Father's Day

I had intended to post yesterday, but the day got away from me. I had the house closed up all day, and did a little experiment with making pumpkin bread in the toaster oven. It turned out fine, but heated up the house and it was hot last night. Oh, I had closed up the house, um, Friday night? I think, because of the fire and all the smoke it was pushing to town. Anyway, it was so darn hot that I slept terribly. It's supposed to push 100 today, so smoke or not (it's not bad at the moment), I've got the house open and all fans in service trying to push the warm air out and bring the cool morning air in.

So, Father's Day. This used to bug me, but now I see it as a positive thing. My dad, pictured above with my nephew, is pretty particular about gift giving. He likes to get a restaurant gift card to certain chain restaurants. And he'd like a card on the big days (birthday and Father's Day). That's pretty much it. There were years when we kids were adults and before we came up with the gift card thing that everyone would be kind of disappointed with the whole gift giving process. Now, though, I know what he wants, and I deliver. Yes, it takes the creativity out of it, but he's happy.

Not that I don't get a little bit of subversive fun out of it. For several years now, I've given him jars of jelly from Harry and David for Christmas (the gift requirements seem a little more loosely defined there) and although it messes a bit with what he thinks he wants, he always uses them and I hear from him around April or May (the stuff keeps for a long time) or later that he just opened the peach jelly or whatever and it's really good and thanks. 

Like a lot of families, we had our rough patches growing up. Here's the thing, though. Since my divorce and subsequent re-, um, re-, I don't know, rebranding of myself, I've always felt like my dad's been in my corner. Several times, even though we don't talk on the phone often, he's said just the right thing and I know he's got my back. That he's proud of me, and that means a lot to me. 

He's 77, and healthy. I hope I've got those genes. He's currently in the process of moving to Florida so he and his longtime girlfriend/partner can escape Ohio winters and be close to her son. He's spent the last several months going through his stuff and what stuff of her he can. She moved to FL in January to take a job that is perfect for her, so she's there, he's in OH. Stressful, but they're almost done. It'll be nice to consider going to Florida over Christmas, I do believe. And I saw that Legoland is about an hour away, so I'm thinking of having me and Mr W go down for a visit next winter sometime. 

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