Plate Full Of Happiness Quotes

You know marriage is like hunger. You yearn for it till you don’t get the food. Once the stomach is full, you don’t want more on your plate. But then hunger can subside only temporarily. It keeps coming back and that’s how exactly a happy married life keeps going on, with all ups and downs.

To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Uncommon Prostitues I have nothing to say about prostitues (other than you'd make a terrible prostitute,the profession is much too unclean), I only wanted to type that. Isn't it odd we both have to spend Christmas with our fathers? Speaking of unpleasant matters,have you spoken with Bridge yet? I'm taking the bus to the hospital now.I expect a full breakdown of your Christmas dinner when I return. So far today,I've had a bowl of muesli. How does Mum eat that rubbish? I feel as if I've been gnawing on lumber. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: Christmas Dinner MUESLY? It's Christmas,and you're eating CEREAL?? I'm mentally sending you a plate from my house. The turkey is in the oven,the gravy's on the stovetop,and the mashed potatoes and casseroles are being prepared as I type this. Wait. I bet you eat bread pudding and mince pies or something,don't you? Well, I'm mentally sending you bread pudding. Whatever that is. No, I haven't talked to Bridgette.Mom keeps bugging me to answer her calls,but winter break sucks enough already. (WHY is my dad here? SERIOUSLY. MAKE HIM LEAVE. He's wearing this giant white cable-knit sweater,and he looks like a pompous snowman,and he keeps rearranging the stuff on our kitchen cabinets. Mom is about to kill him. WHICH IS WHY SHE SHOULDN'T INVITE HIM OVER FOR HOLIDAYS). Anyway.I'd rather not add to the drama. P.S. I hope your mom is doing better. I'm so sorry you have to spend today in a hospital. I really do wish I could send you both a plate of turkey. To: Anna Oliphant From: Etienne St. Clair Subject: Re: Christmas Dinner YOU feel sorry for ME? I am not the one who has never tasted bread pudding. The hospital was the same. I won't bore you with the details. Though I had to wait an hour to catch the bus back,and it started raining.Now that I'm at the flat, my father has left for the hospital. We're each making stellar work of pretending the other doesn't exist. P.S. Mum says to tell you "Merry Christmas." So Merry Christmas from my mum, but Happy Christmas from me. To: Etienne St. Clair From: Anna Oliphant Subject: SAVE ME Worst.Dinner.Ever.It took less than five minutes for things to explode. My dad tried to force Seany to eat the green bean casserole, and when he wouldn't, Dad accused Mom of not feeding my brother enough vegetables. So she threw down her fork,and said that Dad had no right to tell her how to raise her children. And then he brought out the "I'm their father" crap, and she brought out the "You abandoned them" crap,and meanwhile, the WHOLE TIME my half-dead Nanna is shouting, "WHERE'S THE SALT! I CAN'T TASTE THE CASSEROLE! PASS THE SALT!" And then Granddad complained that Mom's turkey was "a wee dry," and she lost it. I mean,Mom just started screaming. And it freaked Seany out,and he ran to his room crying, and when I checked on him, he was UNWRAPPING A CANDY CANE!! I have no idea where it came from. He knows he can't eat Red Dye #40! So I grabbed it from him,and he cried harder, and Mom ran in and yelled at ME, like I'd given him the stupid thing. Not, "Thank you for saving my only son's life,Anna." And then Dad came in and the fighting resumed,and they didn't even notice that Seany was still sobbing. So I took him outside and fed him cookies,and now he's running aruond in circles,and my grandparents are still at the table, as if we're all going to sit back down and finish our meal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY? And now Dad is knocking on my door. Great. Can this stupid holiday get any worse??

You know what I love? The spaces between I love you. The tap of your fork against the plate and how my cup of wine clicks against our table. The scratchy voice coming from the radio in the other room. The quiet sound of your hand reaching across the table and whispering over mine. How your voice sounds like your mouth on the back of my neck. The soft murmur of our easy conversation. Between these quiet Tuesday night routines, following every comma and right after every pause for breath, is I, love, and you. In the middle of every I love you is a sink full of dishes, whisper of socked feet tangled in white sheets, and gentle kisses against curved cheeks. We lyric ourselves into the laundry that needs to be finished, into the ends of every smile that follows me repeating your name. We write ourselves into the grocery bags we need to carry, the cracks running up our rented walls, the sides of the bed we choose to drag up the sails of heavy eyed dreams. Like the spaces between our fingers, in the spaces between I, love, and you, we wait. The in-betweens have always been my favorite.

I said, "I want to wear something funny and cool. Marjorie, could I wear your sparkly baseball hat?" The three of us looked at Marjorie. Now I remember thinking that her answer could change everything back to the way it was; Dad could find a job and stop praying all the time and Mom could be happy and call Marjorie shellfish again and show us funny videos she found on YouTube, and we all could eat more than just spaghetti at dinner and, most important, Marjorie could be normal again. Everything would be okay if Marjorie would only say yes to me wearing the sparkly sequined baseball hat, the one she'd made in art class a few years ago. The longer we watched Marjorie and waited for her response, the more the temperature in the room dropped and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. She stopped twisting her spaghetti around her fingers. She opened her mouth, and vomit slowly oozed out onto her spaghetti plate. Dad: "Jesus!" Mom: "Honey, are you okay?" She jumped out of her seat and went over to Marjorie, stood behind her, and held her hair up. Marjorie didn't react to either parent, and she didn't make any sounds. She wasn't retching or convulsing involuntarily like one normally does when throwing up. It just poured out of her as though her mouth was an opened faucet. The vomit was as green as spring grass, and the masticated pasta looked weirdly dry, with a consistency of mashed-up dog food. She watched Dad the whole time as the vomit filled her plate, some of it slopping over the edges and onto the table. When she finished she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "No, Merry. You can't wear my hat." She didn't sound like herself. Her voice was lower, adult, and growly. "You might get something on it. I don't want you to mess it up." She laughed. Dad: "Marjorie..." Marjorie coughed and vomited more onto her too-full plate. "You can't wear the hat because you're going to die someday." She found a new voice, this one treacly baby-talk. "I don't want dead things wearing my very special hat.

The pressure is on. They've teased me all week, because I've avoided anything that requires ordering. I've made excuses (I'm allergic to beef," "Nothing tastes better than bread," Ravioli is overrated"), but I can't avoid it forever.Monsieur Boutin is working the counter again. I grab a tray and take a deep breath. "Bonjour, uh...soup? Sopa? S'il vous plait?" "Hello" and "please." I've learned the polite words first, in hopes that the French will forgive me for butchering the remainder of their beautiful language. I point to the vat of orangey-red soup. Butternut squash, I think. The smell is extraordinary, like sage and autumn. It's early September, and the weather is still warm. When does fall come to Paris? "Ah! soupe.I mean,oui. Oui!" My cheeks burn. "And,um, the uh-chicken-salad-green-bean thingy?" Monsieur Boutin laughs. It's a jolly, bowl-full-of-jelly, Santa Claus laugh. "Chicken and haricots verts, oui. You know,you may speek Ingleesh to me. I understand eet vairy well." My blush deepends. Of course he'd speak English in an American school. And I've been living on stupid pears and baquettes for five days. He hands me a bowl of soup and a small plate of chicken salad, and my stomach rumbles at the sight of hot food. "Merci," I say. "De rien.You're welcome. And I 'ope you don't skeep meals to avoid me anymore!" He places his hand on his chest, as if brokenhearted. I smile and shake my head no. I can do this. I can do this. I can- "NOW THAT WASN'T SO TERRIBLE, WAS IT, ANNA?" St. Clair hollers from the other side of the cafeteria. I spin around and give him the finger down low, hoping Monsieur Boutin can't see. St. Clair responds by grinning and giving me the British version, the V-sign with his first two fingers. Monsieur Boutin tuts behind me with good nature. I pay for my meal and take the seat next to St. Clair. "Thanks. I forgot how to flip off the English. I'll use the correct hand gesture next time." "My pleasure. Always happy to educate." He's wearing the same clothing as yesterday, jeans and a ratty T-shirt with Napolean's silhouette on it.When I asked him about it,he said Napolean was his hero. "Not because he was a decent bloke, mind you.He was an arse. But he was a short arse,like meself." I wonder if he slept at Ellie's. That's probably why he hasn't changed his clothes. He rides the metro to her college every night, and they hang out there. Rashmi and Mer have been worked up, like maybe Ellie thinks she's too good for them now. "You know,Anna," Rashmi says, "most Parisians understand English. You don't have to be so shy." Yeah.Thanks for pointing that out now.

I was here. I was fine. It was a beautiful day, and I was around people who gave me more love and happiness in a month than I’d had for seventeen years. I would never have to see those jerks again. And today was going to be a good day, damn it. So I got it together and finally looked back down at my best friend to ask, “Did I tell you I stole a bottle of Visine once because I wanted to put a few drops into my dad’s coffee, but I always chickened out?” Lenny snickered. “No. Psycho. Did I tell you that one time I asked Santa to bring my mom back?” I made a face. “That’s sad, Lenny.” I blinked. “I pretty much did the same thing.” “Uh-huh.” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Did I ever tell you that I wanted to have like ten kids when I was younger?” The laugh that came out of her wasn’t as strong as it usually was, but I was glad she let it out anyway. It sounded just like her, loud and direct and so full of happiness it was literally infectious. “Ten? Jesus, why?” I wrinkled my nose at her. “It sounded like a good number.” The scoff that came out of her right then was a little louder. “You’re fucking nuts, Luna. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-ten?” “That’s what ten means.” I grinned at her. “I said that was back when I was younger, not any time recently. I can’t afford ten kids.” “Still. How about… none?” I glanced down the table again when I heard Thea’s sharp laugh. “Okay, Only Child.” I laughed. “I think four’s a good number now.” My friend beside me groaned before reaching forward to grab a chip, dipping it into the tiny bowl of guacamole beside it. “Look, Grandpa Gus was basically my brother, my dad, my uncle, and my grandpa all rolled into one, and I had a bunch of kids to play with,” she claimed. “Whatever makes you happy, but I think I’m fine with zero kids in my future.” I reached over and grabbed one of the pieces of fajita from her plate and plopped it into my mouth. “Watch, you’ll end up with two,” I told her, covering my mouth while I chewed the meat. “You’ve already got that ‘mom’ vibe going on better than anyone I know.” That had her rolling her eyes, but she didn’t argue that she didn’t, because we both knew it was true. She was a twenty-seven-year-old who dealt with full-grown man babies daily. She had it down. I was friends with my coworkers. Lenny was a babysitter for the ones she was surrounded with regularly. “Like you’re one to talk, bish,” she threw out in a grumpy voice that said she knew she couldn’t deny it. She had a point there. She picked up a piece of fajita and tossed it into her mouth before mumbling, “For the record, you should probably get started on lucky number four soon. You aren’t getting any younger.” I rolled my eyes, still chewing. “Bish.” “Bish.

So what did you and Landon do this afternoon?” Minka asked, her soft voice dragging him back to the present. Angelo looked up to see that Minka had already polished off two fajitas. Damn, the girl could eat. “Landon gave me a tour of the DCO complex. I did some target shooting and blew up a few things. He even let me play with the expensive surveillance toys. I swear, it felt more like a recruiting pitch to get me to work there than anything.” Minka’s eyes flashed green, her full lips curving slightly. Damn, why the hell had he said it like that? Now she probably thought he was going to come work for the DCO. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, not after just reenlisting for another five years. The army wasn’t the kind of job where you could walk into the boss’s office and say, “I quit.” Thinking it would be a good idea to steer the conversation back to safer ground, he reached for another fajita and asked Minka a question instead. “What do you think you’ll work on next with Ivy and Tanner? You going to practice with the claws for a while or move on to something else?” Angelo felt a little crappy about changing the subject, but if Minka noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. And it wasn’t like he had to fake interest in what she was saying. Anything that involved Minka was important to him. Besides, he didn’t know much about shifters or hybrids, so the whole thing was pretty damn fascinating. “What do you visualize when you see the beast in your mind?” he asked. “Before today, I thought of it as a giant, blurry monster. But after learning that the beast is a cat, that’s how I picture it now.” She smiled. “Not a little house cat, of course. They aren’t scary enough. More like a big cat that roams the mountains.” “Makes sense,” he said. Minka set the other half of her fourth fajita on her plate and gave him a curious look. “Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” His mouth twitched as he prepared another fajita. He wasn’t used to Minka being so reserved. She usually said whatever was on her mind, regardless of whether it was personal or not. “Go ahead,” he said. “The first time we met, I had claws, fangs, glowing red eyes, and I tried to kill you. Since then, I’ve spent most of the time telling you about an imaginary creature that lives inside my head and makes me act like a monster. How are you so calm about that? Most people would have run away already.” Angelo chuckled. Not exactly the personal question he’d expected, but then again Minka rarely did the expected. “Well, my mom was full-blooded Cherokee, and I grew up around all kinds of Indian folktales and legends. My dad was in the army, and whenever he was deployed, Mom would take my sisters and me back to the reservation where she grew up in Oklahoma. I’d stay up half the night listening to the old men tell stories about shape-shifters, animal spirits, skin-walkers, and trickster spirits.” He grinned. “I’m not saying I necessarily believed in all that stuff back then, but after meeting Ivy, Tanner, and the other shifters at the DCO, it just didn’t faze me that much.” Minka looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re a real American Indian? Like in the movies? With horses and everything?” He laughed again. The expression of wonder on her face was adorable. “First, I’m only half-Indian. My dad is Mexican, so there’s that. And second, Native Americans are almost nothing like you see in the movies. We don’t all live in tepees and ride horses. In fact, I don’t even own a horse.” Minka was a little disappointed about the no-horse thing, but she was fascinated with what it was like growing up on an Indian reservation and being surrounded by all those legends. She immediately asked him to tell her some Indian stories. It had been a long time since he’d thought about them, but to make her happy, he dug through his head and tried to remember every tale he’d heard as a kid.

Then it was time for dessert: another plate, full of big, white larvas from the palm nut tree. And I do mean big—each one was longer and thicker than my thumb, and had been lightly fried in its own fat. But I wondered, had they been too lightly fried? Because they seemed to be moving. The villagers were proud to offer us such a delicious treat. Remember, I am a sword swallower. I should be able to push anything down my throat. And I am not usually a fussy eater: I had even once eaten porridge made from mosquitos. But no. This, I couldn’t do. The heads of the larvas looked like little brown nuts and their thick bodies like transparent wrinkled marshmallows, through which I could see their intestines. The villagers gestured that I should bite them in two and suck out the insides. If I tried I would puke the rat back up. I did not want to offend. Suddenly, an idea. I smiled softly and said regretfully, “You know what, I am sorry, but I can’t eat larvas.” Thorkild turned to me, surprised. He already had a couple of larvas hanging out of the corners of his mouth. He really loved those larvas. He had previously worked as a missionary in Congo, where they had been the highlight of every week for one whole year. “You see, we don’t eat larvas,” I said, trying to look convincing. The villagers looked at Thorkild. “But he eats them?” they asked. Thorkild stared at me. “Ah,” I said. “You see, he comes from a different tribe. I come from Sweden, he comes from Denmark. In Denmark, they love eating larvas. But in Sweden it’s against our culture.” The village teacher went and got out the world map and I pointed out the water separating our two countries. “On this side of the water they eat larvas,” I said, “and on this side we don’t.” It’s actually one of the most blatant lies I have ever told, but it worked. The villagers were happy to share my dessert between them. Everyone, everywhere knows that people from different tribes have different customs.

I believe that we shocked each other by how swiftly we went from being the people who knew each other best in the world to being a pair of the most mutually incomprehensible strangers who ever lived. But it was vital to my survival to have a one bedroom of my own i saw the aprtment almost as a sanatorium a hospice clinci for my own recovery I painted the walls in the warmest colors i could find and bought myself flowers every week as if i were visiting myself in the hospital is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty why are you studying Italian so that just in case Italy ever invades Ethiopia again and is actually successful this time? ciao comes from if you must know it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval venetians as an intimate salutation Sono il Suo Schiavo meaning i am your slave. om Naamah Shivaya meaning I honor the divinity that resides whin me. I wanted to experience both , I wanted worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence the dual glories of a human life I wanted what the Greeks called kalos kai agathos the singular balance of the good and he beautiful I'd been missing both during these last hard years because both pleasure and devotion require a stress free space in which to flourish and I'd been living in a giant trash compactor of nonstop anxiety , As for how to balance the urge for pleasure against the longing for devotion. four feet on the ground a head full of foliage looking at the world through the heart. it was more than I wanted to toughly explore one aspect of myself set against the backdrop of each country in a place that has traditionally done that one thing very well. same guatemalan musicians are always playing id rather be a sparrow than a snail on their bamboo windpipes oh how i want italian to open itself up to me i havent felt so starved for comprehension since then dal centro della mia vita venne una grande fontanana dolce sitl nuovo Dante wrote his divine comedy in terza rima triple rhyme a chain of rhymes with each rhyme repeating here times every five lines. lamor che move il sole e laltre stelle we are the masters of bel far niente larte darrangiarsi The reply in italy to you deserve a break today would probably be yeah no duh that's why I'm planning on taking a break at noon to go over to your house and sleep with your wife, I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch i peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of the asparagus (which were so slim and snappy they didn't need to be cooked at all,)I put some olives on the plate too and the four knobs of goat cheese I'd picked up yesterday from the fromagerie down the street tend two slices of pink oily salmon for dessert a lovely peach which the woman at the market had given to me for free and which was still warm form the roman sunlight for the longest time I couldn't even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing finally when i had fully absorbed the prettiness of my meal i went and sat in apatch of sunbeam on my clean wooden floor and ate every bit of it with my fingers while reading my daily newspaper article in Italian happiness inhabited my every molecule. I am inspired by the regal self assurance of this town so grounded and rounded so amused and monumental knowing that she is held securely in the palm of history i would like to be like rome when i am an old lady. I linger over my food and wine for many hours because nobody in

valley? That should be interesting for you.” “I haven’t decided what I’m doing yet.” “I’d be happy to help,” Mr. Bally said. “I’m an expert on the subject you’re studying.” He picked up one of the microfilm boxes. “Judges in these contests like primary sources.” I knew that. Judges in these contests always liked primary sources. I was already using one. “Tell me about Andover,” I’d said to Cissy Langer, sitting in her back room with a wall full of piggy dolls staring at me. “Oh, my goodness, Mimi, what a question,” she’d said. I took the glass of iced tea, and I took the plate of chocolate chip cookies, and I set my tape recorder between them. I’d borrowed it from the school librarian. “I’ve already got some primary sources,” I said to Winston Bally in the conference room. We all pick and choose the things we talk about, I guess. I’d listened to my mother and Cissy talk about growing up together for maybe hundreds of hours, about sharing a seat and red licorice ropes on the bus, about getting licked for wearing their Sunday dresses into the woods one day, about the years when they both moved back in with their parents while their husbands went to war. And somehow I’d never really noticed that all the stories started when they were ten, that there were no stories about the four-year-old Miriam, the six-year-old Cissy, about the day when they were both seven when Ruth came home from the hospital, a bundle of yellow crochet yarn and dirty diaper. It made sense, I guess, since it turned out Cissy had grown up in a place whose name I’d never even heard because it had been wiped off the map before I’d ever even been born. “My whole family lived in Andover,” Cissy said. “My mother and

Guess you’re wondering why I wanted to see you,” the lieutenant said. “A little, yeah.” Linc didn’t bother to ask how Warren had gotten his address. “I realized last time we talked that I didn’t know your last name.” “That would be because I never mentioned it.” The other man chuckled. “Right. And I didn’t want to ask the Corellis. So, I, uh, ran your plates.” That was why he’d walked them to the hospital parking lot. “I was curious. No offense, but in this type of case you cover all your bases.” Linc knew what was coming. He folded his arms over his chest, listening more to the birds in the willow tree than to the lieutenant. “I got the basic screen. Full name, address, date of birth. You’re an organ donor. After that, nada. Level Five block. Access to subject information restricted.” Linc sighed. “That’s federal, isn’t it?” The lieutenant looked over at him. “But not the FBI. Those guys comb their hair. You with the agency? The army?” “Want me to lie?” “No, of course not.” Mike Warren seemed awfully pleased with himself. “I did get your last name. Nice to meet a real Bannon.” Linc braced himself, prepared to field irrelevant questions about his brother RJ and the Montgomery case, but the lieutenant seemed inclined to stop while he was ahead. “Look, I know your connection to Kenzie is personal. But that doesn’t mean you have nothing to contribute. Going forward, if you can help, it would be just between you and me. Totally off the record.” Linc knew what Mike Warren was getting at. Different databases, different protocols. Not a lot of sharing. The lieutenant was way out of his league, but he had the guts to ask. Linc respected that. “Happy to,” he replied. “But there are limits.” “I understand.” Mike Warren got up and looked toward Linc’s car. “Okay. I have to get back to the station. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” “Sorting socks.” The lieutenant grinned. “My apologies for the interruption.

She was sitting and thinking . . . when a tiny flower fell onto her plate. This was no miracle of course, the explanation was simple, Rhoda had picked some sprays of viburnum fragrans in the kitchen garden. . . . She had brought them in and arranged them in a bowl and placed them in the middle of the table―there was no more to it than that. Rhoda was about to brush the flower from her plate when suddenly the perfection of it struck her . . . one tiny flower-head but quite perfect. It was so small and insignificant that she herself who had picked the sprays and arranged them had not noticed the beauty of it. . . . The thought of the small insignificant thing with its perfection of beauty remained with her and gave her happiness. The floweret had dropped onto her plate. Look, it said. Here I am―and there are millions like me―and each one of us is perfect―perfectly beautiful. Here's your world. It's full of beauty. Be happy in it.

Where have we seen them?” “In our history book,” Q whispered. “We’ve gone back in time!” “You mean before TV and stuff?” Hooter asked, looking at the old-fashioned muskets that were pointed at them. “Before TV?” Q squeaked. His voice always turned into a series of squeaks when he was excited. “Try before electricity and flashlights. Try 1776--the Revolutionary War!” “That’s why they don’t know where Nebraska is,” Matt exclaimed. “In 1776 there was no such state as Nebraska! How did this happen? And if we really have gone back in time, how are we going to get home?” Everyone stood staring at the boat full of ragged soldiers before them. Tony turned to Matt. “You thought my backyard was so boring. I hope you’re happy now.” Matt was too stunned to reply. It was true, the Adventure Club had been his idea, but he never dreamed it would turn out like this. Matt closed his eyes tight, wishing they could go back, back to the safety of a few hours ago, when his life had been normal and safe, and his biggest problem had been to finish the peas on his dinner plate!

My head was swimming now, a pleasantly intoxicated dream state. I no longer knew or even cared what century it was. I was numb from the waist down, circulation cut off long ago cut off to my legs. The heavily painted faces and costumes of my geisha companions. the spare black-and-white walls the choo-choo train of tiny plates of jewel-like dishes - everything melted together into that rear full mind/body narcotized zone where everything/nothing matters. You know you're having one of the meals of your life but are no longer intimidated by it. Consciousness of time and expense go out the window. Cares about table manners disappear. What happens next, later, or even tomorrow, fades into insignificance. You become a happy passenger, completely submitting to whatever happens next, confident that somehow the whole universe is in particularly benevolent alignment, that nothing could possibly distract or detract from the wonderfulness of the moment.