You take the good, you take the bad

I drove into work this morning expecting a quiet, uneventful day, and was greeted at the door with news that this had happened. Fortunately, no one from our store or any bystanders were hurt, but our front window had not been so lucky. Covered in plywood today, it made a compelling backdrop to the unlikely crime scene, and I spent the day fielding reporters and camera crews, and checking for updates on all the local news stations. This kind of stuff just doesn't happen in Pasadena, not that I advocate it happening at all.

My trip home was, well, it was my trip home. It was great to see my mom, great to see my dad, great to see my friends. It was not great to see how old and frail my Grandmother suddenly looked, as if she had aged about 20 years since I saw her last Christmas. It was not great to shiver for four days in a row, plodding through dirty snow drifts and dodging slushy puddles with every step. It was not great to feel like I am literally the last person from my high school to get married or get pregnant, even though no one made me feel that way but myself.

It was great that my mom finally got the Internet hooked up, and when I wasn't online or playing Mah Jong Quest, I was eating her homemade salads and cookies and sandwiches sealed with a kiss. It was not great that no matter how frequently we see each other, we both end up crying when I leave.

It was not great to find out that my dad's best friend had died on Friday, somewhere in the middle of his third bout with lung cancer. I haven't seen Dick since I was in high school, if not earlier, and I never knew him that well, but he is one of those people you never forget, if only because when you were eight years old, they absolutely terrified you.

The way I remember him, Dick was a chain-smoking, Harley-riding, F-bomb-dropping kind of guy with big hair and wardrobe that could have passed him off as a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd or ZZ Top. Every summer, he and his wife would throw these raucous pool parties at their house, a dwelling much larger and nicer than that of either of my parents, and I would swim and play and try to avoid getting teased under the echo of his booming voice.

Like its owner, the house was dark, but comfortable. Mahogany wood paneling, burnt-caramel leather couches, and deep plaids and patterned throws made up the cavernous sitting room where we would either tread through to the backyard or spend evenings in front of the fire. It was the perfect setting for that one October night I joined my father in dog-sitting for Dick's three Newfoundlands. (Yes, three. Newfoundlands. The man lived big.)

It was Saturday night, in the late 80's and I was curled up on the comfy recliner watching a special Halloween episode of The Facts of Life on the big-screen TV. I have never been good with ghost stories or horror movies, or, as it turned out, low-budget dream sequences in which George Clooney is found dead, or undead, hanging by a hook in the coat closet. It was horribly cheap production, by that point, but my still-childlike brain went to bed that night nothing short of horrified.

I was staying in a guest room, or the older daughter's room, perhaps, but in the midst of midnight, the whole house seemed haunted to me. I imagined ghosts sailing through the dark corridors and slipping under the door to my room, feared every mysterious shadow like it might come alive right in front of me, jumped at every unfamiliar New England house noise until I finally - around 2 AM - ran down the hall to the safety of my Dad's room.

I'm pretty sure that was the last time I ever set foot in that house. Dick and his wife divorced some time later, their kids went off to college, and my dad got remarried and stopped attending raucous pool parties (or at least stopped inviting me as his date). New responsibilities, new mortgages, and middle age took precedence over backyard parties and Bike Week. I would still see Dick here and there through my father, but, to my adult ears, his booming voice seemed much more gentle, his teasing more benign. The last time I saw him, though, he still swore a lot.

It's funny how we can hold onto memories from nearly 20 years ago and be surprised when something has changed. You mean Dick sold those caramel couches? He hasn't had a beard in years? How do my high school friends have kids when I still picture them, picture all of us, as such? For someone whose entire life is documented in photo albums, I find it hard to see past the snapshot, even when it is clearly yellowing with age.