1964 chevy impala
here’s an old impala, with the morning sun hitting it just so. there was a line up of an impala club, just under ther coronado overpass, waiting for their turn to get into the show at chicano park. i think this car was near the end of the line, so his back end was hanging out in the sun—-lucky for me, i saw it.
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today is my son’s birthday. i’m sitting down in san clemente, outside some random restaurant his wife selected, waiting for them to show up. got here early to avoid the worst of friday southbound traffic.
almost tempted to keep on going to san diego, but the uptown show is tomorrow, and my better half would miss me, so i’ll head home tonight.
for my kid, i have a small gift, as well as some cash—what the kids always ask for—not enough to help them move out of my condo, but enough to go to get him into disneyland for one day...so not really that much.
i’d stayed up late last night, making him some pan de elate, a sweet bread thing, his tia used to make him when he was a kid. it’s sort of like a yellow cake, cut into squares,and drowned/soaked in sweetened condensed milk and brandy. i used to make it for him often, but now he tries to keep in shape and so hasn’t had it for a few years.
i was at my parents’ house. my daughter is currently living there with her dog, waiting for her brother to move out of my place. sort of musical chairs, where i probably will never live in my own place again.
like i said, i was up late baking. left the pan of bread on the counter to cool. my mom said she’d cover it before she went up to bed, so up i went to sleep.
this morning, i go to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal before work, and the pan has been covered with foil. atop that is a post-it note warning that is not to be eaten, it’s for my kid—this pointedly directed at my dad, who will help himself to anything in the kitchen.
knowing my boy will not want to eat the whole thing, and likely to take it to work or relatives to share, i added to the note, that it was ok to have some pieces. i left it there and headed to work. figured i’d pick it up on the way to dinner, placing some chunks into a gift box of some sort, that i’d buy at lunch.
got a call today frm my daughter around eight a.m. she seemed distraught, as she said something terrible had happened.
being that both of my parents have fallen recently, and have health issues, i began to worry instantly. you know, the adrenaline build up kind?
she began to tell me how she had awakened and realized she needed to go buy some dog food or something for the beast’s hungry belly. she assumed my mom and dad were still sound asleep.
she locked the dog in her room and left for the store. she got back about a half hour later, and the dog was waiting inside, by the front door. my mom was not home, so she figured she had gone to run errands.
in the kitchen, she put the food in the dog’s bowl, on the floor.
he’s usually like a vacuum, always famished, and inhales food in minutes. this time, however, he seemed uninterested. weird.
then, she noticed that the foil was slightly warped up at the corner on the bread dish. she hadn’t thought much of it before, as foil is bendy and the bread was still covered.
as she pulled the aluminum back, she realized why the beast wasn’t hungry. the mofo had helped himself to the bread!
i’ve mentioned before this dobie is tall enough he can just rest his chin on the counters, but he’s never done anything to stuff on the counters before.
and it turns out my mom had been out all morning, so the little bastard had also figured out a way to open the bedroom door. is he some sort of velociraptor from jurassic park? did he learn?
we are guessing he just stood on his back legs and helped himself to breakfast. no paw prints or things knocked on the floor. and he hadn’t knocked the glass pyrex bread dish on the floor, so there’s that.
he conveniently had only eaten most of the soft center of the bread, leaving the crusty edge pieces behind. no one is going to eat that—he probably still licked it.
anyway, my daughter was distressed and had cried before calling me, knowing that i’d stayed up making it for her brother’s birthday.
i just kept laughing, picturing that dog doing his thing. she kept saying sorry, and not understanding why i wad laughing. what was i supposed to do? i couldn’t fix it, couldn’t go home and make more at the moment. it is/was going to make a good story tonight at the dinner table.
happy birthday, kid