I arrived on Saturday before dinner, which ended up being out at the girls' favourite Japanese place, out in some suburb southeast of their home. Despite being enormously picky eaters, Japanese is something for which they have a profound and inexplicable appreciation. I hadn't eaten Japanese since South Bend, I think, so I was very much out of my depth, opting for some sort of tempura sampler after hearing Leslie describe my options. Mostly, I just enjoyed the food and watched the action as the girls made enormously loud spectacles of themselves, much to the mortification of their parents.
Sunday, the day of the party, which was for family (the girls having already had parties with their school friends), started with Mass and then just some play before everyone arrived in the afternoon. I watched the girls while their folks got things organized, sitting on the front porch while they biked back up and down the sidewalk with their neighbour, a classmate of Grace's named Lisa. It was fabulously windy and just the perfect temperature, and little Sophie (now 2 years old) kept coming over to me to talk with me, with us mostly marveling about the wind and agreeing how good it felt when it blew through our hair and clothes. (This sensation and sensitivity is the root of my wearing longer hair for most of my adult years: the pure hedonism of it all.)
So the afternoon passed into evening, with us telling and hearing stories, including more stories of our grandfathers engaged in such practices as letting their young or unlicensed children drive on the nation's highways. The girls played, we ate fine steaks from a fabulous and serious butcher that Jim and Leslie had just discovered, and life was good for another day.