The best way to spend an evening.

I write this intending no offense to my beautiful sons, with whom I spend most of my evenings, breaking up fights, nagging about dish duty and dog walking, and monitoring homework. It's all part of that domestic bliss, you know? But sometimes the best way to spend an evening is with good conversation and some food that you didn't have to cook or clean up.

I spent a couple of fun hours last night with a friend from way back, and a regular reader here at Domestic Bliss. Karen and I have known each other since the beginning of (our) time. Her father was the minister at the church my family attended. While we didn't go to the same schools, we went to youth group and church, so saw each other weekly. We both went to the same university, in the town that her family moved to when her father was called to a new congregation. We lived together for a summer, she got married the year before I did, and has two beautiful children, as do I :) . We both moved to the US about the same time with our spouse's jobs, and both came back a few years later and ended up in the same city. And it seems that, like me, she is also J.S. Bach.

We've kept in touch sporadically over the years, thanks almost 100% to her. There are some people in life that you feel that you can just catch up with, almost instantaneously, even after not having spoken for years. Karen is one of those people. She has a very positive attitude about life, and is just fun to be around.

We met at an Afghani restaurant east of downtown, called Bamiyan Kabob. Karen and I each have a vegetarian child and head for the meat when we're out, so we both chose the Kofta Kabob (spiced ground beef) dinner, that came with rice, salad, and a kind of crispy naan. The restaurant is halal, and the place filled up as soon as the sun went down and the Ramadan fast was over. The owners are the parents of one of Karen's kindergarten students from a previous year and were very gracious. Let's just say that it was a VERY cheap date!