Food fight

It was time for the annual barbeque at my mother's church today, and I was free, and so was the food, so I graced the joint with my majestic presence.

Once again it was a beautiful and perfect summer day, adorable children were scampering adorably, a great many old ladies came up and hugged me, the sauce was slathered and the lemonade was fresh.

Yeah, I know, nauseating, ain't it? But hey! Free food!

I was about to sit down with some old friends whom I was very pleased to run into again, especially since they were accompanied by their two-week-old baby, who was perfecting the art of the nap, when my mother directed me to sit with my brother's girlfriend. Mom referred to her as his "fiancee," which was news to me? But who am I? Apparently, I never write, I never call. I hadn't even noticed her sitting way over there in the back of the room with her two small children, but since I was doing the semi-annual family meet-and-greet, I amiably complied.

I very rarely get the chance to observe close-up the foraging and eating habits of small children, unlike most of the folks I know online. Diagnosis: Fascinating!

The older one, the boy, took great delight in throwing his finished, thoroughly gnawed corn cobs as far as he could fling them, preferably in the direction of the choir director who was playing show tunes on the baby grand. The younger, the girl, was in a high chair, so her "eating" was more of an attempt at abstract face painting. her eyes were glued on me, as I was talking quite animatedly, using many wild hand gestures that she enthusiastically copied, waving her brownie-and-whipped-cream spoon in the air.

The kids' mother (my absent brother's girlfriend) was totally laissez-faire about the whole production, pausing in her conversation only to wipe the more egregious smears from her daughter's face, and overall displaying a dignified calm that I found most refreshing.

It was only later that Johnny Law noticed the fracas, and stepped in.

I think Madam Officer thinks my soon-to-be-niece is Good For Licking.