Family business

UPDATE: I have done something I never do on the blog: I edited the post below. Let me explain. After writing and posting the first draft, I called my dad (whose birthday it is today) in Warsaw and had the following exchange:

him: Can you hang on, I want to get a pencil. Your nephew said the other day that you write things on the Net daily? What's that called? You know, where you comment on things?
me: (gulp)

him: So, hang on, I want to write down how to find it [my father isn't very computer literate].
me: Dad, let me send you instructions, or I'm sure my nephew [Chris, take your time, okay?] will pass them on. It's hard to dictate over the phone.

him: okay, I'll look forward to seeing this.
me: okay, well, you know, it's not much..

And so the magic eraser is up and running. One thing that is absolutely necessary to maintain in familial relations in the "Old Country" is a great deal of respect for one's elders. Words of respect, absent by unintentional omission, not by design, will now magically appear in the post below.

Today is my father’s birthday. Having neglected to send him a card, I can only retreat to the procrastinator's friend: the telephone.

Our phone conversations are a poor substitute for face-to-face encounters. For any number of reasons, I say so little about what my days here are all about. Occasionally, I have been known to tell either one of my parents something provocative, like “did you know that I represent parents who allegedly abuse and neglect their children?” or “in my spare time I work the ovens in a restaurant.” Shock value, that’s all.

Am I one of those adult children that has still to reconcile herself to her parents' multifarious eccentricities? I don't think so. I am more amused than troubled by them. I love them both, in the way that you love family members even though they so freely parade all their weirdnesses in front of you. And I don’t much mind switching the focus to them in our dealings with each other. Both my parents have led very interesting lives and both enjoy an audience. All you have to do is say “huh” every few minutes and you can fill an hour without any problem. Though they basically never visit, I do like visiting Warsaw (dad-land) and Berkeley (mom-land) has great potential as well for future years.

Would it be devilish on my part to post, on my dad’s birthday, a photo from the last time that my parents were together (taken on a visit to New York, 25 years ago)? He he!


mom and dad, January 1979