April 08, 2004
Faux-in-laws
Last night Dakota and the Trail Head had a lovely evening at Hamid Karzai's sister's place, (a charming Afghani restaurant) with a biographer, an ambassador, a painter, a landscape photographer, and two fledgling writers. Four ninetish grandmas (good longevity genes), as well as brothers on both sides and their exotic partners were missing, but it was a great turnout from up and down the east coast. We are faux-in-laws, biological and step, sharing children for quite some time now, however informally. Heaven only knows what we have heard about one another. For my part, I am more than pleased to be associated with such and interesting and genteel group. Not a right wing fascist or borderline personality disorder among them.
Conversations ranged from military strategy in Iraq, to birthweight, to indexing a finished tome, to the disadvantages of living in Africa as one ages, to lousy photography on the internet (that's me, but I'm anonymous). We feasted on lamb, freshly baked bread, pulled from the working adobe oven before us, roasted pumpkin and pomegranate cake.
When asked how he thought it went, one of the lovers replied, "Swimmingly." I thought so too.
Photo note: The poppy, in honor of Afghanistan and it's cuisine.