mustard, relish and my dad

If you know me at all, you'd know that I'm kind of an emotional person. Heck, my little (age 25) brother still gives me grief about the time that he saw me cry at the Cheerios commercial that was popular at Christmastime several years back.

I'm sure you know the one.

The baby's sitting in the highchair and there are cheerios scattered all over the tray. The grandmother (I can only assume) talks about several cheerios as though they are family members living in various areas of the country.

But then she scoots two pieces of cereal together and says "But we'll always be together for Christmas".

Excuse me while I hunt down a Kleenex.

There. ahem.

I live 400 miles plus a few from my family. They're on one side of Lake Michigan and I'm on the other. While I know that this is pittance of a distance to some families,(my mother-in-law, God love her, always reminds me that I could have an ocean separating me and my family...helpful, isn't she?) it is difficult for me at times.

And silly things remind me of when I was a kid.

Take last night, for example. We had hot dogs for dinner. While I am normally just a "plain yellow mustard, no ketchup, please!" kind of girl, I happen to have sweet pickle relish in the house at the moment. I made a potato salad a couple weeks back and I needed relish for that.

My dad always, always, always put mustard and relish on his hotdogs and his burgers when I was growing up. And on the burger, he always makes a continuous circle with the mustard from the outside of the burger to the center and then closes the bottle and dabs the remaining bit on the bun top.

Always.

But last night while I was putting mustard and relish on my hotdog, I started to think about Dad. And how much I love him and he loves me and how much I miss him when I don't get a chance to see him often.

When I do get to see him in two weeks and three days, I can't wait to hug him.