Dining with my son

Every four weeks or so I meet Gabe somewhere around Novato for dinner.  It's sort of a half-way point for both of us, although Novato isn't known for its great dining options. Seriously, we have met at Rickey's several times and if you have never been there, well, don't hurry.  Or maybe you should hurry because places like Rickey's won't be around forever.  Perhaps at one time it was "fine dining" but now it's more like "just something to eat."  But they have a nice 12 year old Macallum Scotch and so it ain't all bad.

Last night we met on Grant Street, the heart of commerce in Novato, if Novato actually has a heart. Finnegan's touts itself as an Irish Bar.  One would expect pub food, shamrocks, Irish fighting ballads. (Yes, that's a bit of a contradiction but some of those old Irish ballads are about beating the crap out of someone, so there you go.)  You would not expect something called "Irish Nachos" but indeed, they were on the menu and we had to have them.  A combo of waffle-cut french fries, some pulled pork, cheese, some other stuff.  They were very bad for you so we ate all of them.  And the entertainment of the evening was a lone guitar player doing covers of Elton John songs.  Last I knew, Elton was not Irish, but he is a changeable guy so maybe he has gone over to the land of the green. 

But the point is to have dinner and drinks with Gabe.  We talk about everything: our pets, friends, work, food, travel, the vagaries of life, poverty, politics, happiness, getting old.  Everything else, too, we never run out of things to chat about.  And usually we have neat shots of good whiskey, either from Kentucky or Scotland or Ireland. Just two shots, we are conscious of the fact we have to drive home.

Last night, after the above mentioned Irish Nachos, we walked down Grant for a while and then back up, passing a really seedy looking bar dropped in the middle of the block.  The other businesses on the block were seriously aiming for "upscale."  A pseudo-Italian trattoria, a very high-end toy store, a furniture store selling nothing but kids sleep furniture (what an odd niche market that is), clothing stores, housewares, you name it.  And then this dive bar. We both like dive bars (well, he is my son after all) and we both appreciated the bar's gutsy grasp on that little piece of high-priced real estate.  So we went in for one last Bushmill's.  Gordon Lightfoot was singing about the Edmund Fitzgerald, an almost-homeless man scooted over so we could sit at the bar, the bartender was nowhere to be found for about three minutes, I was the only female in the place, and it was perfect.

There is something about hanging out with your kids when they are no longer kids but successful adults.  The relationship is so intense and yet so easy.  It's one of the most powerful, concentrated feelings  I have ever experienced but it is also so ethereal and almost ghostly.  It has the strength of a hundred spider webs but seems almost that lacy and fine. Impossible to describe and I don't know if other parents have the same feeling, but it's rather unique.

I am not sure we will visit Finnegan's again but there is more dinner and whiskey in our future, of that I am certain.

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