My daughter left L.A. for Ohio. We’re trying to lure her back with sunsets and siblings
My life hasn’t been the same since Letterman left. Then Garrison Keillor quit his radio gig recently. Boom, two delightful young spirits gone like that. Now whom do we turn to for moments of sly and honest reflection? Nancy O’Dell? Ryan Seacrest?
The world gets dumber every day, it seems. And I’m OK with that.
The other departure that troubles me lately is the cross-country move of our younger daughter. It’s right up there with Letterman and Keillor in the way it leaves a void that seems unfillable.
Fortunately, she is often back in L.A. for work, and we may see her even more now than when she actually resided here.
The other day, I asked her – yelling from an adjacent room, which is how we communicate best -- whether her stint in Cincinnati has made her love L.A. more or made her love it less.
“HEY RAPUNZEL, YOU LIKE IT HERE MORE NOW?” I think were my exact words.
To my surprise, she said that living in Ohio has made her love her hometown of L.A. more than ever. Obviously, that is code for “she misses her dad a ton.”
For Cincinnati may offer a lifestyle of the first order and a worldly, almost intergalactic vibe. But what it doesn’t have, and never will, is her father.
I’d probably do better back in Cincinnati than Rapunzel will. I was hewn in the Middle West. I have spent many more years outside the Midwest than in it, yet once the heartland gets its fingerprints all over you, you are pretty much done.
Seriously, I could live there happily amid the cheeseheads and the cicadas. I’d spend my days fishing farm ponds for perch. In my spare time I’d probably paint a little – barns, tool sheds, sheep, anything that needed a coat of latex to make it through the long winter.
For whatever reason, the little red-haired girl doesn’t see the allure in all of that. She’s an L.A. girl, through and through, born out here on the softer side of the country – I remember it as if it were yesterday.
That day, there seemed to be babies everywhere. Anxious moms delivered them machine-gun style into the hands of waiting doctors. Looking back, it must seem crass, but under our company’s healthcare plan, that’s how they did it. I even remember one doctor signaling for a fair catch – “I got her! I got her! Oooooops!”
First and 10, we took her home.
Posh was thrilled. In fact, for three years she never put her down. She’d stir a stew or sort the laundry, always bouncing her younger daughter on her hip.
In many ways, she’s still bouncing on her mother’s hip. They communicate relentlessly, like best friends. Me, I’ll go days without talking to my long-distance daughter; that’s how strong our bond is.
Cincinnati may offer a lifestyle of the first order and a worldly, almost intergalactic vibe. What it doesn’t have is her father.
I’m just glad she’s back a lot. Her friends are here, as well as her scoldy sister who keeps her in line. And her quippy big brother, tall as the kitchen door.
And she still likes nothing better than cocooning on the couch with her mother, watching total strangers argue over which dump to buy in some godforsaken corner of Memphis. That’s just good TV.
Oh, and then there’s her baby brother, the comic.
He thinks he’s way funnier than he actually is. He’s 13, and no one laughs harder at his jokes. The kid is his own laugh track. He is his own crush of adoring fans.
The other morning, I was standing at the kitchen counter stirring my coffee -- I mean, really concentrating, because what comes easily to others has always been a challenge to me -- when the little guy comes up from behind and yanks my running shorts down to my ankles, leaving me standing there in my Chicago Cubs boxers, which date back to Durocher.
In the rich lexicon of junior high, this is known as “pantsing,” and it’s a terrific hobby, particularly if you’re about to enter the 8th grade, where pantsing someone is a term of endearment (not to mention a fine way to meet school administrators).
Anyway, he pantsed me, then spun around and cack-cack-cackled, the way a 13-year-old rooster will after accomplishing some subversive guerrilla attack on the stuffy values of a doomed and outdated adult society.
How did I handle it? I just stood there in my boxers stirring my coffee, noticing something out the window, then licking cream cheese from the side of my thumb.
Tried to behave as if nothing significant had really happened. You know, like when your child moves away.
Twitter: @erskinetimes
