A lovely dinner

Adventures come with a price, and and the also come with dividends, assumed and unexpected. Living day by day is an assumed blessing of adventure. Spontaneous celebrations come to flick on switches of unanticipated joy.

Life with a medical student entails erratic schedules and getting on a roller coaster that can be a joy ride or a hell ride, largely dependent upon your own creativity, resourcefulness and ability to embrace uncertainty as a positive ingredient in an adventuresome life.

I spent last week making myself miserable, and decided to move on from that, because likely I've only got one life to live. Unless reincarnation happens to be true, and while there's that possibility, I'm not counting on it. Besides, why suck up to misery? So I decided to stop moping and start opening up to the possibilities latent in an adventure I might have foregone in favor of normalcy (whatever that is) if I hadn't been lucky enough to fall in love with my husband.

And fate/God threw me a delightful surprise: Tonight David got off unexpectedly early and we took the whole family out to celebrate at Norma's Meditaranean Restaraunt. Miraculous, from oldest to youngest, everyone savored the company of family, as well as the Sifa pizza, drizzling out feta, onions and little squares of tomato from pitas sandwiched together like lovers. Gabe didn't fuss as he stuffed his face with couscos and cucumbers, occasionally smearing smushy remnants of food on his sister's infant head. Avriana didn't wail. Nika followed directions. David and I conversed. Not one person left without a belly sated, content and practically overflowing with warmth, laughter and good food.

We've been going to Norma's for just about three years now, and our favorite waiter has seen me go through two pregnancies. Today he told his girlfriend that we're his favorite family to wait on, and then told us. He also said his girlfriend said she couldn't stop staring at us because, "they are such a cute family." Alot of people look at my family and probably idealize us; they see us as young, cute, happy, nice and successful. There's a danger in that -- a danger that we could start trying to live up to a fantasy; that we could forsake the gritty true-love of family for a graven image of an idyllic family. But there's a gift in seeing through the eyes of pleasant strangers too: a recognition by others of the beauty we offer to one another and the world simply by being together and loving each other. And tonight we really had a lovely time, shining a light flowing from the blessings we have in one another.

Of course each and every kid fell into fussy wails when we returned home. On the other hand, we turned the tears into giggles before lights out and it's only 8:09. What else could a girl want?

Maybe just a little more sleep. A few more minutes of quiet. But I'll miss the raucous when it's a memory. I already know I will.