Hanging out with Dad, Day 4

My mom went to Hawaii for a family wedding, but my dad stayed home because he's not physically able to keep up with the demands of travel. They both asked me to stay with my Dad in Santa Clara to keep an eye on him. My dad asked, "I need you to babysit me. Can you?"

I went back down to Santa Clara on Wednesday. Yoshi was happy to come along. We rented a fun, sporty Hyundai. It has three doors, and we didn't figure out until the next day how to open the third door from the outside (the handle is flush to the window of all places).

I had told Yoshi about all the gardening I did when I first hung out with my dad, and so she really wanted to garden too. When we got there, she asked me, can we garden now? It was 90 degrees which is way too hot for my cold San Francisco heart, so I suggested we wait until after dinner. She ran off to the guest room ("Yoshi's room," my old room) to play with toys.

I chatted with my dad for a bit, then Yoshi requested I play with her, so we played with My Little Ponies and some of Eric's old diecast cars. Back when toys were made out of metal.

For dinner we went back to the ramen joint and got ourselves a couple of bowls of cold noodles. Yoshi ate her favorite – steamed white rice. And some cold tofu, but my dad and I ended up eating 90% of that. She was grossed out by the sprinkling of Katsuobushi (dried flaked bonito fish) on top of the tofu, which was a bummer because I loved that stuff as a kid. I'd eat it by the handful, sometimes accidentally inhaling it down the wrong pipe and end up in a coughing fit as I choked on it.

When we got back home Yoshi immediately asked to garden. So I told my dad we'd like to trim some plants back. He said, "What?! Now? That's okay, you don't have to do that," but I insisted that Yoshi was interested in helping out. So we went to the garage to dig out the tools. My dad find a pair of mini pruning loppers, the perfect size for Yoshi. She was thrilled with it. I grabbed the pruning shears and the regular size loppers.

We headed to work on the side yard of the house. We trimmed back a bush/tree/shrub thing and made it more lollipop-shaped instead of all crazy-hippie-shaped. Yoshi was in charge of cutting back all the unwanted growth growing at the base of the plants. We ended up pruning some kind of olive-type tree, the lemon tree, the orange tree, and three other trees that I'm not sure what kind they are.

My dad got out a pickaxe and dug out some overgrown, dried-out weeds. All three of us toiled away in the yard. It was hard work, but fun!

Yoshi and I stopped to pick a few oranges from the tree. Yoshi searched for the perfect ones, which happened to be lumpy, but she liked that.

My dad said, "You know, when we first moved in [35+ years ago], I tried an orange from that tree. It was really bad. I never had one since."

"A lot can happen in 30 years," I said.

So he ate an orange. "Hey! It's good!" He chuckled at this amazing discovery. Yoshi and I laughed.

I was surprised that my dad let Yoshi use such a potentially dangerous gardening tool. I was almost more reluctant than he was to let her use it, especially when Yoshi went all manic like she does when she's in her really happy zone, whacking away in a frenzy. He did tell her often to be careful. But he was happy seeing his grand-daughter so enthusiastic about work. "Teach 'em young!"

Yoshi used a little rake to gather all the trimmings into piles around the yard. Then she watered all the plants. After we put all the tools away, ready to go from the garage back into the house, I noticed the door into the kitchen was locked. "I didn't want anyone to come into the house. You know I don't trust anyone!"

"I'm surprised you trusted Mom enough to marry her!" I joked.

"You know, your mom is the complete oposite. Did you know she used to leave the front door open during the summer when it was hot?" (There was a locked screen door though.)

"Oh. Really," I said. I did this all the time when I lived there. Please don't tell him.

"Yeah! But now, you know there are all sorts of strangers and crazy people out there. She can never leave the door open again."

You would think that my dad was a city dweller, with all this precaution about people coming into homes. Although he did go to high school in East Palo Alto, murder capital of the US. I guess that gives him street cred.

I told Yoshi that I was going to mop the floors in the house. I asked if she wanted to help. "Yes! I wanna mop!" she exclaimed as she jumped up and down.

Who is this child?

So I fill up a bucket and hand her the mop. We tackle the bathroom first. Then the hallway. She was really excited about mopping down the hall for some reason. Only her 8-year-old brain knows why. I did a little bit near the front entry way and part of the dining room, but then she practically grabbed it back and continued on. My dad was flabbergasted at this worker bee. So was I.

By now we were both sweaty and pretty filthy. We took a shower in their newly remodeled master bathroom. It has a marble shower stall (or some kind of polished white stone). "You know, a lot of Bachan and Jichan's house is really run down. But the their bathroom is so fancy! It has a bench in the shower! And look at the walls! It's all so fancy!"

Once we were nice a clean, it was time for dessert. My dad had been looking forward to giving Yoshi orange creamsicles ever since I first came to visit on the weekend ("Yoshi likes these," he told me.).

My dad gave Yoshi two.

Please forgive me for posting pictures of them eating. This is totally something my mom would do.

Yoshi wanted to play a game, and my dad wanted to join us, so we found a deck of Uno cards. I asked my dad if he knew how to play. He said no, so Yoshi and I taught him. He had some trouble with the Reverse and Skip cards, but he managed to figure most of it out by the end. When he was down to one card, Yoshi said, "You have to say Uno!"

"Unnnooooooooooo!" my Dad sang. Yoshi and I busted up laughing.

Yoshi won the first game. I won the second. It was looking pretty doubtful my dad was gonna win the third game with his collection of cards in his hands. But! Soon he was down to one card again.

"Uno!! Uno! Uno! Uno! Uno!!! Unooooo!" with these last two exclamations my dad said them in a high pitched voice. Yoshi and I couldn't stop laughing. My dad is silly sometimes. (I remember during a visit to us in Portland he started quacking at all the ducks by the pond near our house.)

And he won! We finished the game satisfied, each with a win under our belts. My mom called during the game and was delightfully surprised we were all playing Uno. I don't know if she was more surprised that we were spending time together playing a game, of if it was because my dad learned something new.

Finally time for bed. Yoshi stayed up late, which is typical when she stays with my parents. Who am I to argue with her? There was nothing that we needed to do the next day so we could be a set of lazybones together. I went to bed late too. 

5:04 pm

20 years ago was the Loma Prieta earthquake. It's an event I'll always remember. I was 11 years old. The general rule at that age was that I wasn't allowed to have any friends over in my house until I finished all my homework, so my best friend Kari would sit on the porch outside my front door while I sat on the otherside of the door and we did our homework together. When we finished we could play.

At 5:04 that evening, my brother had just gotten out of the bath and ready to watch the Giants and the A's play in the World Series on the TV. Kari and I were separated by the screen door at the front while we did homework. Then I heard that low, basal earthquake rumbling sound and saw that the road moving in large waves like a ribbon. Kari's Dad's 4x4 across the street was bouncing on two wheels, from one side to the other. I heard our lamp fall, then our glass shelf crash. I realized it was a big one. Kari was struggling to get the tricky screen door open from the outside (if you've ever been to my house you know the opening to the screen door doesn't always work so well). In a blur, I opened the door and then dove under the dining room table and waited.

15 seconds later, the earthquake is over. I remember Kari's dad bounding across to street to make sure his daughter was okay. The three of us went over to her house, and there we saw that her aquarium was knocked over on the family room floor. But we were in awe of seeing the swimming pool in the backyard swashing about, water all over the place. I think it took almost an hour for the water to fully settle down.

There were tons of aftershocks. I think those startled me more because there were so many of them and I never knew how big they would be or how long they would last. We walked around the neighborhood, saw hospital procedures being performed out in their parking lot, other neighbors walking around. It was a somber, sobering feeling, and yet as a kid it was exciting because it was so different.

I was so lucky that we only lost a few things, but nothing of incredible monetary or sentimental value. We didn't get hurt, our house was fine. I enjoyed eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under the table. I was jealous that Kari's family got to use all their camping equipment like their stove. Fun! My family never went camping so we didn't have that stuff.

On our radio we listened to the devastation that hit SF and Oakland, namely the Marina fires, the Bay Bridge collapse, and the Cypress Structure collapse. And once we got power and saw all the images and videos it was really overwhelming. I could go on and on about those events, but they were covered extensively and you can read about that online.

I'm very grateful that no one close to me was hurt seriously (although Tom's sister was burned by a vat of hot oil while working her shift at Kentucky Fried Chicken). And as much as it pains me to read about those who died or almost died, I am reminded by the incredible act of humanity where true heroes emerge, strangers saving strangers.

Read SFGate's article.