I went to Mozza and REI with my dad, and got a truly ridiculous-looking hat.
Slept in. Brunch with bloody mary. Napped in the hammock. Quickie while the girls napped. Made homemade mozzarella for the first time. Had family over for homemade pizza on the grill. Lots of little girl hugs and kisses all day long. Perfect, really.
I made pies: two sour cherry pies from our trees, which were full of ripe fruit. Our oven is not working so well, though, so the crust wasn't as nice as I'd hoped. Did some weeding. Watched some stuff. Got a great card made at school from my daughter. Nice day.
My Father's Day? I got a card from Keegan, then spent the day at a joint birthday party for Keegan and his cousin who just turned 14, swimming at her house. I guess I did get breakfast cooked for me.
I called my dad, who is apparently mourning the fact that his daughters are all grown up and moving out by watching old home videos and sniffling.
Mrs. TJ made me an ice-cream cake in the shape of Fudgy the Whale, harking back to Patton Oswalt's excellent description of Carvel's cake. Writing "You're a Whale of a Dad" would have taken too much space, so she wrote "You're a Whale Dad." Which is awesome. I would like a Tshirt that says "Cetatean Sensation" within a line-drawing of a whale.
Tasty cake. I got to eat a bunch of unused frosting, too, which I love.
Mostly, I find it surreal that I now am to observe Father's Day from both sides.
I'm out of the gene pool & lost my dad last summer, so it's a bit quiet. Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but seriously, folks: love whenever you can, however you can. It matters.
Also this explains the ratio of tears to snorts of laughter as I sat through the wake on today's Meet the Press.
a joint birthday party
Getting them started young, eh?
I got nothing, and was briefly irked while reading this post, but then realized that it isn't Fathers' Day here.
Bowl of cherries for breakfast, then a kind of chocolate coffee cake. Two mile hike (each way) through a forest to the Bay, and a little dip. Crab cake sandwich & a local brew for lunch. Shrimp on skewers for dinner, with a curried squash dish. Watched Tiger tie it up, and half a basketball game.
Total score.
Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but seriously, folks: love whenever you can, however you can. It matters./i>
Love sucks.
Good call on the book, LB. I read it over vacation, and while it wasn't exactly relaxing reading (in fact, reading it through the lens of the last 8 years made me quite angry and frustrated), it's outstanding.
Oh, and I argued with members of the authoritarian cult about a recent Supreme Court case. Obviously, you can't join the cult if you can put two facts together.
First thing when my three-year-old daughter woke up, she wished me a happy father's day, unprompted by her mother or me. Later in the day, my five-year-old son wrote on a piece of paper (with correct spelling and capitalization) "I love you Dad," and gave it to me - again, completely unprompted.
Spoke to my own father on the telephone for an hour or so. Probably the longest conversation we've had in 10 years. Just chitchat, but very nice.
I'm a lucky guy.
Man!
I got up (late, I'll grant you), made buttermilk biscuits with Iris, ate some, lazed a bit, then repaired the sash chain on 3 windows, bought myself a slice of pizza for lunch, mowed and weeded, made dinner and some bread (actually, the bread is still in process - no rest for the &c.). Walked the dog in the park with Iris in the cool of the evening.
IOW, a very nice day that embodies how good my life is, but no one made me pie. And AB & I were too busy for a quickie while Iris watched a video.
Not to brag, but my Friday strawberry pie was prettier than LB's. I would've taken a picture, but we were at a friend's house, and I didn't want to seem [more] obsessive [than I am].
Oh, and the Bucs won! Despite yet another blown save by Matt Capps.
So that was nice.
Awoke to kisses from the big boy (almost six) and the baby (fifteen months) climbing all over me. Was presented with a framed photo of the kids, flanked by the big boy's footprint on the left and the baby's on the right (earlier in the week, I was genuinely puzzled why the kids and the dog were green). Was handed a smoothie for breakfast and later given a maple donut (no shit, MC!). Went for a long walk with the big boy. Swam with both kids in the late afternoon. Had dinner by the pool with friends. Talked briefly with my dad, who seems a bit old all of a sudden. On the whole, it really couldn't have been much better.
But I didn't get a pie. Some father's day this turned out to be.
My dad was out of cell phone range most of the day, the ungrateful bastard. Apparently, though, he had quite a nice brunch down in [ rural cellfone-free area ] where he was. Later in the day, I bought clothes that might as well be seersucker, and now I'm watching this very exciting basketball game, judged thus despite the fact that the players involved don't actually seem too excited.
my Friday strawberry pie was prettier than LB's.
Are we going to need to throw down over this? Because I could see it getting ugly.
and now I'm watching this very exciting basketball game
Sucker.
Oh, and the Bucs won! Despite yet another blown save by Matt Capps.
He's on my fantasy baseball team. Would you sit him down for a stern, fatherly talking-to, JRoth?
5: That's an excellent tie.
It was funny to read the reason on it ("I love my Daddy because ..."), and also to see some of the stuff the other kids in the class came up with. One of them said "I love my Daddy because he brings me to the doctor."
Oh well. It's more fun to win a championship at home anyway.
28: yep. I plan to riot with the kids.
What state are you in, teo? Or anyhow, what region?
31: Google maps doesn't have "Confusion." Nor is "Uncanny Valley" a real place (it's a simulacrum?)
32: what! So soon! Meetup! Meetup!
I saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It was at least as bad as the people who said it was bad said it was.
Meetup! Meetup!
I need to at least figure out how intense this program is going to be first. But for right now I need to sober up enough to call my mom.
I thought about going to see a movie for Father's Day, but the list of movies currently playing crushed that out of me.
Rah has been prepping all day to go out of town for the week on a business trip. I called my dad - today is not just Father's Day, it's also his seventieth birthday - and asked his advice on a major purchase after the niceties. I didn't do it consciously but given the enthusiasm with which he tackled the fairly pedestrian question I suspect my gift to him was to value his expertise and experience and that it was much-appreciated.
Rah and I also went shopping and I bought hot new shoes; he bought mega-hot new shirts.
I gave my father Nixonland.
Great minds...
Can merely hot new shoes ever match with mega-hot new shirts? Magic 8-ball says no.
I thought about going to see a movie for Father's Day, but the list of movies currently playing crushed that out of me.
Hulk smash!
The family and I enjoyed it. Metric shitload better than the Ang Lee debacle.
Okay, I called my mom. I should probably go to bed now.
Truly, I am the only person on the planet who loved that movie.
All of the offspring checked in [two are the Biophysicists; one is mine] and a [young] former co-worker of his sent an e-card. I called my mother, who conveyed FD greetings to my stepfather. My own male genetic donor is somewhere in Arizona with wife #6; I haven't talked to him in 13 years. We spent the afternoon google-mapping places we used to live. No pies, but we did have chocolate chip cookies for dinner.
The Incredible Hulk. Christ, even I have standards, Sifu.
And he agrees with you about the Hulk(s), too.
From Ebert.
Consider for a moment Gen. Ross' idea of turning out Hulk soldiers. They would be a drill sergeant's worst nightmare. When they weren't Hulks, why bother to train them? You'd only be using them in the fullness of their Hulkdom, and then how would you train them?
What an idiot. For fuck's sakes man, you get paid to watch the movie. Try to follow the plot.
The dude had cancer, gswift, geez. You might as well complain about ogged.
The Guardian's Hulk review from last week is brilliant:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,2285042,00.html
The Guardian review is a little obvious, oh ah? Someday, I will review Quest For Fire, naked, writing purely in grunting.
The Guardian is an odd paper. Their football and pop culture sections are brilliant, but their news department seems to address a vaguely and ineffectively guilty audience that wishes to remain so.
54 was me on a different machine.
re: 54
I like their basic news coverage. Their op-ed stuff and columnists tend -- with a couple of exceptions -- to annoy the crap out of me, though. I find though, on the whole, the general quality of writing to be significantly better than most of their rivals.
They don't suck as much as The Register, anyhow.
13 - erm, Nakku, it was FD here too. Sorry.
C got FD wishes but that's all. I don't believe in all that commercial sentimental bollocks. There's more hype around Mothers Day, so even unencouraged, the children do stuff, but without my prompting they were never going to make a big deal our of FD. My dad feels the same way, so I never have to do anything for him. We had a nice day though - went for a walk in the woods and found a couple of geocaches and then went to my inlaws' for a belated birthday tea for child2.
57: Gawd, it's a little below the belt to mock a bit of uptalk, isn't it?
Tough, but fair, says me. I myself have been enervated by any number of tweety's comments, but do I bitch about it in my online tabloid? I do not. What worries me more is cDc's apparent ability to generate arbitrary question marks.
57: Now, if they had hacked that review onto some "repressive regime's" website rather than just boringly putting it on their own than you'd have to give them some credit.
My dad's day: food poisoning lead to a day of moping around and lying on the couch. Plus sunglasses and a spy novel.
Ooh, ooh. I want Nixonland! It's on my Amazon wishlist if someone who loves me is lurking today, hint hint.
For my father's day, my younger daughter woke me up at 6:00. We made french toast with jam and whipped cream. The older daughter joined us.
Then I got presents: homemade cards from the girls and from Fleur (who made the cutest card making light of the ongoing Little House on the Prairie lectionary series at bedtime story hour). Also, a gardening hat and a kind of iron lattice chafing dish thingy.
The rain had cooled down the house sufficiently that I could finally install the attic fan (JRoth recently inspired me to take some steps to control our household energy consumption).
Then the girls and I went swimming. Then we all went to our vegetable plot in the community garden to weed and plant the last plants (melons to replace the seeds that didn't germinate, a second crop of corn, and chard). Came home, made pizza for supper, and went to bed early.
59: I'm not in your 'here' any more. Our Fathers' Day is in September, say those who know.
My fathers day card from Caroline.
Me: "Hi, Dad! Happy Father's Day!"
Dad: "Oh, is it Father's Day? Oh, well, I guess it is. Well, how ya doing?"
66: The narration of the creation of that card is adorably cute.
Good lord indeed. Does this mean you're Elizabeth I IRL?
Coming soon to a cinema near you - Elizabeth: The Walking a film by Shekhar Kapur George Romero starring Cate Blanchett.
Um I mean of course The Walking Dead.
Five-year-old made my mornign toast and coffee, and presented the picture he made in pre-school. Then we took the training wheels off his bicycle and he shocked me by riding away (fortunately on the sidewalk) with only a few spills and no instruction or running alongside at all. Later in the day, we took a lengthy ride in the nearby cemetery, where he zipped around and crashed gently from time to time and I contemplated the many fathers there, and my own, buried too far away to visit this day. I hope a family in the neighborhood of his cemetery rode by.
Fudgie the Whale is specifically designed to be not specifically a whale unless frosted, and adaptable to other motifs, e.g. his tail can become the ears of an easter bunny.
(JRoth recently inspired me to take some steps to control our household energy consumption).
Woot!
My dad sent me an e-mail listing and apologizing for his 'low points' as a dad. None of which I remember or consider myself remotely traumatized by. Do other people's parents constantly ask what they should have done differently?
This was in response to me sending him a link to PostSecret, which provides good dysfunctional context for all major holidays.
Do other people's parents constantly ask what they should have done differently?
I have a bad habit of doing that to Rory sometimes. My own parents, however, instead ask for constant reassurance that they did everything right. I'm not entirely sure which is more annoying.
I had a random stranger (well, a security guard) wish me Happy Father's Day in the supermarket.
I said that I wasn't a father, but thanked him anyway.
I guess this means I look fatherly. Perhaps it was the Hawaiian shirt and Panama hat?
I went to see Indy with my fiancee's father. She was charmed to see that Indy had aged right along with her dad, who had donned the hat and bullwhip for many a Halloween in her youth.
A woman I know had a piece in the NYT opinion section. About croutons! Also, fathers.
Ben won by going to Mozza. I hope he didn't try to actually treat his dad; I had three appetizers and three drinks there once, and left ninety dollars lighter. But they were so, so good.
78: I would've assumed it was the woman with 3 children calling after you, "Come back to your family, you heartless bastard!"
I got up early to ride with a friend on the Lakeshore, took shelter from the rain—massive storm, with spectacular lightning strikes to the masts on the Sears Tower—at the North Av. beachhouse, where we talked for about an hour then rode back home. Nice breakfast of the chicken livers I'd bought, although my son wouldn't eat them. Beyond that, working around the house on laundry and sorting clothes and mail and so on. In the evening, watching a long experimental play that needs work.
57: You're that Tweety? I reckon it should've occurred to me already but ah well. Heh.
Indeed, Fudgie can be a ghost, Santa Claus, an Easter Bunny and maybe something else.
82: celebrities walk among us, Robust.
A couple of bittersweet passage-of-time markers for me.
1) Bulk of day was spent at (and driving to and from) "Western PA, the flat part" where we my youngest played in his last tournament (last anything) with his youth soccer team. Wraps up 16+ years of youth soccer with my kids (there is a high school fall season left).
2) Talking to my dad, realized that my standard "going anywhere this summer? " question no longer needs to be asked.
My sister and I went with our respective boyfriends to visit my crazy uncle (not the right-winger), because his kids live far away and may not have called. We brought him lunch, partly because we didn't trust the cleanliness of anything in his house. The place is foul, but he won't hire a maid, and I'm not sure what the home health aid does, because he looked terrible. He went to bed after about an hour, and we took his dogs out for a walk. They need to see a groomer very badly.
I had tried to warn my boyfriend John, but he was still kind of shocked. We went home to shower afterwards. I called my Dad and spoke to him for about 50 minutes. I hadn't talked to him for over a year. It was better than I thought it would be, but there was still plenty of cause for concern.