vanilla toothpaste and Dad's day

i bought the vanilla toothpaste new on the market...i usually like everything vanilla, vanilla shake, vanilla coke, vanilla coffee, ice cream etc... but i dont care so much for the lingering vanilla flavor in my mouth after i am done. i dont know if it is being a creature of habit or what. on to the citrus and lemon, hummmm i really have to try that one out.


it is Father's day and my Dad has been gone for a long time. 8.5 years it seems like forever to me, it just really does and it sucks. my life within my family has such a hole in it sometimes i just dont care to be around them anymore, at times the relationships seem trivial.... and it isnt as if i am excluded, but it certainly feels that way. It is little things i am sensitive to, like my sister in law sending out invitaions to my brother's birthday party, but the invitation is specific, mr and mrs, instead of the w family, it just seems so weird to me. i am going to have to call to make sure everyone is invited which probably seems ridiculous as the entire family is going to be there, but it is just weird to me. Sil family got three invitations... her older kids got them, but not mine. i am not going to make a big deal about it, but i feel insulted, probably overly sensitive. they are having the party on a saturday which is just a suck day for us as we both work on saturdays and would have to get the day off.... i just dont see it happening --- we dont even have any vacation planned yet...we will probably send the kids and attend late....arghh...maybe we can get out early that would be a solution... just rambling thoughts....any way...it is Father's day... and I just really feel gloomy, like it is outside, our pool is still not open... the weather has not even been tropical, it has been cold raining foggy, someone said like England..i do not know as i have never been..................................................................being i am just being today... trying to get through this day without having a major melt down because things are not perfect... i have to go shopping and get the chickens and make a cake and do laundry and dishes that i shouldnt have to do.... and it is a day off but it is a day on too...


when i was being programed i asked my dad to help me everyday, he knows what management is like, and you know, my aspirations are not to become a manager, just being what i am is good enough for me. i have a full time job and im going to be able to retire someday...i have no intentions of letting the teacher in me slide and i hope to start school in january to finish my masters but i have to do some reseach first...enough of my dream... without those prayers to my Father i dont know if i would have made it through...it was just a very difficult time....so i know he is there in this universe somewhere...

then there is my husband, he over the years developed a special relationship with my dad, they used to go shellfishing together, something my husband hasnt done since my father died, well not true, we did go once over to the bay and that was a fun day, except for the people who lost their oars and i swam over to save them from being carried away by the current... i forgot about that day... and that was before the horrid back incident...but f rarely goes to my mother's house now; it is obvious to me that everything has changed for him too. we just dont talk about it, it is too painful for the both of us, the friendship...

my brothers are great guys, but... they are not my Dad, and my father was close to both my husband and I at different times, like when my mom moved to the cape with my younger brother and sister, my husband would go to my house and wait for me, my father and him would play cards and sometimes eat hot dogs or fix stuff. it was just the way it was. when my kids were younger, we would go down the cape in the summer, amd my mother always seemed to be away...my father would take my husband shellfishing and they would tinker about together and play cribbage etc...and later I would play too. but mostly they would play and i would take care of the kids and let them be chums. dad and i would food shop and he always remarked, 'i've filled up the napkin holder because i knew the w were coming' i do like napkins and neatness at the table...

my dad always offered me bombs and 1/2 bombs and i've only had 1 since he left. and well i rarely get to play cards anymore, and i rarely go to the cape... day trips for a few hours... that's it. and my husband wonders why i dont want to be buried down there beside him, my husband that is...

throw me in the ocean that is what i really want... i wish he would want that too.... but he says he wants to rot in the ground beside me... nooooooo noooo we have to work this one out....

so anyway i am still greiving for my father, but not just him, but the way things used to be, my kids are older now --- but i still say i miss those days... for they were some of the very very best... i would go off to the beach with the kids and leave the men to themselves... i would sometimes be gone all day... when i got home the men would have cooked...and played cards and napped.... that was a vacation for my husband... i would do the dishes, but i rarely had to cook now that i think about that.... it was just a time that will never be again .... and perhaps that is why F and I are having such a hard time trying to figure out what kind of vacation we would like to take, because for us, our vacations were spent with my Father, down the cape, and he would do his things with my dad, and i would do my things with the kids, and once in awhile f would go to the beach but less and less over the years, as he would chum with my dad... and play cards at night... and that was all we needed... nothing elaborate..... just a different way of being, a different life, that passed away with my Dad...

the closest day i've had since then was probably the day my sister and i went to the beach with the all the kids... that was a fine day. one of the best since i can remember when. my sister is coming at the end of the month... i wonder if we are going to have any good summer days at all... i need to call her for her itineray...

my daughter says i should go tanning to help my illness ...i wonder if it will help i have to go look that up.

well happy Father's day to all dads... i love that Dave mathews song... daughters and dads something special because my dad had a way to make all his daughters feel special...that is just the way he was