dinner at home

i love skype.

i'd dinner 'with' my family today.

i sat on the dining table, amongst the plates of food, feeling a bit like a meatloaf.

there was steamed pomfret, roast chicken, ebi tempura, kolo mee specially hand-carried from kuching (thank you!) and veggie. because we're chinese, dinner's usually a 5 dish affair. the plates are in the middle for sharing and everyone has an individual plate with some rice. we wait till daddy comes home and then we eat together. we have a usual seat each and dinner's an immensely personal time. it's usually family-only and this sacred sliver of time we reconnect over. phone calls are turned away and we talk about our day. it's the asian cliche of gathering around food akin to how barbarians of old used to gather around the kill / water source but it's true. we gather around food and fill our bellies while being filled in on the day's happenings.

we've a 'proper' dining table in the dining room that seats about 14 and another dining table on the patio that seats 14 too. but those two are for formal and informal entertaining, respectively, and the 6 (occasionally 7) of us squeeze around the antique marble table in the corner of the dining room instead. it's the same table my grandma's been using since she was a girl and i like how we subconsciously prefer eating elbow-to-elbow over being comfortably spaced at the bigger table(s).

so tonight, i was part of the conversation. it was so good to be transported back to my dining table, surrounded by my lovely family. it made me really happy and i'm very very grateful to be back home for dinner, if only in spirit and through the wonders of modern technology. plus i always love watching him securely ensconed in the family fold. if i'm not careful, they're going to steal him from me. not that i'm complaining, really.

although if i just might lodge one teensy tiny grouse, i don't see why he lets me skype magic (my favourite puppy) but not volki (my 50kg 'puppy'). being able to put magic on the keyboard but not volki just doesn't seem like a good enough excuse.