Announcing Penultimate Plate

Tonight we celebrated "Patriots' Day" - a Massachusetts holiday marking the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which kicked off the American Revolution in a gloriously haphazard way, with a "shot heard 'round the world," breaking the "ice" of a showdown between two armed parties - a shot which, although nobody knows whether it was shot by a colonist or a British regular, it nevertheless ignited the powder keg we now know as the "War for Independence." Since it was a holiday in the state where I work, but not the state where I live, it was a "holiday" for me and Madeleine all day, for me, Madeleine and Daniel as of 2:45, when his preschool got out, and around 4:00 for the family at large, when Ian was home from school and Mommy was finished filing tax returns.

So the "at-large" celebration consisted of a walk in the woods, followed by a Chinese buffet supper. At the Chinese buffet, Ian was typically, and wonderfully, methodical in his pursuit of all-the-grease-you-can-eat, striding cheerfully up to the buffet what seemed like a dozen times, coming back with some piece of Crisco-encrusted chicken and a few French fries, only to get up and come back with a fresh plate of similar delicacies several minutes later. At one point, toward the end, he came back to the table with a typically spare canvas of fried decor, and announced: "I know how close I am to 'Last Plate': pretty close."

(April 18, 2011)