It's Father's Day morning....Dad's Day.
My son's had planned a morning of surprise and awe for me - breakfast in bed for their hero, conquerer of foes......well, I didn't make it easy for them. In fact, I torpedoed their plans without intention - I had booked my nephews departing flight from Long Beach Airport at 6:45am which meant I was up at 5am, my son's were fast a sleep.
After taking my nephew to the airport I called his dad, my oldest brother Ken. Ken has been a single Dad for about 13-14 years and my nephew just graduated high school in Wisconsin last week and has decided to move back to Colorado where his mom lives - I really wanted him to stay with us for the summer, but that's another story. Anyways, my brother was busy doing some of my nephews laundry that he left behind.....it's hard to imagine what it will be like when my own son's move on and there's the last few loads of laundry to be done - especially if it's on Father's Day - Yikes...moving on....
My morning quickly picked up - well sort of....I picked up. My old friend for the last 15+ years, DEOGEE, (D.O.G.) dropped a couple of little brown friends on his bed during the night. So I picked it up and washed his bed. Then I decided to address an issue with our downstairs bathroom after our neighbors little girl visited it last night. How can a little person less than 40lbs create such a blockage? Well, it didn't dissolve overnight so I had to get our plunger.....which has seemingly disappeared from anywhere I could remotely imagine in our house.
Next thing I know, there's toilet #2 blocked in our house with, of course, number 2. Still no plunger to be found. My wife offered to go to ACE for me, but that would reduce some of my bragging rights for my fatherly "duties" on Father's Day (It's hard to say "Duties" without a Smile :). So, off to Ace Hardware I went to buy a plunger - Of course I couldn't go into the hardware store on Father's Day and only buy a plunger! I found several other cool tools that I hopefully will never need to use, but I now have them "Just in Case" - The most important thing is, I now have a "POWER PLUNGER" (try saying it again, but in more of a super hero voice, it's more fun that way).
I returned home conquered the clog-gage and once again was the "Emperor of My Domain" in time to wash my hands and receive my rewards for being the "Go To Guy" when duty calls.
(It was necessary to protect the identity of the innocent - this time.)
Father's Day improved dramatically after about 9 a.m. - the bar had been set pretty low by then.
Every year the boys do cool things for me, probably similar to what most Dad's get from their young kids - a cool art project that I get to place prominitely as a Dad's bragging rights - this year I got key chains that said "DAD" each customized by blossoming artists.
Then the big surprise - when I was in Montana fly fishing, Mom & the boys signed us up for a membership at the Newport Beach Tennis Club.....we don't play tennis but they have a nice pool facility and it is close to our home so the boys can practice their swimming. They did their best to keep it a surprise and with the exception of a couple of little accidental leaks they kept the secret for my Father's Day Surprise. They surprised me by taking me to Father's Day Brunch at the clubhouse. 
Grant enjoyed a piece of Hershey's Chocolate Cake (which we all helped him with) to top of the brunch and then we went swimming. Grant was having trouble eating because his front lower tooth broke loose Friday night at the Angels game on a ice cream sandwich - it wasn't a problem after about 6pm when a pillow fight with his friend completed the extraction - now that's a cool Father's Day Gift!
Toilets, Tennis, & Teeth! That's how I'm going to remember this Father's Day.
DUTY! :-)
