Hap­py Birth­day, Dad

I hope my dad can feel all the birth­day wish­es from across the Pond! And do you know the only oth­er per­son whose birth­day has been used as a post title? The Queen. So there you go.

This is, of course, Indi­ana’s own Sen­a­tor Lugar, and he’s patron of my father’s favorite, I think it’s safe to say, char­i­ty, Glean­ers Food Bank. There are sev­er­al loca­tions, but we just donat­ed to the Indi­anapo­lis branch, in hon­or of my dad for his birth­day. Isn’t it impos­si­ble to think of some­thing to give a father, espe­cial­ly a non-mate­ri­al­is­tic one like my dad? He does­n’t care what he wears (unless it’s a red sweat­shirt with a v‑neck from one of his chil­dren’s col­leges, or home­towns), and he’d just as soon go to the library as get a book as a gift. He’s got every tool in the world already, and about three thou­sand framed pho­tographs of both his grand­daugh­ters (not that that stops Jill or me giv­ing him more). No, what my dad likes best is to have giv­en to some­body else, so we did. You might think of a sim­i­lar thing for your dad, this Christ­mas. Unless he real­ly and tru­ly likes get­ting neckties.

Let’s see, what else is going on, oth­er than recov­er­ing from Thanks­giv­ing? Well, I had a tru­ly crum­my fic­tion class yes­ter­day, I have to say! I just don’t think my writ­ing is going well. There weren’t many com­ments, and I must say I am not think­ing that writ­ing a nov­el is going to hap­pen for me. John warns me that my class­mates might not fit the pro­file of the read­ers my style would appeal to (more seri­ous than I am, for sure, and grit­ti­er), so per­haps that is true. I was forced to call my mom­my and dad­dy on my way home from class, for some parental sup­port (this takes the form of unqual­i­fied praise and approval, just in case your kid calls you for “parental sup­port”). I might email my moth­er my first chap­ter and see what she thinks, because it’s real­ly the sort of book that she and I would read: light fic­tion, with a mys­tery thrown in. But I did­n’t enjoy my class, and I real­ly won­der some­times, why do I put myself through these things? Pay good mon­ey to be under pres­sure to pro­duce some­thing that does­n’t feel very suc­cess­ful, and have to read it out loud in front of how­ev­er many semi-pro­fes­sion­als. It cer­tain­ly isn’t the pro­fes­sor’s fault; he’s as help­ful as he can be. Well, only two more weeks to go.

In the mean­time, Christ­mas is begin­ning to rear its excit­ing head. My friend Susan says we can get a tree at “Home­base,” a sort of Home Depot from what I can glean. And then I must bring all the box­es up from the lit­tle stor­age room down­stairs, all the box­es labeled “Christ­mas orna­ments,” with stick­ers from the movers say­ing “FRAG­ILE,” and “BY SEA.” What rel­a­tive­ly awful mem­o­ries, from a year ago! Pre­tend­ing to have Christ­mas in Con­necti­cut while in real­i­ty get­ting ready to move, move, move. This year we can relax.

Well, I am off to try to repli­cate the fan­tas­tic “dry-fried” Man­darin chick­en we had out on Fri­day night. Any­thing that does­n’t con­tain tra­di­tion­al North Amer­i­can fla­vors! Those can wait till Christ­mas din­ner. I’ll put my George Win­ston sea­son­al piano music on in the back­ground, while John obsess­es over a house (yep, it’s the one in the pic­ture) in Fitzroy Square that he is des­per­ate to buy, and Avery mem­o­rizes “Jin­gle Bells” in French. A peace­ful evening ahead, all in all.