Father, Daughter, Sister, Cats and Dogs

[captainsblog]

Yesterday turned into a very relaxing and fulfilling Father’s Day. From a walk in the Parp! to a Met game to a lot of memories, my heart is full and so will this post be when I finally get around to ending it after a long day of travel.

The Dog Park visit  was our first since I saw this cringe worthy posting on their semiofficial Facebook page:



Um, yeah, I mean, I guess?!?

After a nice couple of trips around the path, we then headed back home to an odd and unrequited random act of kindness.

We Smart car owners are a dying breed, as Mercedes has removed them from the US market. When I see one, I always wave at the driver and usually get one back: from the lady with the yellow BEESMART I sometimes see at the library, to any fellow red one.

A few are used for promos: Moses Insurance has one in the village, which I think used to be a Smart ForThree before he dropped the third seat. But then there's this liquor store on the Boulevard. Its Smart ForTwo is tricked out as an EMERGENCY BOOZE DELIVERY VEHICLE. As someone who's approaching his 1,000th One Day At A Time in recovery, but more importantly someone whose oldest sister's premature death was hastened by a Seaford liquor store's fast free delivery, I've never smiled at this sight. Since there's probably a DON'T JUDGE in those steps somewhere, I've never called them out on it, either.

Here's what I DID call them about: as the dog and I returned from the Parp!, traffic slowed near their business and I saw their decorated "emergency" car's front license plate was hanging by one screw. I am quite familiar with this phenomenon, since JARVIS has routinely been dangling his front plate every few months, more recently weeks. So I took a moment to look up their number and call to tell them. The woman who answered couldn't have been less impressed or appreciative of my effort to be kind.

If that had been that, I'd have held this post until my next drive over there, to see if they'd fixed it or, better, it had fallen off. Instead, this is what I got to see when I went out to put something in my own Smart car in our driveway:



Eleanor kindly showed me where the lock washers are. I eventually figured out that someone other than me had previously tried to screw the plate back on- our regular mechanic?, the dealer?, a tire store?- and replaced it with a screw that was not short and fat enough. We found a more suitable one and I screwed it in along with the lock washer. No, I will not be dropping off any of them or any more advice at the liquor store.

——

I then put out a general inquiry about whether there is even such a thing anymore as an eBay auction.

That's what the site started out as, introducing terms like "sniping" and "bid protect" to the glossary beyond their dot com. Any time I've seen one of their listings nowadays, though, it's just another online commerce site to "buy it now."

I do still have an account I occasionally use for that from auction days, with "Gateway" in the name from when I set one up in the late 90s. (I "won" my first ever auction for a power supply for my original Gateway 2000 laptop I gave to a friend’s teenage kid a few years ago; at last report, he was using its Windows 95 and 28.8 modem card to take over the world with.)

My reason for asking now, though? It's that 36 volt, 35 pound boat anchor of a lawnmower battery. For the past 10 years, it has powered what we now lovingly call the "Frankenmower," a Black and Decker cordless electric that is on the last of legs but still, sort of, works. Before we just replaced it with a much lighter cordless mower and its five-pound power supply, I checked some online sites to see if I could just buy a replacement battery for the Frankenmower, and the scavengers have them going for 200 bucks. B&D doesn't make them any more (nor does S&M, far as I know;). I can put it, the mower and the charging cord at the curb Wednesday night and it'll be gone in 30 seconds. But maybe I could auction it off? As is, where is, you come get.

I’d asked our friend if the Tool Library she works at would be interested in it as a donation. No, they can't rent out anything so heavy and unwieldy, but I will donate any net bid proceeds to them if we manage to find anybody who wants it.

No word yet if it will be the next item up for bids on the Lawn Is Right? If it is, COME ON DOWN!

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The afternoon was devoted to the Met game on and off, with a quick stop at the grocery store but no other major outdoor effort. This occasion is known in the folklore of the team for two reasons. One, from the Mets facing the Phillies on Shea Stadium’s first ever Father’s Day in 1964 and being defeated in a perfect game by future Hall of Famer and US Senator Jim Bunning;  but also for the greeting that their longest tenured broadcaster put out over the air, either that Father's Day or or another such occasion soon after it:

Fortunately, this year did not bring that kind of bad luck. In the end, it brought a good result, but only after the Mets blew a four run lead in the top of the eighth inning, only to get it all back in the bottom. The happy recap noted that the Grimace streak is now up to five consecutive games.

Later in the day, I opened the two cards that were waiting for me "from" Eleanor.

It’s been 38 years last month since our first date, 37 in September since our wedding, but, to the point of these photos, 36 next month since we first became furparents. Our 1988- present census includes nine cats, three dogs and some occasional aqua/terrarium life forms. It’s been a tradition most of those three dozen years for “the aminals” to give either or both of us their own card on all of our special Days.

This is one of the first, if not THE first, Father’s Days that I have not felt some pain at seeing other social postings about the fond memories, past and present, that friends had with or of  their dads. It’s taken the 32 years of BEING a dad to finally overtake the 27 of not feeling the same  way on account of not having HAD those feelings about mine.

So I was in a pretty good state of mind when I saw the two cards waiting this morning. In this case, the envelopes were just as good as the messages on the inside of each:

——

We ended the evening with a new program for us, and a text from Emily to bring the fatherhood full circle. Wish I was the pilot episode of manhunt, which I mentioned last time as having just received an Emmy nomination, for the original theme song done by Rochester’s most famous former public defender:



We had to wait until the end to hear it, but it was worth it. Tight performances all around, seemed historically accurate, and even touches of comic relief. Also, at least three scenes that will get ketchup on the walls at whatever pre-sentence manse TFG is awaiting his fate in; this one probably required the most ketchup cleanup:

I just settled down to finish this post and turn in early,  because today was almost 11 hours away from home and almost 350 miles on the car. This day started with the news of a lost institution in Buffalo, continued through two courthouses to the east and a much happier encounter with an almost as venerable venue in Syracuse, one with an unexpected shoutout to the documentary we watched last week and Em probably has by now as well. We'll get to THAT between an almost as early a start, a possibly later finish, but far fewer miles in between.