Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Hanging Out

I took Eli 5.2 to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner last night.

Eli loves the bread at CPK. Actually, he just loves "restaurant bread" in general. When a bread tray is put on our table, he wants every piece.

He'll always give me one piece, though. Grudgingly.

The waiter forgot to bring our bread last night, and when a waitress delivered our food, I asked her to bring us some bread. She did so, and then about thirty second later, our waiter also brought bread.

In front of us were two bread plates, each with four slices. Eli took two pieces off one of the plates and put it on the other, giving him a stack of six slices. "Daddy, I just saw my dreams come alive," he said, laughing.

We walked down to Pottery Barn Kids after dinner so he could play for a few minutes. Pottery Barn Kids has some great old-school (wooden) toys, and it would generally be less expensive to hire an expert wood carver and pay him to live in a shed in your backyard than it would be to buy any of them. So we go to the store for playing purposes only, generally.

They have something new, though, and it's pretty wicked: wooden castles. And not only that, but they have working catapults and siege towers as well. I think we stayed there playing for half an hour. Oh, and they have a parade stand for the characters--to watch the jousting tournament, of course (jousting knights also available).

On the way home, we somehow got started talking about what people used to believe that would be considered silly today. I told him about Napoleon's Map of Smells (commissioned by Napoleon to help his army avoid diseases) and how some people thought that odors caused illness. He thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, and when I was finished he shouted "Another one, Daddy! Another one!" So I told him about Zeus hurling lightning bolts and witches and fairies and ghosts, and then I told him about how people believed the world would end when they saw a solar eclipse. "Another one!" he'd shout. I finally told him that people used to believe the Earth was flat, and that you could sail right off the edge (I know, that's not totally accurate, but I was working from memory at this point), and he burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "Another one, Daddy! Tell me another one!" he shouted.

Just two guys driving home in the rain, hanging out with each other, having a good time. One of the best drives I've ever had.

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