An Education

Tonight is one of those wonderful nights where I get to hang with my teenagers and they're not incredibly sullen.   We had a great dinner (lamb steaks in a sherry reduction, yellow rice and sautéed kale), a 2002 Rioja reserve - for me, okay???) and actual conversation.  I dropped my son off to his Spanner meeting and my daughter and I are listening to Lastfm.com - it plays songs based upon your selections - tonight we're going from Led Zeppelin to Ricki Lee Jones to Grand Funk to James Taylor to Walter Becker and Dionne Warwick- while chatting about her band.  The neighbor's kids are wandering in and out,their parents may wander over later to help me finish the Rioja.  This is the Friday night I love and crave - relaxed, chatty and fun.   I was a big 70's music fan (having grown up and come of age in the 70s) and sitting here and listening to it with my kids brings a whole new appreciation.  They ask what I was doing when these songs were popular (as overly honest as I am, I do censor a thing or two), and more importantly, where was my head when these songs were all so important.  It actually gives me a little more perspective on their likes, dislikes and challenges.  Sometimes it's a pain in the ass to parent teenagers, sometimes it reminds you why you went down this journey in the first place.  Today is most cool.