on the other side of the restaurant (we ate at a cozy bistro named le marmiton, because my dad requested french food for his birthday dinner) sat two couples and their children. on one side of the table, a french couple and their son. on the other side, a chinese couple and their daughter. she reminded me of me: her choppy black hair pulled back with pink bows and her eyes turned up as if they were smiling at you. the boy got out of his seat and walked to the other side of the table and handed her a flower, which he'd taken out of the centerpiece. i smiled, and while my parents talked about something, i don't know what, i started to drift off into my childhood memories.

like the french restaurant we "set up" at my house when an uncle came to visit, the menus my brothers designed specifically for the evening and the one i had made myself, because they (perfectionist designers that they were, even then) wouldn't let me draw on theirs. and the paper dolls that we'd craft and the dozens of outfits i'd cut out for mine, thinking they were the beginning of a career in fashion design. and the routines we'd dance, mostly at family parties, and only when we were forced to. we'd sing and dance to madonna -- i still remember bits and pieces to the "material girl" routine -- and they would throw money, dollar bills mostly, but if you hammed it up, they'd throw fives. and the perfume i made, a recipe of pool water and chopped up jasmine petals taken from our backyard. ellen and i were going to sell plastic cups of the stuff from door to door until my mom came home that evening, fuming that i'd stripped the jasmine tree of its leaves.

i remember such things and realize how lucky i was to have grown up in such a nurturing environment and to have parents who encouraged us to be creative and stretch our minds. i love that we can have intelligent conversations over fine food and wine, discuss our past and future travels and just laugh with, or better yet, at each other. my passions for art and food and music and travel come from them. it's no wonder that, despite their prodding for at least one of us to join the health profession or clergy (my dad was so sure that God wanted me to be a nun), we have all ended up in creative fields, specifically on the web as of late. and now that i'm older, and my brothers realize i actually know what they're talking about, we three can have discussions about the web and design, and i love that. i love them.

and i miss them, god, how i miss them. i cherish the time i spend with my parents, but it's not the same without my brothers there, adding their pseudo-intellectual blather and random exaggerations. i just think it would be nice to gather them in a room, crank up the madonna and dress them up in my love, like i used to.