Fried Rice for Breakfast

My husband dislikes our daughter's new boyfriend. She knew he would, just as she knew I would like him. He's arrogant, outspoken, over confident, and incidentally, really cute. She's head over heels in love and wants to marry him and have his babies. I'm giving it six months, tops. He was here when we got home from Seattle. I surprised him by hugging him when we first met. I don't think my husband even shook his hand. What he can't see is the pain beneath that boastful exterior, a lonely soul with an unknown father and an indifferent alcoholic mother. The fact that he has supported and protected his two younger half siblings since he was 16 and that he is brilliant, educated, and multi-lingual pale for my husband beside his egotism.

The next morning the boy is up at dawn, an insomniac and self admitted vampire, making eggs florentine without garlic for my daughter's breakfast. That night he made us all dinner, leaving the eggplant out of his vegetable and brown rice concoction for my husband's benefit. The fish was done to perfection and sauced with tomatoes, basil, and some imported cheese. We drank a lot of wine, but I noticed he had only one glass. I rode with them as he drove my car into town in order to get a signal on his phone. In his job he finds the birth parents of children adopted from Russia. We listened to an animated conversation in Russian for almost an hour and arrived back home past midnight. My husband was not pleased.

Friday I almost fell asleep at work several times, but rallied when we went out dancing that night at our regular place. I was seat dancing when a man came up to me and pulled me onto the floor. We entertained the audience alone, spinning, dipping, whirling. I almost fell once as I was not exactly sober, but other than that I was brilliant, I swear. He kept telling me what he was about to do, but the band was so loud I could not hear him so I was constantly startled by his moves. When he took me back to the table I was breathless and I wanted to do it again and again. I wanted to dance for the rest of my life in exactly that way, never knowing what was coming next. The next dance my husband accompanied me to the floor, but right in front of me stood the man I had danced with. I really didn't mean to, but thoughtlessly I ignored my husband and danced with the man again for a few minutes. When I turned to join my husband he had left angry and hurt. It was not one of my best moments. We had a silent ride home and some quiet intense words before bed. He held me anyway and sometime in the night we made love, me only half awake.

This morning I was up at 7 writing. Around 11 I realized I had drank a whole pot of coffee and had not eaten. I searched through the fridge for food and found a bit of the rice dish the boyfriend made. I grabbed the remainder of the eggplant, plus peppers, sugar snaps, asparagus, spinach, cheese, eggs and yes, garlic. It was wonderful and I consumed it while I read my horoscope, as follows:

Just make sure that you do whatever you can to restore the connection between you and your closest friends today. Be sure that you make the people you care about the center of your world today, and try to put your own ego aside for the time being. This should be able to help you undo any recent damage that you may have been responsible for in any of your relationships lately. You might not be able to turn things around instantly, but you should be able to make some major progress right now.

Of course I put no credence in this sort of thing, but I suppose good advice is where you find it. So, what have you done to embarrass yourself in public lately?