Thursday, December 18, 2003
Happy Birthdad
We left around 6:30 in the evening and the sky was very dark. Rain soaked our roads for at least three hours, by which time we were in San Benito County or some damn thing. At midnight-thirty we finally rolled up to the door of our Santa Barbara motel, which was locked, so we checked in next door and went to a no-frills room with an interior window that looked down into the small lobby where breakfast would be served in six hours.
The next morning broke clear and we got up early, ran for a few miles along the edge of the beach, had a light continental breakfast (from the lobby it was obvious that the window to our room would have divulged our every intimacy were it left unshuttered), and drove down to LA, or really to the valley - off the 101 in Woodland Hills and along Ventura Boulevard all the way to Universal Studios, then up Lankersheim to Magnolia and back to Woodman, to Ventura, to a lovely bistro where my dad was having his 70th birthday party.
About 40 celebrants were there, even some old relatives I hadn’t seen in 15 years. Many toasts were given - including two by my step-nephew: 8-3/4 years old, he insisted on making the first toast and, later, on re-toasting to a chorus of “I Went to the Animal Fair,” which we all sang with gusto, flutes of Schramsberg raised aloft. Lunch was delicious and served with perfect unction. It was a source of general amusement that the curiously canvas-roofed room contained a brick alcove with a tannenbaum, a santa figurine, and a stack of faux gifts, lending a festive yule spirit to the Rabbi’s party. It was a matter of more limited amusement (limited mainly to Kel and me I think) that the restaurant was playing rockin’ favorites as background music, which resulted in some ironic pairings - as Dad got up to speak his piece, he was accompanied by Jumpin’ Jack Flash (neither does he jump nor flash, and I don’t even want to think about the rest of it); when I stood for my toast I was accompanied by Nights in White Satin, the propriety of which remains subject to debate. One nice touch was the centerpieces on the several tables - stacks of four or five childrens’ books wrapped in colored cellophane so the titles could be read - good selections, great tabledressing, brilliant idea - to donate them all after the party to a local elementary school where Connie volunteers. Dad was never a flowery centerpiece kind of guy anyway, and books seem to be to be a better choice than firearms, which would probably have been Dad’s second choice if not his first.
After lunch we went back to Dad’s and Con’s place, as did Evi and Scott, to change, redistribute, and take leave - Evi and Scott, to Riverside and then home to Flagstaff; Kel and me, back up the 5 to Bay City. We were on the road at 4:20; by 6 it was very dark and clouds choked the sky, a heavy mist miasmized on our windshield… but once we got through it, way out in the valley where you see nothing but geometry, even in daylight, time slipped past quickly. Kel took over the driving for the run over the 152 to Gilroy and thence to the 101 and home, which worked fine for me. By then the clouds had lifted, or we’d left them behind, and the moon had come out, brilliantly full and low in the sky, casting a perfectly cromulent light that divulged every gully and rise as we climbed into oak-studded mountains, steep and rugged, entirely revealed even to our weak human eyes in the delicate reflected light of that impassive moon, as all the natural creatures of earth rejoiced in the profusion of illumination at night, and I passenged through it all with impugnity as if I’d earned or even deserved it, sitting on my heated pleather seat and watching the planet rotate beneath our wheels, and the mountains gave way to farms and suburbs and actual urbs, and we connected to the 280 and sped through the dark forested valley of quakes, until we got home eventually and I went to sleep.
MORAL: If your dad didn’t have a birthday, chances are, neither would you.
