Travels with Jessica

To understand how Jessica managed to wrap me around her little finger and convince me that we should travel to Italy, you first have to understand how much she loves Disney World. That began because she loves Disney movies, which begat an unfortunate fascination with Disney princesses (“Sweetie, I’ve just been asked to work on…

At home, Jessica sets the New York City book off to one side. “We must decide about Italy first,” she says, showing an excellent grasp of priority setting, and she opens the first book. A moment later, she announces, “There is a lot of Italy.” “Yes,” I agree. “It’s a big country. So maybe we should…

“A practice trip,” I say to Jessica. “You think we need a practice trip before we decide about going to Italy.”  Jessica loves to travel, and she spots a possibility for getting two trips instead of one. I don’t like to say she’s devious and manipulative, because I don’t think she actually knows how to…

Jessica is running her finger along the spines of the travel books on the shelf at the bookstore. “Hong Kong,” she reads. “We are not going to Hong Kong.” “Nope.” “Indonesia. Not there, either.” “Nope.” “Italy.” She smiles, and starts lifting books off the shelf and loading them into my arms. “We don’t need all…

There was a time in my life when I was allowed to have some personal dignity. That time ended the day I went into labor and people started wandering into the delivery room and feeling me up with impunity. So Jessica and I are waiting for one of those damned D.C. subways, and it arrives,…