Happy Father's Day!

Although there is much catching up to do, I wonder if that would even work. Seems like not. Yesterday (I'll go all the way back there!) was Father's Day, and Jim dutifully lounged around in bed with the laptop, pretending that he had no interest in getting up, while the world's slowest cook and her two young scullery maids put some breakfast-in-bed together. We had bacon-wrapped arugula frittata with homemade foccacia bread. In the interest of full disclosure, the focaccia bread began its life as a tube of refrigerated pizza dough. Still, it all came out pretty yummy.

In the afternoon we took the kids across the street to hang around with our neighbor, Sheila. She is a retired school teacher, and Grandma-aged, and the kids think she is the bees knees. She agreed to let them plague her for a bit while Jim and I went for a run together. (Wheeze.)

When I went to pick them up, they had just started a book, so I hung around with them for a while. When the story was finished, Muriel said, "Sheila, did you make your dad breakfast in bed? Because I did!"

Sheila was only a tiny bit thrown. She said, "My dad isn't here."

"Oh," said Muriel. "Where is he?"

Sheila raised her eyebrows at me. "Do you want me to tell her?" she said. I shrugged. My kids are chillingly cavalier about death.

"Well," she said, "The last time I saw him, he was in New Jersey."