Dinnertime

When I was growing up, we ate dinner every night at precisely 5:00. My dad would walk in the door to our cheerful yellow kitchen, where the dog was waiting for him and my mom would be standing at the stove, stirring something or lifting a pot lid while steam rose above. My sister or I would have set the table, and we'd come out from our rooms to say hello and all sit down together. Dinner was always a full meal, complete with meat, vegetable, starch, and salad, beautifully displayed in serving dishes with garnishes. It wasn't formal at all, but it was a real meal time--as befit the food my mother served. We ate like we were very, very rich people, which in a sense we were.

Ah, childhood. I hope I can give the same to my eventual offspring, but I'm not sure how it will all work out. In the meantime, Sam and I are still using the dining room as storage for the boxes we haven't unpacked yet, so we've been eating our meals on the couch at the coffee table. Generally, it's been fun because we watch one of the shows we've been Netflixing, but we hit a low point last night, I think, when I actually started to fall asleep while eating. Talk about an unceremonious meal!

Of course, my parents will likely want to point out that I used to do this when I was very little: I ate so slowly that I actually fell asleep at the table. Once my dad made me sit at the table for an hour after I finished so that I could see how incredibly long it had taken me to eat a little plate of food. What a sense of humor. ;)