a great party

We went to a birthday party this afternoon, and it was just wonderful. Jay will turn eight on Sunday, and he and Katie sing together in the children's choir at church. The party was at a park towards downtown, and there are so many things I enjoyed about it.

First of all, I thought it was pretty cool how all of the attention was not on Jay. He opened presents as they came in, and they had presents for all of the guests, and so both sides were very gracious all the time. They didn't do a huge singing of happy birthday, or else we missed it during a trip to the bathroom.

Fred and Rocio brought enough food to feed a small army. I have no idea how many people they expected to have, but they had at least twice as much food as was required. And so they went out and brought in complete strangers from around the park, people just walking their dogs or working there, and had them eat some pizza or a plate of barbecue. And we didn't just feed them and send them on their way, but visited with them and got to know them a little bit.

It was just a really generous, outwardly directed party, and I so appreciated it. And then we went to the planetarium across the street, and watched a little movie called "Rocket Ride" or something like that and pretended like we were visiting all of the planets in the solar system. (And the movie was already modified to demote Pluto down to a "dwarf planet" or "Plutoid." I was suitably impressed.)

And then we came home and Katie went to bed and I talked on the phone with Natalie for over an hour. I dig her. She has the cutest giggle. It is a silly thing to be attracted to, perhaps, and I am certainly attracted to more than her giggle, but when she laughs I am happy. And we find it very easy to talk.

I have been trying to figure out for a week why our date last week was so much better than most if not all of the dates I have been on since Becky died. I think, fundamentally, it comes down to this: I didn't have to be careful. She was so willing to be known and so interested in knowing me, and I reciprocated that, and we both cared much more about getting to know the other person than we did about whether we were doing the things we were supposed to be doing on a first date. She didn't have to be careful about admitting that she wants to marry someday and have children. I didn't have to be careful about whether it would be okay to put my arm around her or kiss her or whatever. I just was myself, and she was herself, and there was less of a barrier between us than I have experienced in the dating life. And we have agreed about a lot of things and disagreed about some things, too, and disagreeing doesn't mean we don't value the other person implicitly.

What does this mean cosmically? Who knows? But I am looking forward to Friday night in Austin. The rest can take care of itself.