dad's birthday

today would have been dad's 88th birthday. in this picture, he looks remarkably like jonathan franzen. i wonder if that's why i've always liked jonathan franzen. i look at this picture and i find myself wondering who he was then? it must be from the late 70s, as i know it's from our house in town. i was probably 10, which would have made him 44. who was he at 44? he was in the state legislature. he owned and operated a weekly newspaper. he golfed with his buddies on wednesdays. he was a husband and a dad of two daughters. but who WAS he really? can we ever really KNOW our parents? we see them so differently from our child's perspective. can we ever access who they were? 

it's a weird thing to ponder, because at the same time as we have no idea, who we are is so utterly formed by them. what do i remember of those days? i remember that making him laugh was the goal. that was always the goal. i definitely still do that today, sometimes to my detriment, as always going for the laugh isn't always appropriate. but i still have a deep need to do so. 

i find it hard to go back to the child me, to remember what i thought and how i saw my dad. 

but today, on his birthday, i miss him. i think i write this every year, but i would so much love to talk to him about the state of the world - about trumpty dumpty and climate change and roe v. wade and the rest of it. i don't think he was one to make it all ok for me, but his perspective would always make me think about it in a different way and well, despair less. i miss him. a little bit every day, but especially on his birthday.

missing my dad

i always use this picture on dad's birthday. he would have been 87 today. i miss him more acutely some days than others. during the mad election season that just passed, i wished nearly every day that i could talk to him about it. i wonder what he would make of the spray-tanned clown and his antics. i suspect he wouldn't be that surprised by it. and i also think he wouldn't have been as personally embarrassed by it as i have been for the past four years. maybe he even would have assured me that this too shall pass. i think i have needed to hear him say that. but alas, it hasn't been possible. and it never will be. and man do i miss him today. 

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this ekphrasis on tiktok sums up the attraction perfectly. 

when you let a computer write a trend report. 

zoom be gettin' scary.

happy would-have-been-83rd birthday, dad

my dad would have been 83 today if he hadn't left us a little over two years ago. there's still a big ralph-sized hole in our lives. i would love to have talked to him about the recent election. i would love for him to be there for the child to get to know better as she spends what seems to be a rocky year in a poisoned trump-infested atmosphere in my little hometown. i would like to discuss the changing seasons in the garden with him. and i would like to consult him about the road we are facing ahead with mom. i feel a little bit abandoned by him, if i'm honest. and i kind of would like to yell at him about that.

he would be glad mom sold her horses and has gotten rid of all those cats. but he wouldn't be happy about the signs of her decline and they probably started even before he was gone. and i suppose there's nothing he could do about it, any more than than there's anything we can do about it, aside from watch it happen.

i'd like to think he would approve of the solution we've arrived at for christmas - renting a cabin (that's really more of a huge house) in the black hills, to gather together, no internet, and try to have a last, good christmas together. one with plenty of good food, games and laughter. hopefully also some sledding and snowboarding and skiing. and plenty of cocktails and wine. i suspect we're going to need the cocktails and wine.

and speaking of cocktails, here's to dad's birthday. we miss you, dad, more than we can say.

happy would-have-been birthday, dad

thinking of my dad today. he would have been 82. just a little over a year since he died and he is still so very sorely missed. there's still so much i'd like to be able to ask him about the way the world works (and doesn't).

mortality bites

20 years ago, drinking tea on a russian train.

today should have been dad's 81st birthday. i think some part of me still can't believe he's gone. i thought several times, i have to call and wish him happy birthday. i mentally calculated the time and then i realized he wouldn't be there on the other end. it's so strange that he's gone. he's just been there for 47 years. and although i was rubbish at calling or emailing often enough, i just knew he was there if i needed to ask him something or tell him a story. it's still so strange that he's not there anymore. i wonder if i'll ever get used to it?

i almost made a german chocolate cake (his favorite) in his honor today, but in the end, i didn't, because it feels too raw and i think it would have hurt more than it helped. and on this rainy, dreary, dark grey day, i didn't need more darkness. so i'm trying to think of the good times, like here, drinking tea on the train from moscow to kazan when dad came to visit me in russia in 1994. that was an awesome trip. we laughed and had adventures and tho' there was bickering at the end of the day because everyone's feet were tired from traipsing all over moscow, it was really pretty much only awesome. i'm glad to have the comfort of that and many other memories.

but i miss you today, dad. happy should-have-been birthday.

the big eight-oh

my dad turns 80 today. i took these photos when he was visiting us last april. he's standing on the quayside, right outside of husband's workplace at the harbor in esbjerg. i don't think he looks 80 at all.

when i think of all of the things he's seen and lived through...from his 8th birthday being eclipsed by the bombing of pearl harbor in 1941, to the first electrical light he can remember shining brightly over the table at the house on the creek to the korean war to the kennedy assassination to nixon's resignation to the election of a b-movie actor to the white house to the monica lewinsky scandal to september 11...it's quite the scope of events. not to mention the technologies - from the old linotype that he did the paper on the early years, through to those compugraphic behemoths with their punchtapes feeding into a big round trash can to the early macs to the little iPad he checks his sports scores on today. what a technological sea change.

i hope he has many more years ahead to tell us his stories, always with a wry sense of humor. happy birthday, dad. and many, many more.

happy birthday, dad!

a big happy birthday to my dad!
he's a bit older today than he was in this photo (circa 1977).

this was back in the era when he proposed that the fence post should be the state tree of south dakota.
sadly, it didn't pass.

i also recall a bet paid in pennies on that very desk on the floor of the house.
it was some mound of pennies.

happy birthday, dad.

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is food a narrative medium?
here's another opinion on the subject.

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wine talk - it's so pretentious, but there's also something to it - thinking deeply about pleasure.

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i have long wished that i was alive and in my prime in 1913.

(who knows, maybe i was?)

here's just another confirmation that it was The Year.

at least where art and culture were concerned.

i wonder if 2013 has the same potential?

somehow i doubt it.

* * *

so many people in the world with such amazing stories.

like bryan saunders, who has drawn 8700 self-portraits - some while on various drugs.

i wasn't sure whether to be in awe or horrified.

* * *

the v board on pinterest: of course it's vikings.

happy birthday dad!

we used to stage a yearly shot where we got dad up on a horse. this was from summer 2010. dad and amber.

i remember the one horse show we dragged dad to...it was in tyndall and it was about 104°F in the shade all day. the lunch stand ran out of cold drinks. tyndall ran out of ice. the swimming pool across the street was like a bathtub. and still we showed on. funnily enough, dad never wanted to come to a horse show again...however, he happily continued to foot the bill for the horse shows (and shoes) for years and years afterwards. as long as he didn't have to attend.

happy birthday, dad.  we wish we were there to celebrate with you and eat german chocolate cake.