Last night at dinner, Alison was telling us about her day. It involved Greek mythology and was delivered as Jeff was telling me about the wine he'd suggested for us.

"Hey Dad, did you know there was a Greek god who liked to drink wine and get drunk?"

He said he was familiar with Dionysus, could that be the god?

"Yeah! And there was this other guy, too. Pan. He was a mix of a guy and a goat or a horse or something."

"Right! I think it was goat," said Jeff.

"Yeah! We saw a picture of him and guess what?! They had put in his doodle!"

"His what?"

"His doodle."

"His what?"

"You know. His thing. His AREA. His junk! You could SEE his JUNK!"

***

Later, she was trying to tell us other stuff about her day and she was telling us that at church the story was a parable about Jesus and a blind man.

"Yeah, so Jesus healed the blind guy," she said, apparently feeling that her summation told the whole story. Her father was hungry for more.

"So then what happened?" he asked.

"Uh, the blind guy could see," she said. "Period. The end."

***

We've been back home a full week now and we're still talking about how much fun our Spring Break trip. On our after Sunday dinner walk, Ali said she'd had a great time and would go back in a minute, but this was even better than Turks & Caicos.

"Here? Why? Because it was 80 degrees today?" Jeff asked.

"No. Just 'cause it's home," she said.

***

Speaking of home, as we were coming back, Alison was talking about how she was missing her house and her bed. "Hey, Mom," she said. "Do you think when we get back we can call Jenna?"

"Sure," I said. "Of course we can."

As the girls have grown up and gone to different schools, we haven't seen so much of Jenna. We've missed her and really enjoyed the times we've gotten to have her. So I called when we got home and it turned out that she could come over. It was so much fun.

Friday night, we had Bunco and Jenna hadn't been spirited away yet by her father and brother. They were planning a great night watching the national hockey playoffs. "Let's call Captain Reed and see where they are," I said.

Being the great dad he is, Jeff came over and swooped them up. Jenna stayed with us and then Ali went with them. They came back wearing best friend tee-shirts and hoping for another few hours together.


I was thrilled to have them together again, and so were they.

I can't help but keep thinking that when Alison was having her little home-sick episode, when she thought of home, it meant three things: her house, her bed and her Jenna.

I hope that never changes.