you can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.

when my dad was young he pretended to hate elvis. pshaw, he scoffed. what's the big fuss about? later, he admitted to me that he'd just been jealous because the girls were so crazy for elvis. in flipping through my dad's old high school yearbooks, it seems that the girls were pretty crazy for him too, and the style he rocked was most definitely along the king's lines. and i don't mean white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit elvis, but the slick, young greaser, the elvis in blue jeans.

by the time i was a little girl, my dad had gotten over the stigma of liking elvis and no longer hid his full blown admiration of and devotion to the king. Rather, my dad embraced elvis as a hero, as someone who could animate his serious self to dancing in the car, pounding the dashboard as he drove and poking me with a big smile. in this way, i cannot think of elvis without thinking of my dad. fondly.

this morning i walked into pop's popular clothing, looking for some work boots. early saturday morning. bleak january sidewalks covered with a thin layer of treacherous ice and most of the roll down gates still locked down tight. the owner of the disorganized warehouse of a store turned elvis on the stereo and announced "the king would have been 76 years old today!" he looked an awful lot like my dad. and it made me smile.

put the lights on the tree

you know i'm not much of a scrooge. in fact, i'm pretty sure if you look up scrooge in the dictionary, you will find 'opposite of kitty joe ste-marie' listed somewhere in there. yet this year we decided not to have our annual christmas tree decorating party, nor even get a tree. this year has just been too much, we declared. but considering i will cross the street just to walk through a sidewalk christmas tree sale, happily inhaling the smell of christmas, and especially being that there is one such seed of temptation across the street from my apartment--it was too much for me to resist. and anyway, kitty without a tree--it's just too hov-y for me. suddenly, with my dad in town, i found time to do it up right. it was saturday night. we decided to forgo the 1920's costume hawaiian steel guitar swing party (poor dad) for a quiet evening home resting his shins. i brewed a pot of ikea christmas tea (those swedes know a thing or two about 'white christmas!), donned the felt santa hat and cranked up the 'home for the holidays' record box set i found at the salvation army compound in healdsburg. it was perfect. and now i'm so happy. so for those of you who missed the private showing, you're welcome to come on over. finals are over on thursday (!) and it'll be a blue christmas without you...

welcome to brooklyn, dad

my dad is flying somewhere over michigan right now, en route to new york. have i mentioned ten times here that my dad has never set foot in any of my last four homes? which is to say, that he's never been to new york. this is a consequence of moving halfway across the world that i never considered--opting out of the dad's home improvement help that my local sisters got. hey dad, i know you've got like, only four days, but how 'bout checking out this crumbling tin ceiling in the kitchen?
i'm excited to show him around, because, like me (probably not a coincidence, as i am his flesh and blood), my dad is totally fascinated by everything, and he loves to talk and brag about his trips. so i feel all pressured to give him something to brag about. i leave that task to new york city. i guess it's a pretty impressive place all on its own without me even trying. but also, there's the fact that i owe all of my impressive reputation as a tour guide to this man en route on an airplane, who tirelessly toured every foreign exchange student in the state of california (whether or not they 'belonged' to us) to see every beach, drive through redwood tree and beautiful back road in northern california over and over and over, until i, as a child, rolled my eyes and said, "we're going to armstrong grove (which is now on my top five places in the world to be) AGAIN!?"
after much brain wracking i've decided to keep it simple and classic tourist. after all, it's his first time in new york. gotta see times square and rock center. and eat bagels, and pierogis and knishes and turkish food and thai food. dad, did you pack the tums?
seriously though, this trip will mark the first time that my dad is on my turf, which may be strange for someone who 'knows everything', who just happened to spawn another human who 'knows everything' (that would be me).
this featured note was a reminder to me the last time i visited california and borrowed a car of my dad's that almost made me cry with laughter. really dad--have you forgotten that i grew up late nights in the garage pumping the brakes and helped build that mgb? can change a tire. DEFINITELY know what a dip stick looks like and how to check the oil! love the drawing though. and the fact that my dad's handwriting is the only specimen of penmanship on the planet that is worse than my own.