a sweet dad story

t.c. and alicia, July 09

This was written exactly one year ago. (I've got your cake baked for tomorrow, Alicia. Happy Birthday!)

It's a sweet dad story:

"Tonight we had a family party for our daughter in law Alicia's birthday and everyone was here for supper. All the girls and daughter in laws were sitting at the big table in the family room and all the guys and loud children were outside on the patio.

The girls were talking about how much more fun it was to do errands with Dad than with me because he always says yes about Skittles, and usually about Mc Donalds. Heidi, age 24, said, "Whatever you ask for."

Then she continued, "If you asked him for $20 right now, he'd give it to you." Kari is 9, and she was a little skeptical whether he'd hand her twenty bucks.

Heidi said, "Probably not because you're a little kid, but if you told him *I* needed it, he would."

Kari went out to the patio and then came back to the family room. I said, "What did he say?"

She said, "He's getting his wallet."

A couple minutes later, he came to the room, extracting money from his wallet, and handed it to Heidi. She said, "I don't need this, but YOU get a hug." He was all baffled, and not sure if he was being laughed at, so she explained, arms wrapped around him. He put the money back in his wallet and wandered back to the patio shaking his head, laughing.

Also made me laugh--John insisted on frosting Alicia's birthday cake so that I could hold l.c. He ran the mixer while I poured in the milk one-handed, and he set about frosting the cake, even though I told him the layers were too warm.

Well sure, the butter melted on contact, layers wanted to slide. He kept spreading the frosting too thin and going over it too much, but I ignored the whole thing and then he said to put it in the freezer fast so it'd set up again.

We brought it up a couple hours later and this lumpy, disheveled cake sat there on the Fostoria cake plate, looking pretty funny. We'd told Alicia this story ahead of time, so she said nothing. We put candles on, sang, ate cake. Then she said quietly to John, "How come you didn't put any sprinkles on my cake?" Oh yes, fake innocence. He lit into the story of the melting and the sliding.

Time for bed. I attached a cute pic of Heidi and her dad, taken 20 years ago. Notice how they both are biting their lip in exactly the same way. love you, V"