Thursday, 27 December 2001 | My father's mistake

He didn't know that I don't eat pork anymore, and he made an egg and sausage dish (souffle?) for breakfast, a jiggly brown-speckled unit, spread thinly in the bottom of a glass dish. It smelled really good, and I was tempted to eat it, not because I was so hungry (which I was), but because of his obvious effort and because of the satisfaction that consumed his face when he set it on the table.

But I didn't. Instead, he said he'd make me some eggs to complement my toast—scrambled, oh, you decided to boil them, that's fine. But maybe you shouldn't do it—POP!—in the microwave. White bits of egg in steaming water poured out of the microwave door and spread underneath the box and off the curved counter and onto the floor and suddenly, everyone was talking at once—explaining, directing, defending, and blaming. That's okay, toast will be plenty.

We rebounded quickly and Christmas continued. Later, I set up a bed for a stray cat my parents have been feeding by lining an old, split wooden crate with a warm blue towel. The cat climbed right in and stayed until after I left. It purred like a diesel engine.