COULD I BE MORE WEIRDED OUT?! . . .

I come home from a very nice evening with an old beloved friend (or a beloved old friend), turn on the boob tube to catch the end of the "27th Annual Kennedy Center Honors," see Elton John tearing up at Fantasia rendering a version of his hit "Sad Songs (Say So Much)" -- he really does look so honored and he blows her a kiss (just as he blows Heather Headley a kiss now for her version of "Your Song" which rocked, by the way, and why do I not own any of her albums?) -- and then, comes ...

Kid Rock.

Kid Rock in a black t-shirt and jeans and black cowboy hat. Kid Rock with a rock n' roll band. Kid Rock with his long hair and bad skin. Kid Rock and his raw scratchy voice. Kid Rock on stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, rocking it out in front of Shrub and wife, and all of Washington and Hollywood's elite.

HOW WEIRDED OUT AM I.

But it gets weirder. Kid (I assume that is his first name) is bringing us his interpretation of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." And it's quite good -- I mean, it's rock n' roll, so he can't really mess it up. Even Sir Elton John is bopping his head along with it and seemingly smiling. And I'm thinking, "poor Kid -- there he is, rocking his heart out for these stiffs, and they're just sitting there being all Washington, D.C. boring. I would hate to be him." Oh, but no! I am so wrong, because here they go, one by one, popping up like gophers in the prairie, clapping their hands and swaying back and forth in that slightly-less-than-soulful way most non-musicians have. The only people I can affirmatively identify are Angela Bassett, Courtney B. Vance and some folks who look like Cabinet members. Or they should be Cabinet members because if they were any stiffer, they'd be dead. But there they all are, even the other honorees and their significant others: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Sir John's partner David Furnish, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Dancing. Clapping. Swaying. Singing along at the tops of their lungs.

WEIRD. I can't explain it, but I am SO, SO, SO weirded out by this. And all I can think is ... I wonder if Laura Bush is enjoying this?

***

LIKE SANDS THROUGH THE HOURGLASS . . .

We went to see Mrs. D tonight. Luckily, unlike the last couple of Christmases, she was home and we caught her before she went to spend the holidays with family members. And once again, I am overcome with so much feeling, so much emotion, so many memories that aren't even really mine, and such a deep, deep longing to hold onto her and all that she means to me and my family.

Mrs. D is the widow of Mr. D, who died, amazingly, fifteen years ago. Fifteen years! Has it already been fifteen years? Only that revelation would stun Appa into silence over tea and carrot cake. Mr. D gave Appa his first job in America when Appa and Omma landed in New York -- a job in his pharmaceutical department at Burke Rehabilitation Center, in White Plains. Mr. D didn't speak loudly to Appa and Omma because they could not understand English. Mr. D didn't leave Appa and Omma out of his social events just because having them there would be awkward for their other guests. Mr. D didn't mind me sitting in his big chair behind his big desk, using his letterhead stationery to draw pictures of him with his fancy ink fountain pens. Mr. D mentored Appa and hired him full-time when Appa received his American certification. When Appa decided, in 1983, to branch out on his own and open his own pharmacy, Mr. D begged Appa to stay, probably because Appa was a good employee whose loss would be felt by the department, but probably more because Mr. D didn't let go of his friends, no matter how much they wanted to leave his orbit. Mr. D, in essence, made Appa the American man he is today. Mrs. D is, in every sense, an extension of who Mr. D was, and he lives in our lives through her to this day.

We only see her once a year. We should see her more. Cheech and I still get birthday and Christmas cards from her, a check for $25.00 enclosed each time, written out in her graceful slanted script. Shamefully, only in recent years has it occurred to us to send her Christmas cards of our own, written not at our parents' urging but at the urgings of our own hearts. Completely embarrassingly, we only discovered her birthdate this evening. April 27th. I will never forget it now.

But every time I see her, every time I answer her questions about my life, every time I listen to her and Appa kibbutz about the people Appa and Mr. D used to work with, every time I listen to funny stories about her and Mr. D and their family, I think "this woman can never ever leave us." She's 73 now, and walks a hefty two miles daily, and renovates her home, and volunteers her time for the benefit of others, and puts up a full-size Christmas tree every December. But she will leave us soon, and I just don't want her to. For then, who will we have left? Who will Appa have left? The bridge between his former life and his current life, between the Motherland and the new land, between obscurity and endless dreams -- if that is washed away, what will Appa have left?

Tonight, I noticed Mrs. D's possessions. I noticed her 45-year-old furniture, all made of fruitwood and probably heavy as all hell. I noticed her wicker-trimmed, leather-seated, curved-back lounge chairs, chairs that designers dare to replicate nowadays and resell for $2000 apiece. I noticed her bar set, complete with old glass decanters. I noticed her intricately-carved mirrors and chests of drawers. I noticed her not-so-cheesy tchotchke collection, deliberately laid out within her precious curio cabinet. I noticed a perfectly maintained 40-year-old black-and-white television set, contained in bright red plastic, rabbit ear antennas tucked neatly into their notches. I noticed the painting from Korea that Appa had given to Mr. D so many decades ago. I noticed the thoughtfully collected, wrapped, unwrapped, hung ornaments on Mrs. D's Christmas tree. I noticed the immaculate chandelier, corny by some standards, precious by mine, its brass plating burnished away, but the white pebbled glass hurricanes intact with nary a scratch nor a crack. I noticed especially Mr. D's collection of pharmacy school textbooks. The second edition of the Pharmacopeia of the United States -- it was that slender a volume?! The mere eighth edition of the Merck Manual. Pharmaceutical Latin. Introduction to Semimicro Qualitative Chemistry Formulae. I opened a volume, careful not to disturb the fragile binding: Mr. D's notes scribbled on a piece of notebook paper tucked between the first and second pages. I felt I was touching history, and I suppose I was. The history of a man who graduated from pharmacy school in three years, in 1948. The history of a man who gave my own father a history in this country.

I wish I were older. I wish I had been born earlier so that I could remember the life Appa had, working daily with Mr. D, having occasional dinners with the D's. I wish I could remember more clearly being carried on Mr. D's extremely tall and burly frame and accepting -- gracelessly, I'm sure -- the treats I know he offered me every time I visited Appa at work. I wish I had known Mrs. D's birthday earlier, or that I hadn't wasted my teenage years thinking that these yearly visits were an obligation instead of the unmitigated pleasure and enormous learning experience they are now.

Mrs. D took note of my ooh-ing and aah-ing over the chandelier and the bookshelf full of old hardcover textbooks. She told me that she would include me in her will and give those items to me. I grabbed her and told her "that better not be for a long, long time." She laughed me off, but little she knew how heartfelt those words were as they fell from my trembling liips. A will? You mean that document that only becomes effective after you die? Oh no. No, no, no.

"Please take good care of yourself," I instructed her as we said our goodbyes. It wasn't just a greeting -- do you think she thought it was just a sentiment? Did she know I was being purely selfish, needing to see her again next year so I could hear more, absorb more, learn more, grow more? Did she know I had noticed that she was a little more stooped, a little more slender, a little more wrinkled, a little less light on her feet? Oh, would that it was Chistmastime 2005 ...