Happy Birthday to my Papa!

My sister and my dad's birthdays are a week apart. So even though my dad isn't going to read my blog I thought it would be unfair to dedicate a blog to my sister but not him.

I don't even really know where to start or what to say about my dad. I could go on for days and days about how much I love him and how goofy he is, or I could tell you about how we can make each other more mad than any other human being on this earth but we still love each other to death, but somehow it wouldn't be adequate. So I'll just saw few random things and we'll leave it at that.

My dad is one of the funniest people on the planet, intentionally and not. A lot of people wouldn't know that because he's pretty quiet and aloof until you get to know him. All throughout my school age years my friends would be like "Your dad hates me doesn't he?" But no, he never hated anyone. He is really just the "strong silent" type. When he gets to know you and gets comfortable with you he opens up and is hilarious. But overall he's just a really quiet guy. Communication is not his strong point. We once drove to Florida together (to visit a college) and in 18 hours the man only said "Are you hungry?" "Do you need to pee?" or "We need gas" the entire trip. Drove me crazy, but he didn't seem to notice. He was probably too busy reading a map.

Which leads me to another two points. One, the man is crazy smart. Between him and my mom I know where I got my smarts. The man knows everything (just about). He loves to fascinate people with his random bits of knowledge.

The second point, is that he will do just about anything for his children. He may not always be the most sensitive guy but he loves my sisters and me more than anything on the planet. And I have never once doubted that. Even if we were arguing or things weren't quite perfect I know that he loves me and would do anything I asked him to if it were in his power. When we're not around he misses us. He'll tell my sisters that he's mad at me if I don't come visit enough (and me, them). God forbid he comes and visits my house or calls me just to chat, but dammit he's hurt if I don't bounce my booty over there at least once a week to shoot the shit with him. He's always trying to think of ways to make me come over and visit and stay once I get there. The past few weekends when Ange has worked he'll pull up a movie on the DVR and say "Hey, I've been wanting to watch this movie...want to stay and watch it with me?" Even if I don't really care about the movie, I stay and watch it anyway. I know most people would say their parents love them, but sometimes I feel like my dad loves me (and my sisters) just a little bit more than any other dad loves a child. I can't explain it, I just know it.

But back to the goofiness. My dad is one of the goofiest dudes you've ever met. He cracks the lamest jokes and always laughs so hard at them, which makes you laugh too even if the jokes were lame. He does random funny things like bust out in air guitar when you least expect it. He will tell you when he had a really "cool" dream and then launch into some military/espionage story about how he was dreaming that he was a commando or something random. Of course, he usually only does these things when my sisters and I are around because he has to keep up his image with everyone else.

And even though he likes to pretend that we drive him crazy, he secretly loves the fact that he is surrounded by (and bossed around by) so many women. If you look at the two wives he chose they are similar in the fact that they are both very dominant and do/did their best to keep him in line. I think he knows he's secretly a push-over and that he'd just sit around in dirty underwear all the time if he didn't have all these women screetching at him all the time. So even when he likes to complain about our bossing, he does what we say.

So, I know this was kind of all over the place and not nearly as coherent as my sister's birthday ode, but like I said, there is so much I could write about my dad I really don't know how to do him justice. So I'll just leave it like this. I love my dad more than words can describe so Happy Birthday Papa!