Lee Ving

Today Alex and I are going to San Mateo to spend the night at Dad's and then we're off on an early flight to Hawaii.

Packing today, I thought how oddly different it is to take a trip with your parent/s as an adult child. As a kid, you got parked in the backseat with enough coloring books to keep you from becoming a maniac. If you were small enough you couldn't even really see out the windows. You didn't know where you were going until you got there. Adults took care of boring details.

Now at almost 35, I'm scurrying around the place. Camera? Battery charger? Phone, charger for that. Do I have enough shirts? Will airport security hassle us because Al is half Iranian? Will there be enough pillows in the hotel?

Dad recommended bringing a walkman for the flight. It's been a long time since I've been anywhere that took a long time to get to. No coloring books this trip.

My walkman only plays tapes, so the music I'm bringing is rather old, too. Echo and the Bunnymen. The Dead Milkmen. Bad Music for Bad People by the Cramps. A mix tape I made after a break-up 10 years that heavily features Henry Rollins and the Dickies. Some stompin' mix tapes made by buddies from college. I sometimes miss the narcotic whiff of a brand new tape. Your favorite band would finally release their new album. You'd rush down to Rainbow Records and grab a tape out of the bin. Get it on the bus and open it, even though you'd have nothing to play it on til you got home. Crack open the plastic case and ***ahhhh***. Better than ditto paper.

Now I'm really dating myself. For Father's Day I bought Al a copy of Wall of Voodoo's "Call of the West", which has "Mexican Radio" on it. I've been getting back into 80's music (not that I ever strayed that far from it...). I figured out how to play the digital cable radio stations and have it set to "Retroactive". God, total nostalgia mode. At first I worried that my neighbours would hear what was going on and laugh. Now I don't care. I turn Adam Ant all the way up and bop around to "Goody Two-Shoes".

I'm waiting for Al to come home from a job so we can get going. I'm babbling on here because I won't have a computer this week. My Dad's bringing his laptop. But the rooms only have a dial-up connection. How will I exist? I guess I will manage to drown my woes in Hawaii. Mango daqueries here I come!

MPK

P.S. Posted a pic of Dad and me at the Old Fishin' Hole at Frontier Village in San Jose. For a few bucks they'd let you actually catch fish. That place was cool. They're having their reunion picnic tomorrow at the old site, which is now a scummy condo complex. Catch ya later!