayward and Oakland until we got to the Oakland Carnival. We had seen the carnival on the way out to San Jose, so Mr. Trizzle said we could go if the lights were on when we came back. They were!

It was the most ghetto carnival I've ever seen. The scariest people were the ones working there. (Who, incidentally, were also the only white people there.) They had messy hair, scrunched up faces and, for the women, too much bad make-up. The scariest was the guy with three teeth and a beer in his hand, he was running this one ride that flips upside-down.

We had a lot of fun. We both went on the Tilt-A-Whirl, the pendulum-thingy that they called 1001Nachts (there was this girl that sat next to us and kicked two little kids off - who had, in all fairness, just ridden - so that her boyfriend could get on the ride. He had some nice shiny grills in his mouth; I was a little jealous.), and that ride that flipped upside-down; it's called the Energy Storm. That ride was terrifying! I was slipping all over the seat, my head flew out sideways and I couldn't bring it back in. And to make it worse, being upside down that long made my head start to itch. Can't scratch it - still have cornrows! Mr. Trizzle also went on the Gravitron to use up the last four tickets, while I got a snow cone.

For dinner, we headed to one of Mr. Trizzle's fav Chinese places (one we hadn't been to yet), the Pink Place. I felt so awful that I could hardly eat anything. I had half a little dish of vegetable soup. Mr. Trizzle managed to eat the rest of it, but he wasn't feeling great either. I was so sad. When I was a little kid, we used to go on all the rides all day long, and spin around in the living room for fun. Now, like Daddy, everything makes me sick. It sucks! We paid for our very small dinner and headed back to the hotel. I was in bed by 8:30 on my last Saturday night in the Yay. :( At least the day had been a lot of fun.

This is How I Feel

Like a Disney Princess!  My dreams are coming true!  (I didn't have a princess crown, so I had to use the next best thing.)

I am so happy and so excited!  A week ago I mentioned I had an interview I was excited about, but I didn't want to say more because I didn't want to jinx it.  Well, yesterday I found out I got the Fellowship!!!!

I can hardly believe it.  I nearly started crying.  It's only a 10 week summer Fellowship, but it's with my dream-job organization, so I pretty much consider it my dream job.  A fellowship with Creative Commons.  A Google Policy Fellowship with Creative Commons.  Wow.

Mommy and Daddy are happy, probably mostly because I'll be getting paid (it's a stipend) for working for the first time in 6 years.  And they're happy because I'm happy.  I think Mr. Trizzle is as excited as I am.  He gets it.  He knows how awesome this is; how important Google and CC are in this field (the field I'm trying to make "my" field), and how much this is exactly where I want to be.  It couldn't get more perfect.  Yet, somehow, I think it'll still only go up from here.

 

On another happy side note: my presentation went well today and the class and professor liked my report.  In fact some of the students complained about my being in the group to go first because I set the bar too high.  And here I thought I was just having fun with my homework ;)  If anyone wants to see the whole report, let me know and I'll email it to you.  It's quite humorous, I think.

 

[...ok, now I have to go do my 24-hr take home final...]