Last night, Kate took me out for my birthday.
She chose a fine Italian restaurant and reserved a table for two in the courtyard, where tall trees framed our evening meal and outdoor fireplaces cast warmth upon nearby tables. The courtyard contained a small world of pleasures: shaded stone, soft light, and voices rising and falling. Friends were recognized across the way, and the wait staff, including our attentive new friend Mateo, carried plates that looked like works of art.
At the table beside us sat a couple from out of town (or so I learned as they talked to their waitress). They dressed elegantly, ordered with confidence, and seemed comfortable with the menu’s ambitious prices. Each had a new iPhone standing upright on a stand. Although they faced one another, both lowered their eyes toward separate screens. Through the length of our meal, I do not remember hearing a single sentence pass between them.
Across from me sat my wife of thirty-three years, smiling, attentive, fully present. Kate wore a necklace made by our daughter, one that complemented her lovely auburn hair. Happy to be treating me to a fancy dinner, Kate held my gaze through story after story. We talked about our children. We talked about her work with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation. She had already spent the day answering dozens of emails from board members and vendors, and from parents struggling to understand a diagnosis that had suddenly altered their lives. She had already given much of herself before dinner began. Yet once we arrived, our phones stayed down. Masterful at the lost art of conversation, Kate made me laugh several times.
The meal rewarded our attention. Kate chose a salad, a bowl of soup, and risotto. I began with a beet salad and moved on to pasta with a mushroom sauce so rich and satisfying that I joked I could have eaten the same plate two more times and still welcomed another forkful. Whoever designed the portion understood both appetite and restraint; the plate looked modest when it arrived and was emptied almost at once.
I also drank my first glass of wine of the year. Kate recommended it. I accepted the suggestion gladly, tasted it slowly, and welcomed the rare realization that nothing and no one could distract me just then.
On the drive home, I thought about birthdays, about kind messages arriving through text, email, and social media, and, at home, about cards and presents. I appreciated all of them. Yet the gift I treasured most filled those two hours across a table for two, where conversation replaced screens and mutual attention filled the evening.
I was left with this question that birthdays tend to raise: How do we meet the best moments of our short lives with the attention they deserve?
Sometimes the answer arrives through pleasure: a good meal, a new taste, a voice across the table. Sometimes the answer comes when someone willingly takes on something they might reasonably avoid.
Last Friday I watched my friend Michael French do exactly that.
Michael has appeared on my radio program many times during his years at UC Davis. For decades, his salaried job of running arts administration and promotion there left little room for the stage work where he began. Then, after a hiatus of more than twenty years, he stepped back into rehearsal and accepted the lead role in a new production of the Tony Award-winning musical The Drowsy Chaperone.
Before opening night, he wrote to me about how far outside his comfort zone the experience had taken him. Younger actors, performing ambitious choreography, surrounded him, flying constructed planes, roller-skating while blindfolded, and singing impressive arias. Rehearsals demanded energy, memory, timing, and trust. Yet I could sense his thrill and exhilaration upon returning to the stage lights that he knew well in his youth.
That exhilaration reached the audience.
Michael anchored the production. His framing scenes revealed the confidence, wit, and timing of a veteran performer. He held the evening together, guided transitions, sometimes comically interrupted scenes, and drew the audience steadily into the show’s madcap hilarity. At curtain call he emerged last. Most of the audience had already risen, but several of us waited for that final entrance before standing fully, because we had come in part to witness his triumphant return.
Michael is even older than I am. He too will retire one day from university life. Yet long after titles and committee work fade, he will still carry the memory of that applause, the sight of a full room rising in recognition of his work in his final theatrical performance.
Late last night, as March 10 drew toward sleep, I thought of Michael and understood a small kinship: the theater’s fading warmth, Kate’s company still present.
He had his applause.
I had eye contact, clinked glasses, a shared meal, and the company of one person who still makes a date night feel memorable.
At moments like that, one attentive presence fills the room more completely than any crowd. On this birthday, I feel lucky that an audience of one often proves enough.
If you want to recognize my birthday, add your name to the almost 100 treasured supporters on Patreon.
The weather seems perfect. Come out to stare into the eyes of friends and strangers at Sudwerk tonight. Keep your brain sharp by exercising it in public with no judgment until the end when I read out the scores of the teams. Laugh at the funny team names. Order via QR code or visit the overworked bartenders. Try a mocktail, as I do every Wednesday. If you are like me, you’ll add avocado to everything. We start at 7 p.m., but you might not get a table outside if you wait until then. Be a Californian by sitting outside. The pub quiz tonight is 1007 words long, which means that it is prime, like Optimus.
In addition to the topics raised above, expect tonight questions on the following largely alphabetized topics: acids, alphabetical endings, the Arabian Peninsula, band arithmetic, bank shots, blue dominance, broiled crowns, casino densities, cellular sets, crickets, dashboard chatter, the dead-ball era, despairs in candlelight, disco bars, Disney icons, Erics, fictional Italians, frontier bafflements, heroic machinery, inventors, knee problems, machine intelligence, Opie awards, pearls in Paris, plumber’s names, quantum promises, reformers, riverside beginnings, Russell Crowe confrontations, sequins and piledrivers, South American relationships, spinning kicks, survival stories, the tablet beside the spoon, thrice fingers picked, tower hairdos, vanishing feelings and squandered chances, current events, countries of the world, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael, Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.
Best,
Dr. Andy
Questions from last week:
- Youth Culture. Who was born first (and in the 20th century); Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, or Olivia Rodrigo?
- Countries of the World. Quito is the capital of what South American country?
- Books and Authors. What 2018 novel by Madeline Miller retells the story of the witch from Homer’s Odyssey and became a long-running bestseller?
