Archive | Pops RSS feed for this section

That which we call a rose by any other name would sound as sweet

By on January 12, 2012 in Mostly a picture, Pops

The above image of my Pops is from a coupla five years back, which would have made him a spry, debonair 86.

Yesterday he turned 91. In our morning chat, which usually takes place on cell phone as I walk, he is having a harder and harder time making out various words. This morning it was “thrifty.”

Me (concluding a reference to something): “I felt really thrifty.”
Him: “You felt really chesty?!”
Me: “No, thrifty!”
Him: “Risky?!”
Me: “Thrifty! I felt thrifty!”
Him: “Ruskie?!”

In recent years we both seem to have enjoyed the frequently preposterous variations he puts on mis-heard words. Or rather, the variations provided to him by his beleaguered, four-score-and-way more than seven years-old cochlea(s), which have been slowly and certainly  giving up the ghost and throwing him just any old homonym that strolls along.  He’s been taking a running jump at this swap a mis-heard word for most hilarious and unlikely homonym for years now. Nowadays, the mis-heard words number into larger and larger percentages of the conversation.

I would have begun to spell it out for him, which I usually do when we don’t make it out by the third variation. That usually works, though there’s no guarantee we won’t wend our way down another rabbit trail, since I have to come up with words for the letters. Never having trainied in the international radio telephony alphabet, I take it as another opportunity for mirth-making and derailment, which of course he’s all in on (“R” as in Rasputin! “U” as in urchin! “S” as in sesquipedalian! and so on).

This morning, alas, there was no time to spell.  I had arrived at my place of employ.

Me: “Pops, I’m at work now, I gotta go. We’re going to just have to leave it at Ruskie.”
Him: “Anything you say, doll.”
Me: “Main thing for you to hear is, I love you and have a great Thursday, Pops.” (followed by “mwah” kissing sound)
Him: “Mwah to you too, sweetie.”

Loud and clear.

Comments { 5 }

Weekend bonus shot (Monday edition), 01.09.12

By on January 10, 2012 in Mostly a picture, Pops, Sunrise Sunset file, Weekend bonus shot

popsatendofnight
Pops returning home at the end of the evening, Castro Valley, CA.

I watch him go through these doors to his apartment in the retirement community so long and hard now. Used to be he’d turn and wave and shamble off, only looking back once to wave me away (‘gwan now, doll; go home).

Now, stooped by his ninety-one years (this Wednesday), he turns and looks over and over again.  And so do I.

Comments { 1 }

Thankful

By on November 29, 2011 in Mostly a picture, NaBloPoMo, Pops

thksvng11
Thanksgiving table post-repast, Berkeley, CA.

We all went around my brother-in-law’s Thanksgiving table–my own brood, my dad, my mother in law, her old friend, her partner, my partner’s dad, my partner’s brother’s family and his wife’s mother–and said what we were thankful for. Many of us said we were thankful for the Occupy Movement (as ironic as that might have been, from around a well-stocked table in a comfortable, warm home).  All of us who were not retired and of working age were hugely thankful for our full, rewarding, gainful employment. Most of the kids under 12 demurred, though I know their gratitude is big, if fairly tightly woven into need and dependence and hope and expectation.

My dad was grateful simply to be alive and here for another Thanksgiving, and I immediately seconded that thankfulness. I went on to say specifically: each morning when I walk from the bus stop to work, I call Pops, and we talk for the 12 or 13 minutes it takes me to get to my building’s elevator, where the signal begins to fail us. It’s always too short, but he’s a lot more alert during this morning call than he used to be when we talked after I got the kids to bed. The calls during when I’m interruptable by the kids are usually just too hard to sustain.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 5 }

Baba’s Day: Quickie Dispatch

By on June 20, 2011 in Baba familias, Pops

itsokaytohave

“It’s okay to hav a Baba,” (sic) from the girlchild, Kindergarten year (2010).

The sun still hasn’t set on Baba’s Day this year, and I can’t pause long, but do want to leave a little something here for the occasion, in solidarity with any other comrade who happens by. The only way it’ll happen is with bullet points and incomplete sentences, so! Herewith:

  • •  Talked at length to my Pops this morning about fatherhood, lesbian and otherwise. His loving support and openness to my whole self has a value beyond words.  It is anointing, validating, liberating, inspirational. He essentially gets it, which is about as much as you want from anyone, especially a family member, particularly a parent.


  • •  There’s much to say about our conversation, but not on the fly on the day itself. In short, we concur: when you disengage the clutch and allow your gears to coast unhindered by the space stamped out for them (allotted movement, only here and only in this way), all sorts of stuff that might otherwise bamboozle begins to make sense: masculine femininity, feminine masculinity, the fact that each of us who fights for more space for ourselves, who elbows more elbow room for a fuller, truer self, makes more space for others.


  • •  We have more allies in this process than we know. Specifically, women trying to make space for parenthoods like mine have allies in gay men fathers and straight men fathers who themselves want company as they, too, expand the notions of what’s possible.  I think my father appreciates my parental/gender journey because he’s just such a man. Either one (gay man father or straight). He’s 90 already, so if I don’t know now, I’ll probably never know which. His favorite answer to questions he can’t quite hear: “Probably.”


  • • Before I return to my day, here are some ditties from years past of topical interest:


Happy day, to one and all.

Comments { 5 }

Ninety

By on January 11, 2011 in Odes, Pops

pops@52
Pops at 52, Castro Valley, CA.

Today my Pops turns 90. He has outlived more family members than he ever expected to, including younger sister, wife, first grandson. For as long as I can remember, he’d say, regarding his projected longevity: “Live ’til ninety, then start counting.”

We’re hoping the counting will go on for quite some time.

I remember taking the picture above some 38 years ago with my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic. I was roving around taking portraits of every family member, bipedal and quadrupedal, that would hold still long enough to let me.  Most pictures were of my dog, and then later, landscapes on family trips. I remember that of all the family portrait subjects he was the most accomodating, but he had to get up and procure himself something to hold, so’s he was — I don’t know — more occupied. Kind of more official-seeming. I think he’s holding a baseball hat of mine. Hard to tell against the shouting-out-loud polyester cover we had on that couch.

Now he’s got a pugnacious Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition that bends the pinky and ring fingers in toward the palm. He would be able to hold that baseball cap now, but with a little more difficulty. Can’t play the piano anymore. When he remembers to put in his hearing aid, he is still never 100%. Whenever he knows he’s been asked a question, but didn’t quite hear its particulars, he answers, “Probably.” Which works pretty well in most circumstances. At a table with more than a few chatting people, he can make out that people are having a lively conversation, but often is challenged to identify exactly about what.

Continue Reading →

Comments { 9 }

Food for thought

By on May 13, 2010 in Mostly a picture, Pops

ohnoyoudont

…shouldn’t– shouldn’t– what?!

The boychild and Pops and I went to a cafe long a favorite in my home town — so long a favorite that it’s entirely likely that the inimitable Dr. Maddow supped there.  Okay no one sups there.  But maybe had a stack of pancakes there, or an omelette.  Over which she’s sure to have debated Middle East politics, unlike some of us, who were more likely to have been debating which band was greater, The Who or Led Zeppelin. Let me hastily head off at the pass any of you rapscallions about to note that she could probably debate that point with equal alacrity. I don’t need to dwell on these things.

(For those of you just tuning in, Dr. M hails from the same home town as me, thereby both putting it on the map and casting me more squarely in her long, tall shadow.) Continue Reading →

Comments { 10 }

Sweets for the sage

By on April 16, 2010 in Mostly a picture, Pops

sugar2

Out for brunch with DadDad at a local diner frequented by me mum, many years ago.  Therefore it’s a sentimental favorite.  Pops reaches for something to sweeten up his coffee, and contemplates the various colored packets containing faux sugar.

“Let’s see: blue, pink, or yellow?”  he asks no one in particular.  I see the sugar jar next to him and ask the obvious question.

“Why not go for the real thing, Pops? Heck, you’re 89.  I think you’re entitled to pull out all the stops now.”

He happily obliges, as the waitress approaches the table.  I repeat our exchange to her.

“Eighty-nine? What’s your secret?” she asks.

He considers the question for just a moment as he stirs.

“Get up in the morning.”

Comments { 6 }

A morning with DadDad

By on April 9, 2010 in Pops, Re: the lil' peanut, Sunrise Sunset file

Better for the moment not to intersperse these with words — which per usual I have more than enough of, though per usual often not enough time to share ‘em. The story that’s there is right fine and true. [Ed note #1: You could of course roll over the pictures for wee captions, though. You know, if you wanted. Don't have to.]

daddadenroute2

inthechair

peanut@doorNnotmoving
Continue Reading →

Comments { 7 }
← Older posts