When I was younger my mother always advised me to serve dinner with lots of colors in it. Last night, I took this a little more literally than is really advisable.
I took dinner to my sister and her family, as she just brought a gorgeous little girl into the world. They requested Chinese food and in an effort to manifest my love to her I made two kinds of chicken (teriyaki and orange) so it would be like they really ordered take-out, you know?
When my kids were little they couldn't say "teriyaki" so we called it "brown chicken." The name stuck, as they always do and last night the kids giggled at the fact that we were having "brown chicken" and "orange chicken" for dinner. We are obviously a family of dining connoisseurs with very discriminating palates. I was bemused and a little mortified to realize that we also have a dish my kids call "white chicken." That's right...for a girl who loves descriptive words, it's baffling to find my food adjectives so seriously lacking.
For Amy...
I got an email this morning from an old college friend, now living with her husband and two "toddlets" in Taiwan. She wrote that she had just received our Christmas letter...mailed mid-December. She wrote, "It went from the states to Beijing, back to D.C., to Effingham (Effing-what?), to Taiwan." Rather than being dismayed that it took so long, I am nothing but amazed that it made it there at all, and once again, in absolute wonderment about the diligence and persistence of the U.S. postal service. They just don't give up until that letter is delivered. Wonder of wonders. There is an equality in the USPS (every letter is important and good and worthy of delivery) that revives my faith in all of humanity.
(Note: Lori, if you read this, please disregard the above mention of "Chinese food" as that is clearly a blasphemy considering your life experiences and current location!)
In other news, we are deep in the bowels of "Science Fair Week" (I named it that to make it sound fun and exciting, but really it just means we are up late and using lots of rubber cement and print cartridges). Caleb is frustrated with our pace, but I DO have to feed these other people and make sure they occasionally have clean underwear. (I am the "editor" and the "wielder-of-the-rotary-cutter" for the project.) His vision is grand and his desire to rewrite is unquenchable. His worries are even more rampant, and he reported yesterday that if he is missing anything he will get a zero and fail the term. Oh my boy.
And last night, LATE, after listening to the account of my husband's day, I remarked how very much he is like his son (or perhaps it is actually the other way around). This thought had never occurred to him and he stared at me incredulously, and then, in wonder, acknowledged that I was right. A stunning revelation.
