Father's Day Weekend

I'm already over Mother's Day, on account I ain't got no mother no more, and the Ds are old enough to celebrate THEIR mother without my having to intervene.  And now the poor relation to MD, Father's Day, is coming up.

Last night my friend Pat and I sat at Shula's talking about fatherhood.  We concluded we are two of the luckiest SOBs in town.  His two kids are awesome -- Marie is finishing up a MA in Creative Writing from her parents' alma mater, UF, after getting a BA from BC.  Lot of initials there.  Young Patrick is a rising junior at Michigan, studying engineering, and currently interning for an insurance company in New England.

More than their accomplishments, both are wonderful young people, and Pat and Susan really LIKE them, too -- always rearranging schedules to coordinate visits.  I, of course, feel the same way about the Ds.

At my urging, Wifey is leaving HER baby daddy, me, for FD.  I drop her tomorrow at MIA for a cruise to LGA and weekend in NYC.  D2 is moving tomorrow -- after two years in Murray Hill (actually Kip's Bay, as she lived on the east side of Third Avenue) she and Jonathan are to become Villagers, as in Greenwich.  Wifey is going to help D2 unpack and organize her extensive textile collection.

I'm going to dinner FD Eve at my favorite steakhouse, The Palm, with D1 and Joey.  Those two got some lovely press yesterday -- an upscale Miami magazine featured them, along with two other couples, in a glitzy wedding spread.  And Mads, my spoiled Spaniel granddog, made the picture as well.

Sunday I have an invite to Deb and Norman's, for a FD brunch.  Monday I plan to retrieve Wifey at MIA, and then the following Friday I'll jet up to LGA for a later FD weekend with D2 and Jonathan.  I booked a literary pub crawl for the three of us -- a nerdy thing I really enjoy -- and we can see first hand where literary history in the Village was was made.  Dylan Thomas went very drunk into that good night at a local tavern.  I plan to NOT mimic that accomplishment.

Finally, in the time really DOES fly department:  A year or so ago, Paul treated us to a banner day at the race track -- Calder.  He hosted the Ds and Wifey and me at a day at the races, and asked the Ds to pick numbers for, I think, a Trifecta.  They did, and their picks were very long shots, and the payoff was huge.  I think each of the Ds, and their friends, and Grant, Paul's nephew, each got around $1000.  The joke was we were going to turn them into gambling addicts -- it winning were this easy, why not just gamble all the time.

But the point is, D1 sent over a picture of the event -- she and her sister holding bills like spread out fans.  And it was NOT a year or so -- it was EIGHT years ago today.  Close to a decade.  The time, like money out of a gambler's losing pocket, really does slip away so fast.