Father’s Day

According to my traffic tracker, for some reason, people are hitting on this post from Father’s Day last year in recent days. I had forgotten it. It’s a bit whiny, forgive me, I’m (still) grumpy and stressed when it comes to this subject! And, for the record, there were never any hate letters sent. Written? Oh yeah. Deleted? For sure!

Not All Father’s Deserve a Day

I guess you could say the same thing about some moms, but I don’t have a deadbeat mom to deal with. I have Starr’s dad.

This year Starr and her dad are in the same place they were last year. He hasn’t tried to reconcile with her, he hasn’t caught up on child support–we haven’t received a payment in nearly 3 years, he hasn’t helped with any of the tens of thousands of dollars in expenses from her car accident (most of which were incurred because he failed to keep her medical insurance up to date, which he was legally required to do)…or even help with college for that matter. She needs braces again, because of the accident, to the tune of $3500, but we can’t afford it.

Nope, we didn’t celebrate him as a father yesterday. He is lucky I didn’t send him a hate letter. Hmm. Maybe tomorrow.

He has a new girlfriend. I don’t know about you, but who hooks up with someone who isn’t doing all that he can to do right for his children?? Oh well. Not my problem.

Thank you and much love to all those dads out there who do. Who support. Who love. Who care.

Sadly, it has been a year and Mayan’s dad is still a blank spot in her life. So it’s been over two years of estrangement. In fact, unless things have changed in recent weeks (we aren’t top of the phone tree!), he is currently in jail. Mayan is grateful to have few emotional attachments to him, but she realizes that her siblings feelings are different than hers and we both love and support them completely.

The girlfriend is gone, she was stunned and unimaginably hurt when she realized all the lies that he told her. He lied about his relationship with Mayan, pretending that everything was peachy-keen and that they emailed each other often…Mayan didn’t come around to visit because she was busy…and that is just the beginning. *sigh* I feel bad for her. My heart aches for the kids. They deserve better. All of them.

I truly appreciate and love those dads who do! Who are. Who love. Who care. Happy Father’s Day! Thank you. You are cherished.

Especially, and as always, Happy Father’s Day to my dad and to my brother.

These two men have been the father that Mayan never really had…well, besides me!…they are who she wants to walk her down the aisle someday. I don’t know what will happen with that idea, but they are both loved beyond measure!

This is the photo that Mayan posted for Father’s Day weekend on Facebook. She said:

Happy Father’s Day weekend to by far the best grandfather I could have ever wished for. Without him, I definitely would not have had so many incredible experiences. I am forever in debt! Love you Grandpa!

Slide Project: It’s coming along…

Here are a couple more pictures that I’ve scanned in recent weeks:

These are just my mom, my dad and my brother and me. It’s been fun scanning and cleaning up some of these pictures. As I look at all of the pictures that I’ve scanned, there are so many that I’d like to spend time on and clean up…dust is a big problem! I don’t know if I will ever catch up, but getting them scanned is the project that I’d like to finish first!

Siestas are Serious Business

When I was seven years old, our family moved to Athens, Greece. My dad was an airline pilot and his company contracted with Olympic Airlines to do some teaching/training. The plan was to stay there for a year, but life happened and we had to return to the states after about three months. I posted about it previously here The Summer of 1972. As young as we were, the summer in Greece left a big impression on us.

We rented the bottom apartment in a three story flat topped house. Our landlords, Constance and Sofia, lived on the top floor. The house was a wondrous place for a seven year old and her brother. Lemon trees, an aviary full of birds, the cats, a Koi pond, a guest house which also had a flat roof and was covered with lattice and grape vines. I loved to spend time up there in the shade where we could also look behind the house and watch kids playing in the neighborhood park. We could access the roof of the main house by climbing the iron spiral staircase at the back of the house. From the rooftop, you could see the sea and if I remember accurately, you could also see the Parthenon. The house was along the flight path, so we spent a lot of time up there watching for dad to fly over.

Sofia, our landlord

On the front porch

Some of the yard cats

The glassed in porch/breakfast nook

The main stairs to the upper floors.

My dad, fishing in the pond

DJ trying hard to pull up the fish

Oh, it was another one of dad’s jokes!

I remember eating the lemons from the yard, mom cut them up and would give me some sugar for dipping. Yum! Constance teased me about it, saying that the lemons were perfect fresh from the trees and would regularly pick and eat them, rind and all, just like an apple. I tried, and failed, to copy him.

One thing that I will never forget was when DJ and I were playing with a hose and a tub in the front yard one sunny afternoon. I am guessing that we were laughing and squealing, as kids tend to do when playing in water, because what I really remember is Sofia leaning out of her third floor window. Angry. Yelling at us in Greek, waving her hand. I was confused. We hadn’t broken anything. Later, I found out that we had disrupted siesta time. A very serious infraction. We tried to respect siesta time from then on and I do believe that she eventually forgave us.

I found this online:

It is not only considered very bad manners in Greece to make noise during the period from around 2 to 5 pm (and especially after 3 pm), but there is a law against it (though broken sometimes by those doing construction or using rototillers, because work is often excused if the workers have no other time to do that work). This is less so and rarely enforced in the city of Athens much to the chagrin of many local residents. In theory it is quiet time. Siesta time!

So if a visitor to Greece is staying in a rooms complex that is near the houses of local Greeks, it is not appropriate to sit outside talking loudly and playing a radio or live music at that time.

The same need for quiet holds for those renting apartments in Greek towns or cities. During the hot summer months the midday meal and nap may get pushed forward until it cools off a little, with the meal even as late as 4 pm, and the nap to 5 pm or so. Few rules are ‘set in stone’ in Greece, but to be on the safe side, in the heat of summer, one should be aware that many Greeks are still napping until maybe 6:30.

Many visitors to Greece learn to do as the Greeks do, and find that this way of patterning one’s day makes perfect sense, given the climate.

For years, if we were in trouble, or about to get into trouble, my dad would lift his hand like Sofia did and we knew that we had better stop what ever we were doing and shape up!!

Back in the Day

I am guessing late 60′s? From the left, my dad, my mom, me, my brother DJ and some friends of the family. Minnesota. A hunting party?

Me, EJ and DJ
I wonder if dad made me hold the bird?

…and the fish?

Or if I wanted to?

When Life Was Simple

My brother and me.
Northfield, Minnesota

The Summer of 1972

In 1972, when I was 7 years old, my family moved to Athens, Greece. The plan was to stay there for a year while dad worked for the airlines. We ended up staying for just the summer, but we’ve treasured the memories of the trip and cherished the opportunity. Someday I want to go back! I haven’t photographed all of the slides from that trip, I have abandoned my slide project until I get a new camera, but here are a few:

My brother, DJ, and I napping in the car.

Our landlord in Athens

Awesome, homemade polyester outfit! Thank you Grandmother!

With mom on the front steps

Driving through the mountains in Switzerland/Yugoslavia

We spent many days right here, at the beach. Mom is in white.

Bill’s Pizza

My brother, DJ, called me yesterday afternoon and said something about the power of songs to bring you back to a time or place. Not in those exact words, but then he challenged me with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I think I began answering before he even finished the question….”Bill’s Pizza!”

It is funny how music can sometimes take you, in an instant,  to a place in your past. Young children, a local pizzeria, a well loved jukebox and the coins, given by mom or dad, to choose songs which invariably always  included “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” each and every visit. The smells, the grease, the family time. It is funny that this song carries the same memories for both of us.

As songs hit the radio, or my iPod, I am often confronted with memories. My high school, this party or that, spending time in my room, driving in my car, or later on, memories of past loves, then playing with Starr as a youngster. I love those connections and memories. More recently, music often takes me to Starr and Sunny together…my memories combined with their high school acivities. Our memories together.  It’s both a blessing and  a curse, I don’t ever want to forget the times we had together, but it is also so very painful to remember them. Life is never simple is it? At Bill’s Pizza it was simple, it was fun. I often wish for a day with that innocence and that simplicity again.

Are there songs that bring you back to a certain place or time? What are they? And where do they take you?

What’s For Dinner?

I am not a gourmet, healthy, all natural, organic, beans and whole wheat type of cook. And since it is just the two of us, or even more recently, just me for dinner, I don’t do much (or anything!) in the way of side dishes. They are just too much work as well as a waste of food. For the things that I do make; I don’t use boxed meals, I like to use real food, fresh garlic and vegetables, and real butter, although sometimes using a canned soup or pasta sauce as an ingredient.

My brother, DJ, has been asking more and more lately “what’s for dinner?” So, I thought I might include a little postscript once in a while about what was for dinner, a link to the recipe if there was one and maybe a thumbs up or down from Starr.

Last night I made my version of Chicken Panini. Starr loved it and told me so repeatedly. I cooked the chicken using this basic recipe Italian Chicken, only instead of pounding out the chicken breasts, I butterflied them, slicing them in half making thinner portions. Putting the cooked chicken in between two slices of bread along with some mozzarella cheese and grilling them until browned and melty on my grill pan as I don’t own a sandwich press, but I did give the sandwich a good and hard press with my spatula! 

A New Years Day Outing

Despite our recent trip to South Dakota, Starr and I were feeling stagnant and bored. We needed to get out of the house!

I suggested the old and reportedly haunted, pioneer graveyard that DJ and I visited a couple months ago. She had been there several times with friends in the middle of the night…the ghost stories are always draw for the teen set…but she always waited in the car. Chicken! A daytime visit was something that she has always wanted to do.

We didn’t find any ghosts, but we did spend quite a bit of time wandering around. Starr enjoyed taking pictures.

We found several pennies placed on the grave markers. Here is an example that I found in Starr’s pictures of one of the headstones. I hadn’t heard of this practice, so I looked it up. Frankly, I’m still not sure, but I did find an interesting discussion about it on a Flickr message board.

A majority of the graves are unmarked. Just a stone, a brick, or a simple cross.

Walking among these markers, it is easy to forget that each one marks the life of a loved one. Whose life may have been long or short, who may have been a baby, a child, a spouse or parent. Just like us. These thoughts lead me back to the question of why. Why? What is the meaning of it all? Life and inevitable death.

Despite these thoughts, it was a good day.

On Being Invisible

We were in South Dakota visiting family for the holidays last week. My parents, my brother and his son, Starr and I are together.

There is abundant wildlife where my folks live. Deer, antelope, wild turkeys and mountain lions. I haven’t seen a mountain lion yet, but the rest are plentiful.

My dad, DJ and I were standing in the dining room at the sliding glass door looking at the group of deer that were wandering near the house. The “conversation” went a little like this:

Dad: How many do you think are out there?

Me: Another one just came up the hill….so there are eight.

Dad: I see two on the left, one on the right. I can’t tell how many are together in the middle.

Me: There are eight deer.

DJ: I see a new one that just came over the hill. (This is the one I previously remarked on…)

Me: Yeah, there are now eight.

Dad: How many do you think are there?

Me: Eight.

DJ: I’m not sure. *starts counting…one, two…*

Me: There are eight.

Dad: They are all grouped together it’s hard to tell how many there are.

Me: Eight.

DJ: I count eight.

Dad: I think there are eight.