Last night my husband and I had dinner with a few close friends at my thin friend’s house. She made me a birthday dinner. Unfortunately, her husband was wearing Armani Code (which is dangerously attractive to females), so I had to rein in the olfactory system and redirect it to the smell of the homemade French onion soup. Trying to avoid that smell is like a trip in the forest hunting for truffles with your best pig’s nose, and he has the treasure under his feet at the bottom of a tree.
Speaking of pigs, in addition to many canines and three cats, my thin friend has a potbellied pig named George. George’s sole interest is eating. He also searches for warm spots around the house and is given to burrowing under a blanket on their living room couch. When my thin friend’s husband spotted him there, he called us in to see what George can do. George had eaten the fabric fringe on a pillow, and his stomach was distended. While completely covered under the blanket, George’s little dirigible-shaped body bulged under the soft fleece. My friend’s husband began to touch him, and he emitted a range of sounds from chortles to grunts, snorts to squeals on the musical range of a porcine scale. He was playing George like a bagpipe, and my friend Suzanne recorded this historical moment.
In the soft, warm glow of candlelight, sipping on onion soup, my friend Scott and his wife, Suzanne, began to argue the case for the importance of using my real name, rather than a pseudonym, for my book. Like two border collies, Scott moved my husband from resolute rejection to consideration of the cogent argument Scott put forth on my behalf. Suzanne moved in and steered him to total acquiescence and affirmation sealed with a hug and a handshake. (This happened after the manuscript was completed and due to be sent to the publisher.) What a difference a dinner makes.
Shannon Callahan 