At least I'm used to the poop.

Today my father celebrated his "senior" birthday (62) by fixing my toilet. While I was cleaning off the old wax ring, and the included "slime", I noted that it wasn't all that different than what I usually do each day. At least having a child means that you're used to being elbow deep in crap.

It wasn't what I planned on doing for his birthday. I love having an older house (something I got from him), but it comes with it's own share of issues. The least of which is that usually something has broken at least once before and someone took a half assed approach to fixing it. That was the deal with our toilet, and we took at least one of those half assed attempts at a fix. It finally failed, and just in time for dad to be in town. He is about to leave for six weeks, so the timing was amazing. What would have no doubt required the services of a plumber, who would have wanted to charge me a lot to do something more involved, cost me 50 bucks in supplies and some time with dad. I think I got a great deal.

While I haven't always gotten along with my dad, having M has really helped. It has made me stick with it when I would have rather told him to stuff it. It also helps that with age he's been willing to get help for some issues and clear out that dark cloud that was following him around. It also means I get help with my plumbing issues, and M gets to know her grandpa B.

So, happy birthday, Pops. I've emailed you the link to the blog again, maybe this time you'll check it.