Reading: Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Viewing: Manatees and hawks

Moving: A short swim and a walk on the beach, plus 30' on a stationary bike.

Learning: My saturation levels for my own family.

29 December 1999: My father

RDC and I expected my father and his girlfriend sometime in the afternoon on Tuesday. We thought we could go to a late lunch. Around 1:00 he called: they were in Lantana, had just eaten, and were on their way. We wolfed down sandwiches and went outside to wait for them. Waiting, we spotted hawks overhead and photographed them.

They arrived. I kissed my dad through the car window and let them park, and then finally got to meet Sheryl. CLH had told me she looks nice, like anybody's mother, and this is true. She also has fantastic hazel eyes. We agreed it's very nice to put a face to a name.

We just hung out at the house talking for a few hours. Years. Whatever. Sheryl was anxious to meet Blake, and even though he was timid and not the gregarious bird he is when comfortably cat-free at home, he perched agreeably and quietly on her shoulder and did not constantly scream, as her son's cockatiel did. Blake screams when he feels neglected, which is almost never--at (his own) home. In DMB's house, he could be in the same room with us but usually in his cage, which he didn't like but didn't scream at. Even though he wasn't as sweet and chattery as usual, she thought he was fine.

I was nervous about his being out on an inexperienced shoulder--inexperienced both in anti-feline vigilance and in being pooped on. "He's not really shoulder-trained," I warned Sheryl, "though he knows we don't want him to. It's just that I'm particularly anxious that he not poop on my almost stepmother." I saw her touch my father's leg at that point; I don't know if that was a good or a bad thing I said.

They gave me Angela's Ashes, 'Tis, and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and RDC fishing supplies. I should have thought of giving exact lists of books to people long long ago.

During their visit, DMB and JJT each came home from work. I told my father that JJT reminds me of my uncle JCW2, and my father rolled his eyes. "No no, I mean that in a good way. JCW2's nice attributes--the silver hair, the grin, the way he laughs." JJT sat down with us and I tried to start more general conversation by mentioning that JJT's son is in the Air Force. My father nodded and spoke of something else--although he was in the 101st Airborne Division himself. That didn't bode well for supper Wednesday night. But it would all be over in just over 24 hours.

When they left Tuesday evening, my father and I had agreed it that they would come for us Wednesday at 11. Blake woke me as usual and we got him breakfast and I returned to bed feeling extremely tense and unhappy. Tense about my father, stress from the extremely loud house, very little exercise, and in Florida for seven whole days and only one walk on the beach so far. So I went to the neighborhood's gym and worked out a bit, walked home feeling much better, showered, dressed, and sat on the couch with breakfast. RDC had eaten his and was downloading a patch for DMB's laptop (her computers get maintenance only during his visits) when the clock read 10:15.

The doorbell rang.

RDC and I gave each other stricken looks, but I, for one, should have stopped being incredulous by now. This time, though, I did have the ovaries to ask my father in what time zone, exactly, was it 11:00? He blinked in incomprehension. Whatever. We weren't ready yet--gee I wonder why--which annoyed my father, loitering in his wife-beater t-shirt, but by the time we were ready, download complete and beach bag packed, it was still before 11. I would have been ready earlier still but for fluttering awkwardly hostessing them.

So the four of us went to the beach and hung there for a couple of hours. There on my father's arms you can see bits of his tattoos. I know them so well, but they were different. "Did you get your tattoos retouched?" I asked. They've been big blue blurs for most of my life. He had, but only two of the three. He got his "Mom" (right bicep) retouched and his 101st Screaming Eagle (left), but not his first name on his left forearm. I don't know if he's parceling out the painful process or if he just has his priorities.

I swam, not very long because of leaving RDC alone with them. Then we went to lunch at a place RDC remembered for its locale, right on the intercoastal, not for its food. The drive and then the parking lot provided lots of fodder for my father's kindly statements about geriatric Florida drivers.

Speaking of his prejudices. Tuesday afternoon, when they were in the house after JJT came home and was sitting with us, I was trying to get him involved in this hosting family and he managed to turn bridging comments I made back toward himself. He also asked about the house in Old Lyme and about our then-neighbors--interested queries about this family and that and then whether "that black family" was still there. At this point his girlfriend asked in surprise, "You lived next door to a black family?"
He declared, "I was there first."
I implored, "Dad, must you?"
He defended, "I'm not a racist! I just think they should have theirs and we should have ours."
"Can we please change the subject?" But he had to rant about miscegenation first and how God didn't intend it--this from a man who probably would say he believes in God but who is, in my experience, wholly without religion, and who here invoked his culture's primary god solely to weight his words and not out of faith. "When crows and seagulls mate, then I'll rethink my position."

JJT had by this time gone outside to have a cigarette. I think I wanted one. I had said I wanted to change the subject and I didn't point out this logic of his was a statement of false analogy. Perhaps I shall write him to point out that we are all the same species, unlike crows and seagulls, and that this is why I dread his company.

So anyway, there at the beach were several different species of bird, none of whom showed signs of interspecies romance, which probably strengthened his position in his own mind.

So there we were at lunch with someone who denies his racism (and other chauvinisms) and insists on calling Muhammad Ali "Cassius Clay," by which logic women who take their husbands' names inscribe every subsequent signature illegally. The parking lot of the Banana Boat was crowded and seemed more so as the season's decrepit visitors jockeyed for positions closest to the door. I feel enough at loose ends here, not knowing the area, and once we got in I felt guiltier because this restaurant was loud, loud with people, loud with its radio, and right next door to an intercoastal bridge being repaired. Construction crews were driving in piles. At Chinese water torture intervals would come a tremendous BANG. Service crawled. The food, when it arrived, was okay, and even the noise I thought might be a benefit. "Think of how quiet the house will seem tonight by comparison."

One thing made the lunch worthwhile. Actually five. I was gazing out over the water when--"Look! Manatees!" They crest like dolphins, humping their backs. They have huge tails--oh, so that's how they can handle the ocean currents; I had wondered. There were three that time and two a short while later. The only manatee I ever saw before was in Sea World, also with my father, 21 years ago.

After lunch they dropped us off, saying they'd be back at 7 (we'd expect them at 6:15). Sometime in the later afternoon I warned RDC's sister about my father's prejudices and she asked if I was asking her not to say anything.

On the way to a family lunch with a boyfriendish fellow once, he alerted me to a family friend's prejudice and asked that I not respond to her. He was angry that I wouldn't agree to say nothing. Silence = Death, and silence is unspoken approbation or at the least impartiality. I told him if I might not speak, I would leave the table, but I wouldn't sit and listen to hate as if it didn't bother me. I don't ask anyone not to speak their minds, and I remembered that incident when JJC asked me to clarify myself.

My mentioning it at all did seem like an unspoken question. I'm glad she called me on it; I was probably being dishonest to ask it. "No, I don't want you to say nothing. I wouldn't want anyone to do that. I guess I just wanted to let you know ahead of time." I must have asked for the same reason I was once asked, partly in warning and partly to nip righteousness in the bud. JJC's question brought me to my senses. Whatever is convenient is not what is right. I am glad I responded to her differently than the old bf did to me.

The evening wasn't as awkward as I had dreaded. Sheryl enjoyed meeting Blake again, the non-screaming cockatiel, and she was the other person entranced by the weird Persian. Let me amend that to the cockatiel who doesn't scream if he's getting his own way. Taz was still talking and had added the new diversion of saying "Hi Blake!" in RDC's voice and "Blake is a pretty bird" in Blake's own whistling voice. Dinner for eight was crowded and conversation was bifurcated, Houlihans at one end and everyone else at the other. My father grew up with four older siblings and might once have been used to such commotion, but even so I am sure his parents ran a much tighter ship than this.

I relaxed as soon as they left.