Meet the Parent

Last weekend I decided that maybe it was time for Ali to meet my dad. We went over to my dad's girlfriend's place and were promptly met by the dog. Stupid dog. Obviously when a dog barks for no apparent reason, a responsible owner will open the window upstairs and shout at the dog to shut up. We were standing under the eaves so there was no way for Dad to see us, but I could see his arm flailing out the window at the dog that doesn't know better.

"Bob?"

"Who's there?"

Normally, most dads would know their kids if their kids actually called them Dad. Bart Simpson calls his dad Homer voluntarily, but my dad has a rule. I have to call him Bob. I forget the reason why, that's just the way it is.

"Hi Bob! It's Dax."

"You drove? It's Shabat."

At this point I realized it probably wasn't the best day to wear my "I [magen David] Shiksas" t-shirt, but it matched so well with my 2nd-year-med-school-dropout scrubs.

"I brought someone to meet you."

[to the kid brother]"Go open the door, your brother's here to visit you", which is so totally not what I said but that's what Bob heard. The kid didn't answer the door, so Bob came down. He's looking more and more like Tevi every day.

"You should call before you come", yeah like he'd answer the phone on Shabat.

"We stopped by the store to see your girlfriend. She said it would be okay if we came over to take photos of the tree house. Oh, this is Ali."

"Hello."

"Humpf!" (or something similar) as he turned and walked away. Maybe it was the t-shirt, maybe we interrupted a really good session of Age of Empires, maybe Bob's just sore these days, or maybe its the whole med school thing but that was pretty much all he said to Ali and that's pretty much all he ever will say.

Surprise! Grandma came from China, and now she's here to look after Bob looking after the kid and make sure there are no more woodcutting incidents. And there we were, three people standing in the kitchen - one who can't speak English and doesn't really have anything good to say about Japanese people, one who doesn't speak Mandarin and is super nervous anyway, and me. My Mandarin's not so hot these days, and I had to fumble through anything past accepting a cup of tea, but we managed. We waited for the pause to get just long enough to signal an end to the conversation and we snuck out the back door into the garden.

The kid was already up the tree opening the shutters on his tree house. Fucking tree mansion, more like. This made the tree house Bob built when I was a kid look like a shack. For starters, the new tree house had a roof. Mine didn't, and without a roof there was no need for windows. The new tree house has a second floor, and a wrap around balcony. And the whole thing was made with solid materials (except for the ladder, which isn't really part of the tree house, kinda like tyres aren't really part of a car), and fully wired. The kid has his own entertainment centre up there. He's like 9, so its nothing fancy but I was impressed. We asked whether the floors were heated or if Bob had installed central heating. As usual, the kid didn't appreciate our sense of humour. Six or seven photos later and it was a wrap.

We thanked Grandma for the tea, took care not to run over the stupid dog and drove as fast as we could away from there. I felt bad for Grandma, she had never seen Baby before and at first insisted that I had simply stolen Sissy's Jeep - but when we were leaving she came out and waved us off. She's only been back for a few weeks, and already she's looking for excuses to get out of the house away from Bob.

And so it happens every spring - birthdays galore. Next week is the birthday party for my aunt. We're gonna go, and maybe Ali will have a better experience meeting the rest of that side of the family. Maybe.