Whenever it snows I think of the frozen cat.

When my Dad was a young boy he had a Siamese cat. Siamese cats are notorious criers and one night it climbed up the oak tree and got stranded. Upon hearing it crying, my Grandfather went outside to try and coax it down. It kept climbing higher and higher until there was no hope of reaching it.

That night a snowstorm blew in. The next morning the cat was gone.

My Dad went sledding in the morning before going to school. After school he went sledding again. This time his sled hit something in the snow. He dug into the snow and found the frozen Siamese cat. He must have run over it a dozen times.

He brought it into the kitchen where my Grandmother placed it in a small box next to the heat vent. She was hoping to thaw it out enough to be able to curl it into the box to bury it. She went back to cooking dinner. Later she heard a cat meowing. She turned around and noticed that the box was empty. Then my Dad walked into the kitchen with the unfrozen Siamese cat rubbing up against his legs and purring.

In 2004 I was in Berlin for Christmas.
I called my father in Maryland on Christmas day.
For some reason, his number was blocked from receiving international calls.
So I tried the number for upstairs, where my aunt lives with her two children.
It just rang and rang and rang.

Finally my Dad answered the phone.

“Why is your line blocked from receiving international calls?” I asked my Dad when he finally picked the receiver, “Who’s calling you internationally?”

“It’s all those mail-order Russian brides,” he answered.

“Why didn’t anyone answer upstairs, isn’t anyone home?” I asked.

“Oh they’re probably all in their rooms. We went shopping for Christmas presents and everyone ended up getting into a fight and they decided to cancel Christmas. When are you coming home?” he asked in the same breath.

“NEVER! I can’t believe you just asked me that after telling me that Christmas is canceled.”

My Dad just laughs.

After I got off the phone with my Dad I wrote him a postcard.
I told him to apply for his passport and that next year we’d spend Christmas together in another country. 

In 2005, when my father turned 50 and I was 30, we spent Christmas in Paris.
It was the first time my father traveled outside the United States.

I told my dad that I was working at a metal shop and he said “Call Pratt and tell them you want your money back.” Pratt is the art school I went to where I majored in painting.

I was grinding all day and not the good kind. Kim says, “I like it because it’s like going to the gym.” My response, “Who goes to the gym for nine and a half hours?”

I spent an entire day at a drill press imagining I was Bjork in Dancer in the Dark. Later, when I got home, I pulled five metal spurs out of the bottom of my foot. Apparently tucking you pants into your boots is an amateur mistake.

Kim calls the project manager B.D.A., Big Dumb Asshole.