Hide and go seek

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!  I bought my dad a sentimental card, thanking him for being such a great dad throughout my life, and mailed it out last week sometime.

I am hugely indebted to my dad.  I understand that a parent’s job is to be there for his children, and to do whatever it takes to make sure they have the best opportunities in life.  I guess I have so much respect for my dad since he fought so hard to gain custody of us, and to do the best he could when he himself wasn’t raised in a traditional household.  When my real parents divorced when I was two, he really wanted to be given custody of us, but the courts weren’t keen on a man having custody in the early 80s.  Finally when my real mom relented and allowed us to go live with him, he informed my soon-to-be (step)mom that if she didn’t want to marry him right then, that she would have to hit the road.  He didn’t want to be dating and trying to be a dad at the same time.  Of course, my mom took him up on his offer, and they were married something like six weeks later.

Tomorrow is my parents’ 23rd wedding anniversary, which amazes me every time I think about it.  It hasn’t been an easy road for any of us, least of all the two of them.  They had to learn to be parents to a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old, juggle full-time naval careers (they were both officers), and figure out how to be a married couple all at the same time.  Not only that, they were hoping to have children together, and when that didn’t pan out, they adopted my brother.  Now a baby was added to the mix.

It got really complicated at times, and I’m sure my dad didn’t make all the right decisions.  But I know, without a shadow of a doubt, he did the very best he could with the tools he had available to him.  And because of him, I got in the gifted & talented program at all my elementary schools.  I was given piano and cello lessons.  I went to Space Camp after I informed my parents that I wanted to be an astronaut.  When my school discontinued their gifted program, they found other gifted programs so I wouldn’t get bored and give up on school.  I went to Kenya on a mission trip with my church when I was 17, and six months later, I went to Italy with my school as a graduation present.  My father picked up the bill for most of my college tuition, leaving me to pay only for my books and a small portion of my tuition.  I was also given a home that was stable and safe.  We always had enough food, I always had nice clothes to wear to school, I was always warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  I even had use of one of our vehicles once I got my license!

Had I not spent twelve years of my life living with my father, my life would have been so different.  I probably would have given up on school, not having the opportunities to stretch my abilities, and I probably wouldn’t have gone to college.  My entire life that I enjoy right now would be an impossibility.

So yeah.  I definitely am thankful for my dad.

And what of the other dad in my life??  I was pretty awful to Kurt today.  Not only did I not get him a gift, I forgot even to buy him a card!  He assures me he’s not mad that I didn’t get him a card or a gift, so I have to believe him.  To be fair, we think Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is a bit on the goofy side when you’re buying gifts for spouses.  We both are more excited by gifts that our children will be making for us in the future than whatever we can buy for each other now.

I am sort of annoyed that the preschool had Grace make me a present for Mother’s Day, yet they seemed to have forgotten about Father’s Day!  Definitely not cool.

To be fair, Kurt didn’t get me a physical gift for Mother’s Day.  He took me out to brunch and then to a baseball game, which was absolutely awesome.  What Kurt really wanted for Father’s Day was quite simple — a trip to Hooters for lunch, as well as a trip to the Chinese buffet later in the week.

Whoever said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach was absolutely correct!!

So off to Hooters we went!!  Now, I know a lot of women have objections to that restaurant, and I totally understand why.  However, Kurt couldn’t care less who was serving him his wings, as long as they have that delicious Three Mile Island hot sauce covering them.  And being Father’s Day, he got a full twenty-piece with a side of curly fries and two cups of bleu cheese — his absolute favorite meal.  In fact, if I were to start talking about it right this moment, he’d yell at me for making his mouth water again!

I got a buffalo chicken sandwich with their Hot buffalo sauce; the Three Mile Island is just too hot for me.  The last time we went, my sandwich was pretty gross, swimming in grease.  But this time it was perfect!!  And the chicken was perfectly spicy and perfectly hot, right out of the fryer.  It was huge, and it filled me up, but I wish it could have gone on forever.  That’s how good it was!

The uniforms those Hooters girls crack me up, honestly.  They haven’t changed one bit in the twenty-five years that restaurant has existed!  The same shiny orange short-shorts, the same white tank top, the same required shiny pantyhose, the same white slouch socks.  It makes me giggle because that’s pretty much the exact uniform my real mom used to wear, back when she worked at the now-defunct O’Hara’s Disco By the Sea — only her shorts were green and her shirt featured a shamrock logo.  And that was twenty-odd years ago!

So an excellent time was had by all, especially since Kurt took me to Kohl’s after lunch.  We even visited a really awesome Korean-Japanese grocery that I absolutely adored.  I was able to get some new hot pepper paste for my bulgogi (Korean bbq beef), some hot pepper powder to add to my spice cabinet, rice seasoning with seaweed, an enormous container of ground ginger for just $3.50 (probably ten times the amount you get when you buy it at an American grocery), two boxes of mabo tofu sauce, and some ginger tea.  I only wish I could read Korean so I would know what more things were!

One day I am going to make my best friend teach me some Korean.