My Dad may not understand what I’m doing, but he sure does benefit from my creative abilities.  These range from having a great understanding of who he is, and what he likes, and thus always getting the presents that match what he’d really like…. to crazy surprises…. to the occasional use of my story-telling skills, which is what today’s smile is about.

It IS only appropriate that I made Dad smile for Father’s Day with my wit… with something I made up, as I am shacked away in beautiful La Jolla to write my book.

Last week I sent someone a link to a video I made for Father’s Day in 2008 to show them how near everything my condo is that they were considering renting. Since they had not had a chance to visit the condo yet, I made them a video as if I were picking them up from the airport, and giving them the tour… as I would do if they were coming to visit.  I showed the drive to the airport, inside my house, the jog through the nature trails and by the river, the fitness center, and how close the place is to everything.  Dad loved it.  Sending it to the potential renter reminded me that “Oh shit! Father’s Day is next week!”

When I spoke to Itay (little bro) earlier in the week, he mentioned that Mom and Dad are coming to visit him for Father’s Day. If that’s the case, then I can’t quite have something show up at the house.  He also is aware that it’s Father’s Day, so surprises won’t go as well.  Hmmmmm…..

I spoke to Dad later in the week, and told him I knew of their Gainesville trip.  I said that it was too bad, ’cause I was going to send a stripper…. but maybe I should send one to Gainesville.  He said “You can send one AFTER we get back!  You know you can always send a stripper, they’re appropriate for any occasion!”  I was chuckling, because Mom was in the same room.  They’re always together, and on speaker phone. Maybe that’s why I can get clingy in a relationship? I’ve got 33 years conditioning that I’m supposed to end up sharing every phone conversation that comes through with my loved one?  (My brain is having inner turmoil right now at that last sentence, and how to react to it.  Should I go “awwwwe! That’s so sweet?”  or should I cringe at the lack of space/freedom?)

Today I woke up ready to write. My stomach was extremely active, as I had just finished Phase 3 of my cleanse.  Webber (The dog I’m dog-sitting) had to go to the bathroom too.  I got started, and had some David Sedaris playing, and he was talking about his dad.  Oh shit, it’s father’s day!  Time to call.

I rang Mom’s cell phone. I believe they use that one more often these days, and that’s the one that has texting enabled anyways.  Dad has this thing against spam texts.  He got one or two of them, and decided that since they don’t text anyways, he’s just disabling the feature. I gotta admit, it’s adorable when mom texts me.  It’s also convenient to communicate that I’ve arrived safely at the end of an 18 hour drive by sending a text…. less of a chance of waking them.

Dad picked up, “Hello?”

We are all bilingual, as we came from Israel on my 9th birthday.  Hello is one of those words that works in either language kind of the same.  I think he actually said Allo? which is more Hebrew than English.

“Happy Father’s Day to You!”  sang of course to the tune of that one song that people say that restaurants can’t sing, because it’s actually copyrighted by some lady who’s extremely old by now…. but most restaurants bring you out a small piece of cake and the entire wait staff, and sing it anyways.

He laughed, and we both said “Ma Nishma?” at the same time.  “Ma Nishma?”  means “What’s new?” and since this is a post dedicated to my dad, I’m going to tell you a story that shows how funny and witty he is.  The apple did not fall far from the tree at all!

It was Passover (Jewish Holiday that’s celebrated during Easter time, when we eat Matzoh (Cardboard) instead of bread, and read fairytales about how God beat the shit out of the Egyptians until they let us go, Moses talked to a burning bush, and then we split the ocean, and drowned all of them)  in 2005. My parents have these friends, the Alkali’s.  They are a very close knit family that came to the USA.  I believe it was 3 brothers, and they all had kids, and then they brought over more siblings, etc… now they own half of this neighborhood with castle-like homes.  There were probably 60 people at this Seder (means “order” (as in organization), and is the actual word for the gathering of people to celebrate Passover), and we were some of them.

I was dating a girl named Victoria at the time, and she was my date.  I can’t say I’ve had too many Passover Seder dates before! She’s funny, smart, voluptuous, polite, and a great conversationalist.  From the night we met, we were finishing at least 8 of each other’s sentences a night.

The room had many tables of all shapes organized around the room to fit all the people.  There were plates, and Hagada (Legend — the book you take turns reading from…. everyone gets one.  Think of it like the bible- you can get a picture book version, a text-only version, or any hybrids, and I’m sure you can even find pop-up photo ones).  We were seated at the children’s table with the other people who did not have gray hair.  This definitely was mostly an older crowd, and I was wishing that they had name tags.

After the 1st half of the reading, food was brought out.  The steaming hot bowls of Matzo Ball Soup (When holidays are had at our house, Dad likes to help out in the kitchen, so that he can arrange 2 Matzoh Balls and a carrot for everyone before bringing them their bowl!  The apple did not fall far from the tree!), the beef brisket and rice, the baked potatoes with garlic, the baked chicken drums.  This is standard Jewish holiday food. Until I got to Austin, I never even realized that you can grill beef brisket… I’ve only had it served Jewish holiday style– boiled in broth, and served with rice.

We feasted, and then people were socializing. It was all right to get up and talk to people in other tables.  Victoria wanted to go say hi to my folks, and discuss her first Passover experience.

She asked me “How do you say ‘What’s up?’ without saying ‘Shalom’ ?”  “Oh! That’s easy!  You say ‘Ma Nishma?’”  This girl is smart (Graduated validvictorian of her class, and then entered a medschool program at University of Miami that she can complete in 6 years instead of 8.  Knows multiple languages.), and got the hang of it in seconds flat.

She approached Dad.

As I wrote that just now, I remembered one more detail about Passover that makes it stand out from other holidays.  Wine.  There’s grape wine, usually it’s always Manischewitz, which I actually really enjoy.  It tastes like candy, but will get you pretty trashed (think of a really sweet Mad Dog 20/20).  Drinking it is manditory!

I stood next to her, and before she got to say something, I said in Hebrew real quick “Pretend like she said something funny.”

Vic: Ma Nishma?

Noam: Me too!

Vic: huh? – trying to annunciate more rigidly, and more slowly – “Ma Nee-sh-ma!”

Noam: Yeah! Me too!

Vic:  You too?

Noam: Me too! I also like to eat Pussy!

Vic: -a flustered look of confusion and embarassment and what the hell do you say to your boyfriend’s dad when he says that out of the blue – Maybe I’m pronouncing it wrong?  I’m trying to say that greeting!  What are you talking about?

Noam: Yeah! Ma Nishma! It means “I like to eat Pussy!”

He then proceeded to convince Victoria despite her arguments that it is a national greeting in Israel.  Since we all like to eat pussy, it bonds us together, thus we greet each other with that with brings us closer.

The poor girl was trying to be polite, and wanted to believe him, but it seemed a bit much, and a bit implausable. Maybe Noam’s messing with her, as the apple did not fall far from the tree.

Shoshi (mom) would not lie to her!  She’s not the one with the sense of humor.  Now where did she go?

A quick glance around the massive room revealed Shoshi about 20 feet away on the left, talking to Hannah and David.

“Shoshi!”  Mom turned around.  She could see Victoria standing there in her nice outfit, with a slight look of despair on her face, and right behind her are Dad and I…. “Ma Nishma!” before this phrase was even uttered, we were smiling from ear to ear.

Mom could only come to one conclusion… the obvious conclusion that would be drawn at a moment like this, when at a proper event someone looks flustered while my dad and I are both grinning like the Cheshire Cat…. someone is having their leg pulled.  She laughed!

My mother did not know what we were doing to Victoria, so she had no way of knowing that her laughter made Victoria think that she just yelled “I like to eat pussy” across a room of 60 Israelis. Her color shifted a bit.

I could not keep a straight face.  I laughed, and explained that my father was in fact just messing with her, and that I had told her the truth. “Ma Nishma” is just slang for “What’s up?” or “What’s new?”

I love my Dad.  He is a great predictor of so many things in my life.  He is smart.  He has a corny sense of humor (which I inherited), he has a big heart, he is stubborn, he likes jazz, he loves gadgetry, he loves sci-fi.  In fact, while most people were read fairy tales of knights and castles, Dad would read us – or recite from memory, sometimes making his own alterations in the story – science fiction…. from his shelves upon shelves of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlen, and sci-fi magazines.

So back to this year, 2010.  I sang half a verse, he laughed, we both said “Ma Nishma?”

“So… I got a problem Dad. …. I forgot that you went to Gainesville, and the stripper came over to the house, but no one got the door…  So she went to the yard…. opened the side gate, was practically naked, as she was going to sneak in the back door and surprise you….when Bowser and Bamba (their big dogs) came out of nowhere…and Bowser completely scratched her up where it is inappropriate for me to mention, and…..”

“You sent a stripper over?”

“No Dad, but I must tell a good story if you had to actually ask to confirm!” He laughed, and that was my Father’s Day gift this year.  A laugh, and a blog-post that tells the world how much I love my dad.  A post that shows how similar we are.

I’ve never really had any heroes. Later in my life, I chose Richard Branson as one of them.  My Dad was always someone that I learned from.  We irritate the hell out of each other often, because we’re so damn similar.  It’s like 2 rams.  We’re just stubborn, and tell corny jokes.  I get my sarcasm from him.  I get my logic from him.  I get my love of computers and technology from him, which has been a massive benefit to my life.  I get my resourcefulness from him, and despite that I don’t think he understands my couchsurfing journey, I would not be able to pull it off if I wasn’t practically a clone of him.

I get my looks from him.  When I was in high school, and after, I had these 2 photos of my dad on my desk.  People would ask me “When were you in the army?”  “I wasn’t! That’s my Dad!”

Here are those photos now. These are not scans… I just took a picture of them with my camera, as I have them with me, as part of my very few prized posessions that I have kept, and take with me where ever I go!

Thanks for putting up with all my bullshit all these years Dad, I love you!