Dear Dad,

Today I'll celebrate a belated Father's Day. We are headed out on a boat on the lake, a childhood pastime woven together by water spray and reggae and port wine cheese and itchy outdoor carpet prints in your thighs and elastic lines around your hips from sleeping in bathing suits. When I was younger, we would see a couple dolphin swimming beside the boat. I am hoping that Lake Holstein can deliver my tall order of nostalgia, but the dolphins are kind of important. If they leave out the dolphins, I don't know how I am going to cope.

Anyhow, my friend writes a lifestyle/decor column in the Palm Beach Post. On Father's Day, she posted a column about all of the ways in which her father influenced her style, her eye for detail, and her passions. Since this blog is all about copycatting other bloggers anyhow, I thought I'd steal yet another template for this special-day-one-week-after- the-real-day we have set aside for Fathers.

Things I attribute to my daddio:

My lack of embarrassment: My father is a bold and funny man in public, so likeable that he doesn't have to worry about what others are thinking of him. Although I don't have that same exact charm and charisma that he does with my first impressions, my lack of shame comes from my dad. It's an endearing trait once you get to know me.

My affinity for dance: My dad is always grabbing the outstretched hands of older women: widows, my Mimi, or those who've been dance-widowed by the stubbornness of their left-feeted husbands. He's got great rhythm and can twirl you in the correct proportions, balancing between the skirt flairing that make a woman feel pretty and the dizziness that the twirl-crazed induce.

A get-it-done attitude: My father has never indulged our whining. Any thing unpleasant was instead a "good experience", which, of course, really meant that we were having a not good at all experience and get the hell over it. I am able to chug through things because of him and this insensitively sage advice.

My spontaneity: My father always makes a quick, but wise decision. It is one of the things that makes him such a good business man. I like to make decisions quickly and get problems solved and put them to rest, which is the only way I have made it through my first years of teaching.

My love of math: We always played a game called "math detective." And now, as I am writing question after question for a math test prep website, I kick myself (and might kick him) for loving the challenge of a word problem.

Take the number of times I've mentioned "father", multiply by the number of times I typed "dad", and add a quick spin around the dance floor. What does that equal? "A good experience". (Because that is always the answer if you cannot find the answer.)

My hand-eye coordination: Although I didn't play many sports when I was younger, I am athletic like my dad. He is the kind of guy who can pick up a racket or a golf club or palm a basketball or dribble a soccer ball and swiftly school you in any sport. But he does it with a certain grace and humility, making it still fun to play, even though you lose every single time.

Although I am glad that there are some things I did not inherit from my father (his receding hairline, his mustache, his crazy heart condition that has some ill-feelings toward the sport of tennis), most of the things I received from him are some of my favorites about myself. So thank you, daddy. And thanks to all of the fathers out there who loved us, who played with us, and who told us to put on our big girl panties and deal with it.