Here's a picture of me in the backyard of the house where I grew up in suburban Portland, Oregon. That's my step-grandmother behind me, a dear sweet woman whose age is somewhere between 92 and 96. (That was a subject of debate during the reunion.) For the record, that is not the grandmother referenced in the post below.
So yeah, I'm back in New York. I was actually back Monday morning. For the most part, I had a great time. Though the afternoon with "grandmother" was singularly traumatizing, it was a shared trauma that I think really helped my dad and me build a stronger relationship. As I mentioned in the post below, he's a southern baptist and as I'm not only gay but episcopalian, well...there's some tension there sometimes.
To recap, I flew out on Friday after work, spent Saturday with my father and his parents, and then spent Sunday with my mother and stepfather's families to celebrate the occasion of his 70th birthday. I don't think we've ever had that many people at our house at one time, but it was just great to see everyone, especially since I so rarely get the chance to go home. It is amazing to watch my little nieces and nephews turn into adults. We passed around photo albums showing our last big reunion, which was my stepfather's 60th birthday: in 10 years, many of us have lost some hair. Alas.
After the party I took a midnight flight back to JFK, landing at 8 a.m. I managed to get to my office on Wall Street by 9:30...and that was taking the A train! I wasn't actually all that tired on Monday, just sort of dazed. I slept okay on the plane, even though it was quite full. I sat next to a dreamy straight guy (he made a salacious comment about our flight attendant) who works at Goldman Sachs up the street from me; he slept on my shoulder most of the way, to which I did not object at all. It was kind of nice.
Naturally I fell asleep on the subway ride home from work on Monday night and slouched up against some young ghetto-ho, who elbowed me in the ribs with an abrupt, "Scuse me!"
Yes, I was home.
3 comments:
Glad u had a good trip Andy. Nice to have you back
Yes, Courtney, Dan is 70 but he's not slowing down very much. After 30 years teaching chemistry and 13 years doing research at Intel (collecting about 25 patents along the way), he will retire from Intel at the end of this year and become the chemist at his son's new winery.
JF
Your abrupt reawakening to the realities of New York life sound not unlike my experience of returning to Vienna after a week away, almost ten years ago now.
Walking along a narrow pavement (sorry, sidewalk), with snow piled up on either side, someone walking towards me spat right across me as our paths crossed. Charming behaviour.
Post a Comment