Hint: Watch around the 5:20 mark
I say my mom and not my parents, because I've actually been talking to my dad on a fairly regular basis lately via email (I have not talked to my mother since erev pesach in April, when I called my dad back and she picked up his cell phone and talked to me for all of 30 seconds. Before that the last time I talked to her was last year October when my grandfather died and she again picked up my dad's cell phone.)
During Hurricane Irene me and my dad seemed to have gotten back in touch, as he commiserated over his destroyed basement/breakaway shul (message from god?). While emailing back and forth several times I asked him about a few things that have been bugging me that only a parent can know..like for his perspective on what happened when I was in first grade and was hit by a teacher in school, which I've been thinking about lately. Maybe I'll write a post about that at some point.
He called me on erev rosh hashana for one of his 3 annual phone calls (erev rosh hashana, erev pesach and my birthday) and I managed to steer the conversation entirely clear of religion until the very last minute when he had to go. He called me between appointments- which he always does, so there's always a limit on our convo time, boo. But we actually talked almost 25 minutes last week on the phone.
Anyway at the very end of the convo he told me that "Well we wish you AND B a gmar chasima tova" (and he emphasized the "AND B"). I told him he should call me sometime when it's not erev pesach or rosh hashana or my birthday.
Progress? Some weird bizzaro progress, in which my dad acknowledges B but still tries to push his religion on both me AND him now? Who knows?
Meanwhile since we are back in touch a bit, and my department is having a "better know your professor" contest which includes baby pictures of us, I was able to get my dad to send me quite a few pictures of my childhood via email. So yay!
Me circa 1985
