ON OLD POST (from a defunct blog) (can I make this any more clear)

I found an old blog post from August, 2007, about a day when the family traveled to the coast to celebrate my dad’s 65th birthday in Astoria. Eighteen years ago! The baby in this post turned 18 this spring. I’m reposting it because I loved this day, and I miss my dad on his 83rd birthday, and I miss a couple of other people who are in this post. But not T. T is right here. T and I are MARRIED now.

Old blog post begins NOW

Yesterday was the day my family converged on Astoria to celebrate my dad’s 65th birthday. The theme was ”You’d better retire,” which of course my dad retired many years ago, so that was, like, a joke. Brother Steve drove down on Friday, and Younger Brother, Sis-In-Law, and their Baby came down yesterday AM. I drove over with T, my sister, and Oldest, because my other two had to work.

This is the first time I’ve seen my dad’s new digs. I love his home, which is very near the Goonies house, if any of you remember the movie or know the Oregon coast. So his view is spectacular, especially from the second floor. The house was built in 1885, and has fabulously slanting wooden floors, crooked eaves and 11-foot ceilings. I admire the amount of entry and walkway space, something that seems sadly lacking in homes built from the fifities on. Dad’s house is not large (though it was, I’m sure, in 1885) and it is all about the transitions, it has an entry and hallways and alcoves, and it has a narrow but looooong front porch that looks over the shipyard and mountains.

Dad cooked a porkroast on the grill and Younger Brother grilled steaks. We brought baked beans and seven-layer bars, and there were store-bought salads and some great bread for sopping up the juice from these mammoth steaks. The steak was so very good that I just wanted a private corner to be alone with it. And there was the ugliest bakery cake I’d ever seen, and presents, and I think Dad really had a great time.

The highlight was of course my lovely little niece. She’s grown up so much since I last saw her (at age two weeks) and she’s lost her funny little monkey face and she’s so very pretty. I kept saying that over and over again as she’d smile and kick and reach and grizz and fuss and flex and roll and do so many miraculous baby things, I’d say, ”She’s so pretty. She’s so darling. She’s so cute.” and wriggle with it. But at some point, Oldest and I realized that we were just praising her looks, so we launched into a murmured description of her other qualities that went something like this:

She also has a beautiful and intact self-esteem.
She’s athletic and capable and interested in team sports.
She’ll have many hobbies and interests, some of them to do with math and science.
She’ll never be paid less than a man for equal work.
She clearly thinks too well of herself to ever settle for less than the best a man can offer.

And so on. Sis-in-law was laughing so hard.

The way the day worked was, the baby would be awake, so we would all look at her, make conversation with her, exclaim over her, listen to her (she makes the most adorable coos and growls), hold her and take photos of her. Then she’d sleep or nurse, so then we’d all talk to each other. Then her little brown eyes would pop back into view and we’d start again with the baby adoration.

We followed the progress of a long-awaited full diaper with much speculation and encouragement. ”Sounds like she’s really going to town, now, listen to that little grunting.” ”Yup, I think she’s getting serious for sure.” ”Definitely going to happen.” ”Oh you bet.”

She had a cool folding crib/playpen/changing table thing that was extremely handy because while she was in it, we could group around her and all have a really good view of her actions. She would lie on her back in it and kick her feet and try to reach for toys that we would hold out, which is really cute right now because her hands come slowly together right at the length of her reach. Her fingers make a small ”O” and if the toy isn’t grasped by this slow and careful motion (like a claw machine), she sometimes gets distracted by her hands. ”Hey, look at these, these are cool, too.” She seems to have inherited the prehensile toes of her aunts. She immediately forgets anything that falls out of her sight, so peek-a-boo is currently out of the question, though I imagine she’ll be absolutely brilliant at it.

At one point, my sister, Sis in law, Oldest and I had been standing there watching her try to reach for the dinosour and the rattle and commenting on the perfection of her chubby little feet and the adorable shapes her mouth makes and my younger brother said, ”You know, I think if I ever wanted to make a woman trap, I’d put a little baby in the middle of it.”

There really were other people in the room, and Sherman the Great Dane, and Dad’s dogs, and the eating and the seeing of the house and all, but yeah. Then there was That Baby. And oh, did we enjoy seeing her.

My sister was sober and calm. She says she’s trying this new thing, a brand new thing in her life, which is, she just doesn’t lie. She’s not promising she won’t lie ever again. My sister learned to lie at a very early age and she’s done it her whole life to feel safe and occasionally powerful, so it’s not like she can surrender it forever. It was her coping and survival mechanism long before she discovered eating disorders, drugs, cutting herself, boys, shoplifting, compulsive shopping, drinking, or Munchausen’s and Munchausen’s by proxy. But the last time she entered rehab, she decided to give not lying a try and it’s been going all right so she’s continuing with it.

It makes her so much less tiring to be around. For reasons I don’t understand, her lying always made me tired, so tired that I’d want to lie down and sleep in the middle of a crowded room. It’s so nice not to have to listen to it. As a result, I really enjoyed her company. I really, really, really enjoyed her company the whole day. She rode behind me on the way up and on the way down, and we talked and talked and talked. It’s the best time I can remember having with my sister in 20 years.

I was tired when we got home, and for reasons to do with a lost house key, my ex-husband was here watching the game and keeping the dogs company when we got home. We talked with him for a bit, and then he left, and T went home, and Oldest and I fell into bed.

I’m in a good mood today.

The Old Blog Post is NOW Over

So that was the old blog post. My sister relapsed after this. It was a bad one. It took a few years for her to be in a place where we could be close again. But she got there. It’s hard that my older brother and sister and my dad are all gone. But it’s beautiful to read a day when they were all with me, and the ocean was shining, and we were celebrating.