Display by Label: Family

C and I have been in California on a ten-day road-trip up the coast. Our first stop was LA, where we participated in Frank's wedding at the posh Hotel Bel-Air. I was one of the groomsmen and had the responsibility of holding on to the rings and producing them for the bride and groom during the ceremony. I was not nervous about this task before the day of the wedding, which proved to be an oversight on my part. The wedding planner quickly set me straight. In the hours leading up to the ceremony, she'd stop me every 15 or 20 minutes and say, "Show me the rings!" And it was clear from her demeanor that if I did not have them, she would, in all probability, breath fire and unleash a swarm of locusts on my ass. So I'd dive my cold, clammy fingers into my interior jacket pocket with no small degree of panic, convinced the rings had somehow disappeared between that time and the last time she had stopped me. Because, as you may know already, when things are out of my sight, they basically cease to exist to my brain. Thankfully, the two silver bands remained in my pocket up to and during the ceremony and when the crucial moment finally came, I was able to take them out and set them carefully in the hands of the betrothed without dropping them.

As it turns out, though, I was not able to recite the ee cummings poem that I was tasked with reading without banging the microphone with the clipboard on which the poem was attached. In retrospect, I think the subsequent loud boom which echoed across the lovely green served as a nice counterbalance to the somber poem, which I otherwise read exceedingly well, if I do say so myself. I mean, I'd love to think I have the kind of voice that could bring a woman to tears, but it would have been horrible if one of the bridesmaids had actually started crying, or swooned, or collapsed at my eloquence. So, a little boom of the mic stand. You're welcome.

At the wedding, I reconnected with the groomsmen I had hung out with in Vegas, which was cool. While in mixed company, nobody discussed the bachelor party. Which was good. We just stared at our shoes and shuffled our feet a lot.

After the wedding, C and I went down to Laguna Beach and stayed at her sister's boyfriend's parent's cottage. It was beautiful and magical and all those other adjectives people use for locations like that. We sat on the beach and went to art galleries, and I can say with certainty that, for both of us, the earth moved. Literally. We experienced our first earthquake. A 4.7, which was not quite on the scale of wetting one's pants, but still enough of a shaker to be thankful that you're still of an age where you have reasonably good control of your bladder. We were sitting in a little Mexican restaurant off the main drag. Enjoying our second margarita on the second floor. Then there was a loud rumbling noise and things started shaking. When I say "things" I mean heavy things. Things that don't normally "shake." Like our table. Like my soul. Then there was a little heave thrown in, and just a tinsy bit of ho. As in give her the ol' heave-ho. Like the earth was feeling finicky and just decided to move the building a smidge to the left. On a whim. Just to scratch an itch. It's a strange sensation to feel that the building you're in is moving, especially given the fact that buildings should not, you know, move. The rumble and the shake went on for a good five seconds or so. We looked at the other people's faces in the small restaurant. It seemed to sink in for everybody at the same time that holy shit, this was a fucking earthquake! A few people stood up and started for the door. Then as soon as it had begun, it stopped, and the relieved waiter shouted out, "Tequila!" And we laughed uncomfortably.

For me, the earthquake helped get my mind off the fact that I had lost my Blackberry somewhere on the beach earlier that day. I was feeling kind of down about that, and the prospect of a crushing death under fallen debris helped put the whole thing in perspective. For a little while, anyway. (I'm not that great at maintaining "perspective.") For those who are keeping track, this is the third time I've lost a phone this year. It's still early, though. So don't cash in your bets yet. I have an old Palm Treo which still sort of works and which I have begun using as of yesterday. It doesn't have a holster so there's pretty good odds this one will end up disappearing before too long. Incidentally, if you've texted me over the past week, you may have received the ominous reply "Message Deleted." This is not due to the fact that I hate you. At least not entirely. It's mostly due to the fact that my phone has been deactivated and for some reason this is the response it sent back to C's test text last week.

Onwards ... there was a stop to visit two warm-hearted, lovely women we met four years ago in Costa Rica. They live in the Hollywood Hills, in Laurel Canyon, which has been home to many rock stars and is about as great a location as you can want. A wonderful steak meal. Even better conversation. And Chet Baker on the stereo.

Then we met up with our Dallas Buds, Jeff, Eric, and Kim at LAX and hopped in a rented van we named "TheMitch" for a drive north up the coast. The name has a back-story, but I think it's something I'll leave untold. For mystery and, you know, intrigue and shit. I will say, however, that it had nothing to do with my good friend of that same name and everything to do with a good several hours of hard drinking. Oops. I meant "thinking."

There were stops in Santa Barbara, Avila Beach (I highly recommend this hotel), San Luis Obispo (known to LA'ers as "SLO"), Hearst Castle, Nepenthe, Carmel, Monterey, and finally the San Francisco Bay area, where we spent three nights at C's parent's house. They tried to culture us with a trip to Sonoma and Napa, and I think it may have even worked. We drank plenty of wine. And some brandy. And a few ports. Oh, and an ice wine. And we brought back six bottles from Ledson and two Mondavi Moscato d'Oro, and some fancy vinegar from B.R. Cohn.

Andy and Sabrina met all of us in the city our last day and we walked around North Beach and drank and laughed and talked. And it was just good, is all—to be in one of my favorite places with some of my favorite people.

Three hours sleep the last night. One of those morning alarms that confuses you. Like, why in holy hell is that thing going off and what is it anyway? A long flight back to the Garden State by way of LAX. Hasty pasta followed by dead sleep. Picked up Honey the next morning at her friend Chubby's house. Chubby is a dog about the same size and temperament as Honey only she's black and white, with longer hair, and a curved tail. They roughhouse and chase and smoke cigarettes and talk shit about their owners. I think Honey had about as good a time as we did. Eating cat food and all kinds of treats from the fingers of a seven-year-old girl who, for those ten days, along with Chubby, became her new best friend and let her sleep in her bed.

And Honey didn't know or care that C and I had spent ten relaxing days on the west coast, or that I had lost my phone, or that for five breath-stopping seconds we were in the deep rumble of an earthquake, or that for days after the earth moved and we along with it. And that's why, I guess, it was so good to see her.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Travel  San_Francisco  Friends  Family 

When my dad and my grandpa used to mow the lawn, they would do it "bare-chested." That's what my dad would call it. And, as a boy of four or five, I was intrigued by this concept, that of bare-chestedness. Because I was keenly aware that while being in this state was something the two model men in my life seemed to do whenever they wanted, the women never did—my mom, my grandmother, my sister. Clearly, being in this state of bare-chestedness was one of those things only boys could do, along with the awesome faculty to pee while standing up. Damn we were lucky.

Of course, as soon as I discovered this, I too went bare-chested whenever I got the chance, because it was profoundly important to me to be like my dad. And even though I couldn't actually mow the lawn yet, I used to follow behind him with a plastic Fisher-Price model. And there I would be: jean-shorts, cowboy boots (which you had to pry off of me when I went to bed) and a bare-chest which, unlike my dad's, had no "fur" on it.

Just to be clear, my dad didn't wear cowboy boots when he mowed the lawn, so I'm not sure where that came from. I've since substituted the boots for New Balance or Merrell which I suppose in some ways is a real tragedy, but the rest of the outfit is pretty much the same: shorts and a bare chest—grunt. That is until recently. Because Jersey's weather isn't reliably warm in April, or even May. This year, the warm spring days have been few, and have been bookmarked by bouts of cold, wet rain.

So this weekend, as the clouds and wind gathered for another onslaught of the wetness, I sliced blades of grass in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a red fleece sweater-vest.

Dad never told me there'd be days like this.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  Oogah  Lawn  Family  Childhood 

I never met my mom's dad. He died the year before I was born, in 1972. And you might assume, therefore, that he died young. But he didn't. He did, however, marry late, at the age of 34, the age I am now. And maybe that's not late by today's standards, but it seems kind of late for 1932. Now, add to that late marriage the fact that my mom was born last of three children and that she had me late—in her mid thirties—and you can begin to see how it was that I never met this man, my mom's dad, despite the fact that he lived to be 74.

My mom's mom died shortly after my mom's dad, when I was five or six. So I don't remember much about her either. But I do have some dim recollections of a woman that I knew of as "Grandma B" and I can remember the heavy blue nightgown she wore on a Christmas morning in Maryland once. And I remember she was soft-spoken. But with my mom's dad, it's always been different. He's always remained something of a mystery to me. I have no physical recollections of him. And yet, he's always played an active role in my mind, in my imagination, largely through the fuzzy, black-and-white photos my mom has of him.

I don't have a name for my mom's dad. It's weird calling him "Grandpa." Because "Grandpa" is my dad's dad. The "Grandpa" I know was only 51 when I was born. And I knew that "Grandpa" for almost 29 years. And shouldn't "Grandpa" be somebody whose lap you've sat in? Shouldn't "Grandpa" be somebody whose laugh still echoes in your ears? Shouldn't you have a personal memory of somebody in order to call him "Grandpa?" So I'll stick with "Mom's Dad." Or Clarence. Because that was his name.

I've put off writing this post for months. Because I kept wanting to be able to point and say, Look, here is this man—my mom's dad. And here is who he was. Because it felt like I should be able to do that. And I wanted my description of him to somehow shed light on me, too. Because sometimes it feels like I'm really close to him, like a part of me is him. And, through my mom's descriptions of him, and through these photos, I can begin to peel back these layers of a mystery, not only about who he was, but who I am. And I keep thinking that maybe one day I'll peel back that one final layer and I'll be able to see clearly and say with some authority that this, this is Clarence.

But instead of shedding light, the process only ends up casting more shadows. My mom will offer spoonfuls of information, things she remembers about him. And I'll eat them up. But the whole thing only makes me more hungry. And I get discouraged. Because the bottom line is I will never know this man. I will die and he will remain a mystery to me.

And I know what the problem is: the things I want to know aren't the kinds of things you can be told. They're not the kinds of things you can just receive, filtered through someone else's perspective. Because I want to hear Clarence speak. I want to listen to him tell a story. I want to know how he put words together, how he constructed a sentence. I want to watch him get up from a chair and see him walk. I want to know for sure he had the same back condition I have. I want to see exactly how he smoked an Old Gold ... or the way he held a beer. I want to feel what it was like to hear him laugh or play the fiddle or stomp and dance at family gatherings at a lake house somewhere in Michigan. I want to shake his hand. I want to hug him. I want to hang out with him. And when I think about how I can't internalize these things—how these perceptual memories won't ever exist for me—it brings tears to my eyes. Because there's a hole there. And all I have to fill it are the words spoken by my mom and a handful of fuzzy snapshots.

And then it occurs to me that, for me, my mom's dad is, and always will be, her experience of him. And that's kind of a great thing to have, as well. I may not be able to know Clarence first hand and develop my own impressions about him, but I can experience first-hand the person my mom knew and the way she felt about him. And what it meant to her when he'd come home each week from his job inspecting ties for the Chesapeake of Ohio Railroad Company. The excitement she'd feel when he returned after a week away. How he called my mom's mom "Wifey," and how it really was a term of endearment for him. And the way he looked at Grandma B and the way he loved her and would hug her in the kitchen when he got home. How he used to tell my mom she "ran like a deer" because my mom had long, skinny legs. How he rarely went to the doctor, despite his various aches and pains, and how he had a cerebral hemorrhage in his fifties and still lived another twenty years, but was never quite the same. And how one day, when she was a little girl, she waited hours and hours for him at a train station in Battle Creek, Michigan. Because he was supposed to stop there and pick her up to take her to where the rest of the family had gone for vacation. But he had forgotten, or he hadn't realized that this is what he was supposed to do. And when he got to the final destination without my mom, he felt terrible at his mistake.

Neuroscientists believe that memories aren't things that are stored in a brain and "retrieved" like a file in a file cabinet. Instead, they think a memory is constructed from scratch each time it is "remembered." And a memory is never remembered exactly as it happened. Details get added or dropped. And the more you remember something sometimes the less accurate it becomes. And I notice this with my mom. I notice that she'll tell me a story about Clarence one time and then the next time it will be slightly different. And I'll say, I thought you said such-and-such. And she will say, Oh yes, that's right. You're right. And it sort of makes me frustrated. Because how can I be right? She's the one who needs to be right. Because I want the unfiltered facts. I want the truth. Because I feel like somehow knowing the true facts will bring me closer to knowing the true Clarence.

But then I take a step back. And I remember that what I'm coming to understand isn't my mom's dad. It's my mom's perception of him. And for me, this is knowing Clarence.

link to this | comments (7) | File:  Family  Chewing 

Saturday morning, shoveling snow from our driveway before heading to Newark for a flight. Five hours later, it's all sunshine and t-shirts, sipping margaritas on the patio of the Blue Goose in Plano. A soccer dad with shin-guarded kids beside us. And, on the other side, Harleys rumbling in the parking lot. Tattoos on display. Double D moms with "Don't Be Jealous" t-shirts. Suburban grey-beard banker bikers, bandana'd and leather-vested and flaunting their mid-life crises a month or two early. This strange mix of cultures. This strange mix of seasons. Because it's 70 degrees and sunny in early March in North Dallas. And we're sitting on a patio—the same exact one—where ten years ago I would've been found serving drinks. And not much has changed, except the name on the building. Time travel happens, ya'll.

Then it's light-weight longsleeves on E&K's back porch for pool, and beer on draft, and a broken E string. And man, that sentence would read a lot differently if you just changed a single letter, wouldn't it? Here there's another Harley rumbling, asleep on a lawn chair. Magnolia splayed out like a morning prayer. And us laughing over a shed in Jersey that's never been opened because there's mostly been a river of ice between me and it. And an empty shed is a scary prospect in Soprano country. And wow, jackets and gloves and shovels and boots seem so far away. Three hours northeast.

Sunday, the wind and rain began while we puzzled at Mom's. 2000 pieces. And the pot roast made some smoke, so we opened the windows. And then left them open. Because puzzling can make you hot—all that brainpower spent matching shapes and colors together. And it's nice to do that kind of work with a cross-breeze.

And then the rain got heavier. And the winds got colder. And last night, on the third day of March, North Dallas saw what might be described locally as a "blizzard" of snow, short-lived, but furious and heavy. Leaving a blanket of white on the flat landscape. Jackets and scarves back on. Pushing wet snow off the windshield with our arms. Then, us in our all-seasoned rental, headlights screaming against this horizontal army of flakes. Feeling like Star Wars at warp speed. Passing through another weather wormhole.

Then this morning waking to sunshine and highs in the mid-50s. Dallas will be back to t-shirts and margaritas in no time. And there's a bit of the sadness, because they don't grow Tex-Mex in North Jersey. The patios, chips and salsa, and salted rims. But that's what time travel and weather wormholes are for.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Weekend  Weather  Travel  Friends  Family  Dallas  Chewing 

This past Christmas, during a group outing to the mall to put Christmas money to good use, C's mom wound up buying The Story So Far, a 2-CD "Best Of" compilation of Rod Stewart hits. My outward reaction to this purchase was cool, non-committal enthusiasm. Standard hipster stuff. She asked me what I thought. I said, "Yeah, good." I may have smiled. If others around me were watching, they would have gathered from my reaction that I was clearly far too cool to be listening to the likes of Rod Stewart, but at the same time they would have seen that I was considerate enough not to show my smug contempt for the CD to my Mother-in-Law, who I obviously respected and admired. Yeah, it's a lot to put into a reaction, but I think I pulled it off.

Inwardly, however, my reaction was: "Holy shit! You must buy that puppy RIGHT NOW, because if you don't, I will!" I knew I couldn't actually be caught carrying the CD to the counter myself, but I'd find a way to get that thing, even if it meant smuggling it out of the store in my pants. (And yes, I realize that there are several layers of disturbing to the act of putting a Rod Stewart CD down your pants.)

It's still not clear exactly how it happened, but somehow a few of the tracks from that compilation wound up in my iTunes library. It's almost as if, while nobody was looking, somebody feverishly opened the plastic wrapping on that purchase before any of the other CDs he (or she) had bought that day and ripped a few important gems to my computer. You know, stuff like Hot Legs, Maggie Mae, Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? and Some Guys Have All the Luck. Weird. I'm sure whoever it was had their reasons.

So now, whenever one of those songs pops up in my play-list, I tolerate it. I give it the courtesy of a listen. But it's not like I sing along or bob my head or dance a little in my chair ... or anything ridiculous like that. Sheesh. It's just music, people.

On a related note, I was listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend—because nothing goes better with biscuits and eggs on a beautiful Sunday morning than a little Paula Poundstone snarkiness—and learned that '80s music is now being marketed by radio stations as "Oldies." Which means, brothers and sisters—because I feel this needs emphasis—that if you're approximately 32 years of age or over, the music of "your time," the stuff you may first remember listening to—Cyndi Lauper, Van Halen, Pat Benetar, Duran Duran, Chicago, Huey Lewis and the News—is now officially "Oldies" music.

And, of course, Rod Stewart falls into this category too ... but let's face it, he's been "Oldies" for some time now.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Age  Family  Music  Pop_Culture 

Dallas last week is now a whirl of memories, all good. Even the heat felt nice. It was a proper heat. The kind that bakes your ankles. The kind that causes instant sweat on the brow and lower back. It's not the kind of heat you can hide from. It's the kind you face head-on. When you leave your house or car or office it's just you and it. And you let it fall over and envelope you because to resist is to go around feeling defeated. To resist is to be angry. And so you accept and embrace it. The heat. The sweat. You accept all of it. And I did. And it was good.

Days spent at my old office, hashing out project specs. Barbecue and Tex-Mex for lunch, sending my now yankee stomach into a fitful tossing and turning. Catching up with work-mates. An environment strangely familiar and yet long ago and distant.

Birthday dinners for my mom, who is approaching another landmark date, several decades to the north of 34. Which is the age I'm fast approaching. Stories of her father. Who I never knew. Born in 1898. Died a year before I was born. I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by him. By the man he was. Because maybe there are clues there, in the stories my mom can tell. Clues about who I am. So I search for the clues in her words. And in her photos, which are kept in a plain-white department-store gift box. An afternoon spent scanning many of them onto hard-drive, because I needed to.

Beers with Jeff and the Farmers late into the night under a rumbling, electric sky. Here, I am amazed by a man-room the size of a three-car garage. The time is comfortable. Unassuming. Real. Stories of bears, some that were and some that might have been. Adventures in a candy cane.

Meals with dad, who is now — for the first time since 1973 — completely an 'empty nester.' His youngest at grad school in Atlanta. His oldest moving wildly around the northeast in search of roots. Like C and I, he is selling his house. But he is contracting, not expanding. It's a time of change and decision. He has thoughts of moving out to Maryland.

And right now, back in Baltimore, in our house that is finally free of dust and paint fumes, on a day that no A/C is needed because it's in the low 70's, I find my personal undertow pulling back to Texas. Because — despite the heat — things hurt less there.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Friends  Family  Dallas 

I'm back home. In DC. We flew in last night. And even though I truly loved seeing friends and family in Dallas, I am very relieved to be back on the east coast again. I feel grounded. I woke to the familiar sounds of car horns and sirens this morning, which kind of gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. And I'm ready to re-train my legs on how to do this thing called walking.

The last few weeks have been a mixture of fun, chaos, laughter, and frustration. Because it was the holidays, I can't really say it was at all times relaxing. But overall it was great. There were many days spent catching up with mom and sis, dad and bro, which was really good and heart warming, and long overdue. There were late-night fireside chats with the Hill-Farmers - miss you guys! Let's see what else . . . James, thanks for the great chops on the grill. Yancy, thanks for the incredible lunch at Texas de Brazil. And Dave: I always loves me some Blue Goose.

I hung out a lot at Dunn Brothers Coffee in Addison, which has great coffee and free wifi. I highly recommend this place if you're in the DFW-area and looking for a place to get online and work. Just stay away from the sandwiches. They are purely there for emergency hunger situations only. Do not expect anything that tastes remotely like the ingredients described on the packaging. Or any other ingredient that might be described as 'food,' for that matter.

For Christmas weekend, my long-time best friend Paul - who I've known since I was four and who is also something of a brother to me - and his wife Erica drove up from Houston to spend a couple of days with us for what amounted to extended periods of eating and talking followed by shorter periods of silent, uncomfortable digestion.

And in between all of the festivities there was driving. Lots and lots of driving.

I stayed offline for most of last week, which means I've got a lot of catching up to do. Oh, and my new pair of jeans is telling me it's time to either get back to the gym or face up to a larger size. I'm going to opt for the former.

Bring it on, 2007. I'm friggin' ready for you.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  Dallas  DC  Family  Friends  Ho_Hum 

Things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving:

1. Parent-in-laws who live in the San Francisco Bay Area
2. Crazy sleep-deprived sister-in-laws with fully-loaded leeks
3. Playing with Photo Booth on the MacBook Pro
4. A wife with a sense of humor
5. Football on TV 9:00 am to 9:00 pm (Pacific time!) in 70-inch HD goodness
6. Romo starting for the Cowboys
7. Plummer's last starting game (fingers crossed)
8. 33rd birthday eve

link to this | comments (7) | File:  Thanksgiving  Football  Family  San_Francisco 

What better way to spend Fourth of July than in our Nation's Capital, right? Right. Well, we've already done that. Twice. So this year C & I are heading to nearby Philadelphia, the 10-year 'temporary' U.S. Capital while things were being moved from New York to DC. Neither one of us has ever been to Philly and we're excited, in a stars and stripes sort of way, not only because we'll be able to see things like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, but also because we can run (or walk) up the steps of The Philadelphia Museum of Art. You know, like Rocky. And when it really comes down to it, isn't that what America is all about? Hot dogs, apple pie, and Rocky IV? Queue up Eye of the Tiger in the iPod. I'm rising up!

After Philly, when we've had quite enough of being patriotic, we're getting the hell out of the States and driving to Canada, where the drugs are cheap and the beer is Molson, eh? Unfortunately, we will have just missed Canada Day celebrations. However, we will be just in time for wedding celebrations. C's cousin is getting hitched, and we would never miss a family wedding in Montréal, where C & I had our own wedding about six (crap! six?) years ago. Should bring back some memories. Speaking of memories, Thursday night, I will probably be complicit in a bachelor party somewhere in Old Town, administering some karmic payback to the aforementioned cousin for the rough time he wrought upon me six years ago in that same city for my last night of bachelordom. Ahhh. Sweet revenge.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Travel  Family 

We've spent the last several days in the Bay Area for Catherine's dad's 60th birthday. Needless to say, it was a festive weekend, filled with way too much eating and drinking. A fringe benefit was that we got a much-needed reprieve from the sticky swamp known as Washington DC. Indeed, the heat and humidity in the District were pretty unbearable when we left, almost on a par with Houston. As for the weather here in the Bay Area, it's been all about sunshine and cool breezes since Thursday. I hate to leave it behind. Here are some photos. Sorry for not getting in touch with some of you who live in the area. Aside from the first evening here, the days have been filled with various family activities.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Travel  Family  Birthdays