Thursday, August 25

15 Short Years

Sonnet and I celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary yesterday with a glass of Champagne at Claridges then dinner at Beirut Express, a Lebanese on the Edgware Road. Our tenth was at the "Pub and Grub" in La Veta. Photo next to blacktop exiting Utah.

Eitan spends five hours baking a surprise anniversary berry pie only to find the pie on the kitchen floor with Rusty's head, shaking back and forth furiously, covered in it. The boy cries (he tells us) but also has a sense of humor about the whole thing which, really, is quite funny. The dog looks at us, balefully, as Eitan describes the drama.

So, to Sonnet : It has been the best.

Tolstoy's "War And Peace" arrives in the poste.
Me, at the kitchen table: "Now THAT is a book."
Madeleine, distractedly, playing a video game on the iPad: "We have it already. In my room."
Me: "Really?"
Madeleine: "It's on the shelf. In my room."
Eitan: "Are you going to read it?"
Me: "It's my project for the fall."
Madeleine, matter of factly: "I've already read it."
Me:
Eitan: "You have not!"
Camilla: "What's it about?"
Madeleine: "It's about war."
Me: "And peace?"
Madeleine: "Yeah, whatever."
Eitan: "What's the last letter then?"
Madeleine: "A."
Eitan: "No it's not!"
Madeleine: "YOU wouldn't know, Eitan, since YOU'VE never read it."
Eitan reads the first sentence and marvels at the book's size.