30 July 2006

Proof that God loves me

Yesterday was terribly exciting, as the following stories and pictures will prove. First on the agenda was attending grandniece Kayla’s birthday party/block party. As stated previously, I hadn’t gotten much sleep (Ich schlafe nicht), so I was pretty bleary until 1100, when I decided, since the old man, Zeepdaddy, wanted to leave at noon, that I should get my shit together and shower, shave, whathaveyou.
I get all this done, and take the Princess out for her constitutional. It’s not that I don’t trust her, I would much rather have her all tired with an empty bladder than leave her alone for a potential twelve hours. I know, I’m a bad daddy; but daddies need fun too, dammit! Especially this one.
But she takes forever! Four trips around the block before she finally deigns a place worthy of her poo. I do the civic duty thing, and take her in, and at a fast pace in the “Where did this come from” heat, truck my butt to the Parental Unit’s storage facility.
It turns out that Zeepmomma isn’t going because it’s going to be too hot today. Wimp. It’s only going to get up to 98 degrees Fahrenheit! But she won’t budge. I tell her, “But it’s going to be 37 degrees Celsius, Mom!” She says then she’ll be too cold. So she doesn’t go. Oh, well, at least Barb is coming too, right? It turns out that Barb might have pink eye, and must go to the doc before going to a party with little kiddies about. Makes sense. So it’s me and Zeepdaddy-o for the ride to the Par-tay.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but the old man is a special breed of man. Kind of a cross breed between man, bear, Sherman tank and rabies. He’s a big, burly, coughing, smoke-belching, angry, unstoppable force with a penchant for foul language and little to no tact. No one is safe from my Daddy-o; he hates just about everyone and everything with an equal amount of anti-pathos. I have often said that my father doesn’t love in the usual sense; he just dislikes some people less than others. My dad would have gone up to Marcus Aurelius and called him a pussy. He is an essentially German man, in the fact that he is xenophobic to the point of not liking houseguests that don’t stop by more than six times a year. Anyone he doesn’t recognize is to be loathed and shipped out of the country in a box labeled, “Return To Sender.”
And that is my dad, in a pretty good mood.

Behind the wheel, my father adds impatience, massive amounts of self-importance, and two tons of V6 powered metal to his repertoire. It is equally frightening and exhilirating riding with the Zeepdaddy. It’s the thrill that, at any point, you will be in an accident where you will witness a one-legged man beating someone with his prosthesis. Exciting doesn’t begin to cover it.

I black out during most of the drive, which is a technique I learned about twenty-five years ago.
I suppose I should mention that I am quite different from the rest of my family. And I don’t mean in that way that says, “I take after my mom’s side and everyone else takes after my dad’s.” At some point in the growth process, I somehow, and as far as I am concerned instantly, became very different from the rest of my family. They are loud, and I like to be contemplative. I like to write poetry and prose, whereas they read the Enquirer as literature and the "not too heady" stuff from the Oprah Book Club. I like talking about my feelings and being tragically romantic; they think it’s beautiful when someone uses the Jumbotron to propose, and the fat encephilitic kids in "Love Is.." tell you all you need to know about amore. They all smoke, and I never have. Why would I have to, when at family gatherings there are never fewer than fifteen cigarettes lit at any point in time? My brothers and sisters are vastly older than I am, so that accounts for most of that. But my nephews and nieces are close enough in age to me that there should be something. But they all have kids, for the most part, and jobs and adult responsibilities. All I have is college, my two not-really-real jobs, and my depressing/exciting existence. There are times when I feel I have the most in common with my dead relatives. It’s weird, but I feel like I don’t have anything to offer them, even though I love all of them so very much. There really isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them, and that is especially true of my nephews, and double-plus true for my nieces, and super-double-plus true for the grands.
I mean, look at them. Can you blame me?


This is Taylor with her pale Uncle Z. She's the number one reason I got out of the Navy. I have proof of that statement.



This is Kayla, also known as the Ham, or the Hammer of Cute. She's the birthday girl, and the most beautiful girl born on her birthday, ever.



And this is Nicholas, who has a severe throwing arm, a fact his uncle Joe learned as he repeatedly took fastball after fastball directly in the fork from a very dense Nerf ball. Seriously, he can hurl.



Barb did show, and the party was a blast-ee. I might not be much like them, but I do love them.
So we left, and, some indiscriminate time later, I arrived home, blissfully unaware of what my father had done during the drive.
But I must now get ready for a beach party for Gordon. Good ol’ “Mustang Sally,” himself. The deal is that I am going to pick up M at work, then we will Red Line it together to Morse, and the beach there. I totally forgot that Morse is in Rogers Park. Not as dodgy as it once was, it’s still not a place to feel comfy after dark. By the time we get there, everybody is pretty drunk, and none of M’s friends are going to show. This, of course, means no K. Crap. But I get to hang with M, and Gordo, and Eric, who is a very cool individual, and some other cool people and some drunken idiots.
The highlight of the evening: some really fucked up individual (be it booze, weed, crack, whatever; it was anybody’s guess) was dancing to the music that was serving as an interlude to the Movie on the Beach. He was really going strong for almost two hours, dancing to his own private little rhythm. At some point he just collapsed; and there, lying on the ground, he continued his gyrations and footwork, dick first in the dirt. It’s a story I can’t wait to tell my kids just before I warn them of the dangers of abusing controlled substances.
Another highlight. The movie was “March of the Penguins.” Someone walking on the beach asks a guy on a bike, “Hey, what movie is it?”
“’March of the Penguins,’ and it sucks!”
“Why?”
“I can’t follow the story, man. And some dude, I think it’s God or somethin’ keeps talkin’ over the motherfuckin’ thing! It really fuckin’ sucks!”
“Who’s starrin’ in it?”
“Fucked if I know man!”
And they say the art of documentary is unappreciated.
So we wind up back at Gordon and Eric’s place, where I catch a glimpse of Eric’s nude girlfriend when I’m coming out of the bathroom. Now that is how you ingratiate yourself to your host.
I finally sit down, and realize that I am exhausted, I’m bummed about no K present, and I inadvertently start a fight between Gordon and Eric. I decide to head on out; it’s 10:30, and I am on my way home.
The beach party served its purpose. I hung out with Eric and Gordon, and I solved my ambiguity.

On the way home, I realized how much I miss my family. I miss the big get-togethers for the holidays, and the camping trips where everybody showed up. I miss making Nessa laugh, and I miss all the times I never held Taylor, Nicholas and Kayla. I miss being around to hear the stupid shit Barb will say, or what goofy thing Joe will do to amuse everybody. I miss Kiki and Jenny trying to one-up each other on the scale of dumb. Hell, there was a part of me that missed Larry, and I am sure I have more memories of people I sit next to on the train than I do with him. And I definitely miss Bob, and Aunt Sharon, and my Granpa & Gramma.
I've got to do something to make the missing become the remembering.

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