Happy Father's Day!!!

I slept for 12 hours last night, by the way, and am now feeling ever so much the better. Yup, it's Pappy's Day, so call yer Pappy. ug,ug,ug... (is that how to spell a Popeye laugh phoenetically?).

My dad is a wonderful guy. And it took me a while to figure that out completely, because he's your garden-variety emotionally remote dad. My parents separated when I was seven years old, and so I grew up in the house with just me, my mom, and my sister. So I got very comfortable with girl-style communication patterns. Particularly Italian-girl style communication patterns, where you just say (or yell) everything you're thinking the second it comes into your head, pretty much. And my dad is a British-Swedish waspy kind of person who may tell you what he's thinking sometimes, but it would be really quite unusual for him to tell you what he's feeling. To underscore the point, two of the boyfriends I've brought home to meet the folks wondered, aloud, how my mother and father ever met, let alone got married and had two kids (it's an interesting story, actually, but it's for another time). Having to reconcile all these differences, it took me a while to understand how much my dad loves us. He really, truly loves us, he just shows us that with his available emotional vocabulary, which is so different from my mom's. When I declared a history/religious studies major, everyone told me that I was going to be eating cat food for the rest of my life except my dad. He thought it was really cool (which it was, quite frankly!). When I wanted to move to Iowa City, everyone in the family told me I was a nutjob except for my dad, who completely supported my decision. He understood that I doing what I needed to do to become a real adult, and an independent person. And over the years, I have felt his regard for me, and that he considers me to be a good daughter, and that he loves me. And I think he's a good dad, and I love him.

I gotta go to rehearsal now. Man, I can't wait till the shows open!
Love, K