the man behind the counter said they didn’t sell ‘blu’ or any brand of e-cigarettes. i said ‘thank you’ and started walking away. turned my head to see if dad was following. saw him gesturing vaguely and saying ‘do you know where else they’re sold’ to the man behind the counter, whose head seemed like it could’ve been politely shaking ‘no’ from the moment we walked in CVS.

dad seemed ready to abandon dinner to hunt for an e-cigarette battery. i remember him doing stuff like this when i was little. one time at the beach we were in an arcade, taking turns maneuvering a joystick controlling a ‘grabbing claw’ in one of those impossible toy machines. we were aiming for a stuffed ‘dino’ dinosaur toy from the flintsones. there were two or three non-traditionally colored ‘dinos’ in the machine. the claw wasn’t picking up anything. i wanted a ‘dino’ really bad. dad gave me quarters and told me to keep trying while he used the bathroom. a little later he returned to the machine with a man holding a set of keys. the man opened the machine and gave me three ‘dinos.’ i was so happy. i think even then i knew ‘this doesn’t happen to most people.’ over the years my dad got really good at getting things from claw machines. it’s like his ‘thing.’ he and my mom went to the movies every thursday and he would almost always bring home a stuffed toy for me. by the time he got really good at it i was in high school.

8:57pm: typed ‘8:57pm: diner’ in phone while exiting dad’s car outside the diner.

8:58–10:33PM: as we walked inside i continued a story i had started in the car about chris hadfield (astronaut in ‘space oddity’ video). he was answering a class of sixth grader’s questions from the international space station. someone asked him why he wanted to be an astronaut. he said something like ‘just after my tenth birthday they landed on the moon.’ dad opened the door to the diner. i said ‘how old were you when they landed on the moon? nineteen sixty-nine?’ dad thought a minute and said ‘i was…twenty-seven. whoa-ho-ho-ho! twenty-seven! you’re picking up where i left off.’

a waiter approached our table and said his name was danny. my dad said ‘dana?’ the waiter and i said ‘danny.’ dad said ‘oh, oh, i have a bad ear, i’m sorry. i’m mike’ and shook danny’s hand. it used to embarrass me that he’d introduce himself to waiters. i ordered a spinach salad and maryland crab soup. dad ordered some kind of chicken pasta dish and a salad and matzah ball soup.

mostly talked about the navy. i asked a lot of questions.

the most interesting things my dad had to say about when he was in the navy (1958-1962):