Okay, I’m blogging again. I have to admit that I used the “my blog vanished into cyberspace” episode as an excuse to take a little breaky-poo from the posting. I was doing really well, keeping myself to an every-Wednesday schedule, and then it all just broke down. I’m not even sure I want to re-post all the stuff that I lost (which I retrieved) because it’s sort of embarrassing stuff about how I can’t manage to get myself into a healthy, intimate relationship. Oh well, I will look it over again and see which bits and pieces make me look moderately normal.

Speaking of relationships, I have started to cook a little for my father. Which is kind of a big deal. You see, my parents separated (which is to say, Mom asked Dad to leave) when I was all of 18 months old. It wasn’t a huge drama; there was no infidelity, just the dawning recognition that they had gotten married for all the wrong reasons–they were the right age, came from the same world, both liked art, and the parents thought it was a hell of an idea. Dad promptly went to law school, my sister was born, and by the time I came around, I think the gas had run out of the relationship. So Mum, in rather a ballsy move at the time, said “Basta!” and struck out on her own.

My parents were always amicable, for which I am extremely grateful. But they are also incredibly different, and my childhood was spent split between the weekdays at Mom’s (where I felt comfortable) and weekends at Dad’s (where I felt like an alien). It wasn’t his fault–it’s just that I am my mother’s twin, in many ways, and the differences in vibrational resonance that existed between my parents basically repeated themselves with me and him. Plus, my father never had any sisters, had a cool relationship with his own mother, and how he–an athletic, extroverted, 33-year old man’s man in the ’70s–managed to survive his time with two very little, TV-addicted, Tang-crystal-eating girls still amazes me. Let’s just say it wasn’t always comfortable.

Anyway, I big part of moving back to Toronto is to be closer to my Dad. The older I’ve gotten, the more I see him in me–and I find it very trippy that, although I have her red hair and her temperament, he’s left marks just as indelible: My humor is my father’s. My prediliction towards and enjoyment of performance (he is a courtroom lawyer)–his as well. I’m sure there’s more, and that’s why I’ve started cooking for him.

You see, I consider macrobiotics a subversive, biological tactic in the game of relationships. Much of human, familial and cultural connection comes through food. Not just the “Oh, I love falafel too!” connection, but actual blood-level resonance. When we eat the same foods, we start to hit the same wavelength, at least for a while. That’s why McDonald’s going global is so scary, but that’s a whole other blog. So, in an effort to increase our connection, I started cooking for Dad last week. I made him/us:

Noodles in Broth

Lundberg Wild Rice mix

Baked Halibut with Vegan Pesto/Vegenaise sauce

Teaser Caesar Salad

Crispy Rice Treats

We sat and watched the baseball game. Cleveland was ahead 3 games to 1 against Boston in the American League Playoffs. It looked like Boston was gonna choke. I have to admit, I felt oddly nervous presenting him the food and sitting down to eat together, alone. We didn’t have much to talk about–except the game. I was ten years old when the Toronto Blue Jays were born and Dad took take me to the early games, at Exhibition Stadium. I remember the names of some of the earliest players: Damaso Garcia, Lloyd Moseby, Dave Steib (25 MILLION DOLLAR STEIB!!) To this day, baseball is really the only professional sport I understand. Dad loved the noodles in broth, “mmmm-ing” as he slurped. I reminded him that he took Sue and I to see the Sox at Fenway Park about thirty years ago, and the game had been against… Cleveland! He hadn’t remembered who they’d played, but recalled the trip. The fish–always a dodgy prospect–turned out beautifully. Boston, in the name of everything-eventually-becomes-its-opposite, didn’t choke and Dad asked if there were more Rice Crispy treats. When we were done, I left him two extra treats in the ‘fridge, and drove home. Boston made it to the Series.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 1:39 pm and is filed under My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.