When I started this blog a few months ago, one of my very first posts was an homage to my mother and the quirky traits that I have reluctantly and at the same time happily inherited from her. A post that I thought would be well received amongst my family and even revered as being sweet and touching has somehow manifested into a constant source of tension for one family member in particular. The sweet prose and belief that my mother had somehow been placed on a pedestal, has driven this one family member into a constant state of frenzied anticipation for the opportunity to also appear in my itty bitty space in this grand ole blogosphere.
So I thought it was about darn time to put the family quarreling behind us and craft a post dedicated to said family member…Ladies and gentleman, I give you a post in honor of my father, Nick, also known as Tony (an homage to Tony Soprano) or the magic man, but just plain old Papa to me.
1. One of my very favorite traditions that my father and I still share is our ‘first rain of the fall’ phone call in which I can count on him to call me the instant it starts drizzling to tell me to slow down and avoid being on the road if I can. It is a call that I can count on, regardless of whether or not it actually makes my driving situation more distracted.
2. My Pop still yells at me when I lick leftover goodness from the precarious blade of the knife I am using. I’m not quite sure where I picked up this sloppy habit that really freaks him out, I’m guessing it came along sometime in the age range of learning to make Nutella sandwiches and refusing to let any of the choclately goodness go to waste.
3. If my mom is away on vacation or sick in bed, it is a known fact in my family that my father will collect the mail and systematically open every piece of it, no matter the name on the envelope or explicit instructions to cease and desist this obnoxious habit, you can count on Pop to tear through your credit card bills and pen pal letters as voraciously as though they were that month’s edition of the Reagan Library newsletter.
4. I am pretty sure that the Hostess Bakery Company owes me some sort of lifetime supply of products by now. I may be 23 and much more conscious of my eating habits, but if my father knows that I am going to be home for the weekend, he WILL show up with a box of Hostess cupcakes (my favorite childhood treats) and he WILL help me polish off the box before Sunday evening.
5. My father may be a master craftsman in his field, he may be awesome with cars, and he may be able to build anything you ask him to, but a techie he his most definitely not! While we have recently, and very reluctantly I might add, introduced him to the wonderful world of Craigslist, my father still insists that he cannot figure out how to turn on the computer or navigate webpages and therefore subjects us to hours of assisted ‘booting up’ comments and assisted craigslist piloting.
When it comes down to it, the five traits above might sound trivial and lame to any outsider, and probably to anyone not within my immediate family. It might sound like I am complaining or being facetious about some pretty standard run of the mill parental obligations, but these ‘standard’ actions mean the world to me. The fact that my father still tucks me in at night when I am home and still plays the ‘I love you times infinity million’ game with me says a lot about him, even if he still eats my sharpie marked leftovers and subjects me to hours upon hours of ‘This Old House’ and ‘Bonanza’ marathons. While he may drive me crazy with his little quirks, it’s these expressions that let me know that it is all va bene because I am still his little girl.
Ciao
