Is That The Shirt You're Wearing

by Kristen Brakeman

  “Sounds like snow,” he said, without making me feel like an idiot.

  So often, like when I have a question about gardening or something that needs fixing, I reach for the phone to call him even though he’s been gone for over two years. It seems like I have this urge even more now than I did when he was alive.

  Sometimes I want to hear his reaction to something funny or a story in the news. Even in his final months, though tethered to oxygen, he stayed connected to current events and politics.

  After seeing the final Harry Potter movie with Peyton, my first thought was that I wished my dad could have seen it. He would have loved it. He read the whole series, probably because he wanted to find out what had so captivated four of his grandchildren.

  Now, when I go to my mom’s house I like to look at my dad’s bookshelf to see what books appealed to him. I like to read books that I know he read and once held. When I take my kids to visit my mom later today, I plan to borrow a book of his for my vacation.

  There’s a tendency to canonize people after they die, which I understand more now. It’s not that I don’t remember the bad things - my dad and mom bickering, his harsh reprimands, and the shame I felt when he caught me kissing a boy in front of our house “where the neighbors could see” - it’s just that those memories take a back seat to the good ones.

  As a child of older parents, I would sometimes lie in bed at night and worry about them dying prematurely. I would worry that they wouldn’t get to see me graduate or meet my future husband or children. Sometimes I’d even imagine that they had died and practiced what it would feel like. I suppose I thought that would make it easier when it really happened someday.

  It didn’t.

  Grandpa

  My grandfather died when I was only five. I barely knew him or knew anything about him really. Any effort to find out more never panned out because my dad never wanted to talk about him. Maybe it was too hard, I don’t know.

  So when my dad died, I decided that I’d write down what I knew about him in case my kids ever had the same questions.

  Grandpa was born in Los Angeles to a tile setter and a housewife, the only child of three to survive childhood. As a teenager during World War II, he dutifully enlisted in the Navy and served on a destroyer in Japanese waters where he saw the flag raised at Iwo Jima. He smoked and swore like the sailor he was. After his service, he attended UCLA where one day a new girl was added to his carpool. He and his best friend, Jim, decided that if she was pretty she could sit up front with them. Naturally, Grandma did.

  They married and after heeding her request to quit swearing, had five dynamic and stunningly attractive children. He worked for JPL/NASA for over forty years, on projects that furthered our knowledge of our solar system. His second home was the church down the street, spending his leisure hours in its service. But these are just the facts. There’s more to know.

  Grandpa was a genius who knew the answer to most every question ever asked. The ones he didn’t know, he researched and got back to you.

  Grandpa was a funny, dry-witted man who loved all types of humor, from the clever wordplay of Ogden Nash to the silly antics of Monty Python. He was especially fond of the Dead Parrot routine.

  Grandpa was an old-fashioned parent and a strict disciplinarian, but one who softened with age, relaxing his rules on vegetable consumption, and even rewarding his youngest children with a swimming pool and a puppy.

  Grandpa was an original do-it-yourselfer who single- handedly added two bedrooms and a bathroom to his house, working on the projects only at night and on the weekends.

  Grandpa was a proud liberal and a UCLA Bruin fan, yet his best friends were often Trojan alums and Republicans.

  Grandpa was a master of dark humor, who when ordered by your aunt to do a daily check-in with his grandchildren while she was out of town, did so by sending an email: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

  Grandpa was as logical as a Vulcan, ever the realist, who only a few weeks before his death inquired as to the due date of his first great-grandchild by asking, “When is my replacement arriving?”

  Grandpa was a fixer and a doer, a quick draw with a pocketknife, the family’s go-to guy for defeating the excessive packaging of toys on Christmas morning.

  Grandpa was not a hugger, nor an “I love you” sayer, and was quite often suspicious of those who engaged wantonly in these activities. He instead showed his love with his attentiveness and his actions.

  Grandpa delighted in funny tombstones. His favorite was one that read, “I Told You I Was Sick!” If only Grandma would have allowed us to use it.

  Grandpa was a stickler for good grammar who wouldn’t hesitate to return a letter or an email with spelling errors or bad punctuation brought to the attention of its sender. So disturbed by the incorrect use of adverbs he would even correct the speech of nurses at the hospital. When admonished to “Walk slow,” he would bark at the worker, “Slowly! Walk slowly!”

  Grandpa was a sucker for babies, a big softie whose face would get a giant goofy grin on it whenever he got the chance to hold one of his grandchildren.

  Grandpa loved you and your cousins. He took pride

  in your every accomplishment and interest, whether it was a mastery of computers, a flair for the artistic, a devotion to animals, an academic feat, or even your enjoyment of softball or video games.

  Grandpa was a caring friend, a devoted husband, and a loving father.

  Grandpa was, quite simply, a good man.

  2 weeks, 2 days left

  We leave tomorrow at o-six hundred. I never thought that I’d say that and really mean it. The kids are simply thrilled about getting up early. I stocked up on every kind of junk food I could think of for the long drive. Hopefully that will ease their pain.

  When I was putting the grocery bags in my hatch at the market, a man pulled up in his car and rolled down his window to yell something at me. It’s funny, there was a time in my life when men would slow down their cars to yell lewd comments. Now they yell out offers to fix the dents in my Volvo for cheap. I declined his kind proposal, but strangely I still got a bit of an ego boost out of it. I guess you take what you can get.

  We’re pretty much packed and ready, but I have to drop Buddy at the doggie boarding place this afternoon. Barry agreed to house sit and pet sit for us, but when I called him to go over the details I discovered a small problem. His intention was to drop by each day at noon to let Buddy out, feed him, and then put him back inside for the night. Um, Barry, that’s not going to work. I had a good laugh imagining what our house would look and smell like after Buddy was inside for 24 hours. Barry only has cats, a fact that has never been more obvious.

  Samantha asked to come with me when I drop off Buddy at the boarders. She wants to say goodbye and make sure he’s comfortable. We picked this place based on the ads showing pictures of happy dogs swimming in a bone-shaped swimming pool. Buddy doesn’t like to swim, but we felt better having him stay in a vacation-like atmosphere.

  I’m not letting Peyton come along for the ride even if she asks. I’m still grumpy with her after what she said to me this morning. She was hanging out by the shower again and making fun of all the moles I have on my stomach. So I told her that I got most of them when I was pregnant, the growth hormones being to blame.

  Then she said to me, “I don’t ever want to have kids.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Because you get moles and you’re irritated all the time.” I get the thing about the moles. But why would she say

  the second part?

  Your Vitamin Water Angers Me

  Paying for luxuries like food and electricity requires me to take jobs on the west side of town, which can mean a painful hour and a half commute. The only way I survive it is by listening to my favorite drive-time radio DJ’s. It’s silly humor but I like it. Unfortunately, my enjoyment is often interrupted by the same insipid radio ad.

  I shouldn’t let it get under my skin.
I should just reach over and change the channel. But like when you drive past a grisly accident scene and you know you shouldn’t look, but you do anyway, I feel compelled to listen. Besides, I don’t want to miss a moment of the daily Showbiz Beat.

  The ad I’m referring to is for vitamin water, of all things

  - something innocuous, something that could potentially help me, but instead so infuriates me that I’m surprised I haven’t had a massive coronary right there on the freeway.

  The ad starts with a young woman introducing herself, something like “Hi, I’m Bambi blah blah. You know me as blah blah on the blah blah show.”

  Stop right there, Bambi. The fact that you have to say, “You know me from . . .” is a pretty good indicator that I won’t have any idea who you are. It’s a show business fact that if you have to explain who you are, then clearly you are not a real celebrity.

  So instantly, I’m peeved. Then Bambi goes on to extol the virtues of her vitamin water, and concludes by telling us that, “If we want more information, including exclusive behind-the- scenes content, then go to www-dot …” you get the idea.

  Seriously? “Behind-the-scenes content” from the vitamin water company?

  Of what, poorly paid workers gathering water from a well? Or perhaps the exciting goings on at the water-processing plant where the water is poured into bottles, then sent down the assembly line on a conveyor belt where puffs of vitamins are dumped in before the caps are firmly attached?

  Or, better yet, do we get to see the vitamin water office workers in their cubicles, diligently crunching numbers a few feet away from the conference room where suited professionals are making brilliant decisions like, “Hey, let’s hire an unknown spokeswoman to hawk our water and then offer ridiculous behind-the-scenes content on the internet. People will love it!”

  What else could the behind-the-scenes content be? It’s vitamin water, after all!

  Are tiny fairies making the water at a secret spa in the Himalayas? Are they the ones adding the magical concoction of vitamins to the water before lovingly sending it on its way? If so, I’ll log on.

  Better yet, I’d like to see behind-the–scenes footage of workers filling the bottles with tap water in the bathroom. Now that would be entertaining.

  For weeks I wondered if there were really vitamin water groupies out there, inexplicably fascinated by the vitamin water process or if it’s another case of corporate hubris at work - the same kind of mentality that prompted the Gas Company to suggest that I follow them on Twitter. Yeah, that’s right. Check your bill.

  So finally, I had to do it: I clicked on the vitamin water

  link.

  Turns out that the behind-the-scenes content is footage of this unknown spokeswoman at a photo shoot, wearing not much more than the vitamin water.

  Oh. Now I understand. That vitamin water girl wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to the 20-year-old males who possibly know who she is . . . the ones who presumably are listening to my favorite radio disc jockeys.

  Which can mean only one thing: my morning radio show is geared for people half my age.

  I don’t care. I’m still not turning the channel.

  2 weeks till school starts

  The 10-hour drive wasn’t that bad. It felt like eight. We really were out the door at 6:00AM. The cat was annoyed by our morning ruckus. “Verr are you stoopid people go at dis hour? And more important, who vill feed me? You know I crap all over house when you gone.” Yes, we know.

  The girls were too tired to complain for the first half of the drive. Instead they zoned out listening to whatever was on their headsets. I brought a bunch of activity books and DVDs for Peyton. But my husband really likes the kids to appreciate the scenery so I held off on offering up a DVD until after lunch. Then, when I went to set it up, it turned out that he had forgotten a key cable. “Look at the scenery,” he told the kids. “You don’t need to watch a DVD.” And he calls me passive-aggressive.

  Without the doping effect of the DVDs to rely on, I had to go into high-energy cruise-director-mode for the second half of the drive. “Kids, would you look at those interesting rocks? You can tell that they’re volcanic by the porous nature of the

  . . . Apricot wine? Why, I’ve never heard of that before. Have you, kids? Oh look, an earthworm factory! And they have tours. Anyone want to stop? Wow, I have never seen so many beautiful trees. Have you ever seen so many beautiful trees?”

  “They look like the same trees we’ve been staring at for the last five hours,” they collectively grouched.

  I silently agreed.

  Lake Inferior

  Driving the last mile to our lake vacation, we saw a sign warning us of a “Major Deer Area.” Turned out, they weren’t kidding. There were deer everywhere - deer on the street, deer grazing on the golf course, deer on the front lawn of our rental house - the place was teeming with deer.

  Those adorable creatures were exactly what my car full of catatonic children needed after a torturous 10-hour travel day, a day that kicked off a summer vacation few of us wanted to take. Since school was starting soon, our kids lobbied hard to spend the remaining weeks of summer at home. They certainly didn’t want to embark on a long drive to a place they had never heard of before a month ago.

  But I refused to skip our annual summer vacation. I believe it’s mandated in the parental rulebook that kids need a fun-filled summer vacation. My kids were going to take a fun- filled summer vacation whether they liked it or not.

  “Look at the deer and the beautiful tall trees and the gorgeous lake!” I commanded. The kids obliged, and surprisingly, seemed pretty happy about what they saw. It wasn’t the dried up mud hole surrounded by banjo-playing rednecks like they imagined. Instead this lakeside setting was truly beautiful.

  One of the first things on our agenda was to explore the beauty at nearby Mt. Lassen, an active volcano that last erupted back in 1917. So after a night in our dilapidated 1970’s themed cabin and a morning spent hearing whining about the lack of internet (mostly from me), we threw the kids back in the car and headed to Mt. Lassen to do some hiking.

  Now, I hate hiking. My kids hate hiking. But my husband is fascinated by all things volcanic and he was hell-bent on seeing these thermal mud pots. Hiking was the only way to get to them. (I believe one must have give and take on family vacations. Later I would insist on dinner at a fancy lakeside restaurant because, well, I went hiking.)

  I was surprised by the beauty of the Mt. Lassen area. It wasn’t volcanic appearing or barren at all, but rather full of tall trees and lime-green grassy meadows sprinkled with yellow wildflowers. There were so many pretty meadows that I was inspired to sing “The Sound of Music,” theme until my youngest child insisted that I stop.

  We learned that Mt. Lassen was not one volcano that blew its top. Instead, the whole area is made up of volcanoes. You could say it was teeming with volcanoes.

  Oddly enough, I enjoyed hiking to the bubbling thermal mud pots even though I was preoccupied with fear that my children would slip on the still-snowy trail, slide down the hill, and inevitably end up inside the bubbling thermal mud-pots.

  We came across other hikers who apparently knew about the slippery trail, for they had hiking clothes, boots and poles while we were foolishly adorned in shorts, tank tops and fashionable Converse. I got the distinct feeling that these overly- prepared hikers were looking down on us for our citified ways. I half expected one of them to say, “You’re not very bright, are you?”

  The best part about our hike was that our girls were genuinely having fun, laughing and throwing snowballs at one another. Their faces were flushed with excitement like they are after a fast ride at Disneyland. But here they were on a nature high.

  For the next couple days we soaked up more nature. We swam and relaxed by the lake. We rented a pontoon boat, the minivan of boats, so we could better explore. As we filled out the boat contract I told the worker that I thought her lake was much prettier than Lake Tahoe, a couple hours
to the south. She looked at me in disdain. It was as if I had compared my Big Mac to her Kobe beef. I also got the distinct feeling that she and other locals didn’t want anyone to know about the beauty of their lake. I got that feeling when they said, “Don’t tell anyone about our beautiful lake.”

  We spent hours towing the kids on rafts, giving them thrill rides from the boat. It seemed strange that one day I was needlessly worried about them falling into a boiling mud pot, then another I’m throwing them into an eighty-foot deep lake and trying to get them to wipe out from our speeding boat.

  The girls had a blast pushing each other off the end of the boat and swimming together in the lake. It was so nice to see them enjoying each other. As we lay side by side on the boat after lunch, I had what’s been called the quintessential perfect moment. We were surrounded by such incredible beauty. For that moment everyone was happy.

  As I laid there I realized that this trip had been better than any we had taken together, but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because our expectations were so low? Something about being in this beautiful setting with the blue skies and the tall trees, and away from the constant pull of friends, activities and the internet, made it all so perfect. I wanted to freeze time and stay on that lake forever.

  Back in the cabin later I started considering moving to our lakeside paradise. As we watched the local news I became even more convinced. Instead of seeing reports of drive-by gang shootings and celebrity scuffles with paparazzo, we saw stories about lake water levels and local fishing festivals. Though the kids weren’t too pleased when we happened on a local outdoor channel and saw a hunter crouched over a slain buck. They were horrified, as was I. Drive-by shootings we could handle, but kill Bambi and we’re devastated.