Hungry

Last night I was so hungry in my sleep that I dreamt I was on my way to have lunch at a taco stand with Julia Child.

My mother once came home from work and told me a story. She was working in downtown Denver at the time, for the phone company, and she went outside at lunch to get some fresh air and eat a sandwich that she'd brought from home. (She's thrifty that way—she would never do what I do now, go spend $6 on Thai food or at a salad bar—she had gone back to work to pay my tuition for private school, because I was a brat and refused to spend another stultifying year at Columbine High School—but I'll post more about that later.)

Anyway, she was walking along and a homeless woman came up to her and asked her for money. My mother refused her request and kept walking, but the woman followed her and said, "I'm hungry!" And my mother said, "I'm hungry, too!" and went off to eat her sandwich.

I don't think my mother really got the difference between the homeless woman's hunger—which my have been humiliating and a constant source of worry—and her own temporary, easily satisfied need to eat.

My mother's funny that way.