It's Father's Day, and all over the internet is the question "what did you learn from your Dad?' My short answer "There's always Pizza"
Let me explain.
My Dad was a cook and I got the cooking gene from him. I enjoy cooking and find it relaxing after a long, stressful day at work. Maybe it's the act of chopping things into little bits or pounding meat flat. Maybe it's the comforting smells ( when I can smell anything, due to a BAD head injury about 20 years ago, my sense of smell comes and goes). Maybe it's having family and friends who are family around my table. I don't know but..
When my Dad was alive and I would visit, we would head to the grocery store. I would make a few meals, some to eat and some to "put by" in his freezer for later. I think he appreciated the home cooked meals, but sometimes things wouldn't turn out the way I wanted them to. I'd be swearing up a storm and he would look at me and say "don't worry, there's always pizza" At the time I thought it was the fact that Little Cesar's was right across the highway and you could get a cheese pie ( the ONLY kind he ate) for about 5 bucks. But after he died, I realized it was kind of a philosophy.
If you screw something up, or if things don't go as planned, you can always find another option. You might not have planned on pizza for dinner, but it's always there.
Sometimes, when things aren't going the way we planned, my husband will look at me and say "well, there's always pizza" and we will laugh.
Thanks, Dad. There really IS always pizza.
Such a lifetime of really bad times with my father, that yesterday and today have made me ponder a lot. Here's what I took away from my own father: man, could he grow the roses! I try but they just aren't' like his. Man, could he cook! He made all our holiday meals forever! and, man oh man, was he a looker! I did get his broad shoulders. After my parents died, I went to visit the relatives in Oregon a few times,a nd from stories I heard, the guy never had a chance, as his father was just short of a monster. So, perhaps I have learned to look at more of the facts, and definitely, how NOT to be a mean drunk, and (this is a work in progress) curtail those long-winded pointless stories.
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