{"id":153,"date":"2011-11-10T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marydeturrispoust.com\/NSS\/2011\/11\/my-dinner-with-chiara\/"},"modified":"2011-11-10T18:32:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T23:32:00","slug":"my-dinner-with-chiara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/uncategorized\/my-dinner-with-chiara\/","title":{"rendered":"My Dinner With Chiara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chiara and I ended up home alone this evening, sort of unexpectedly. Dennis and Noah are in New York City for a class trip (eating at Carmine&#8217;s as I write this), and Olivia was invited to dinner and a sleepover at a friend&#8217;s house. Although she was a little disappointed not to have anywhere special to go, Chiara was happy to have me to herself for a little while.<\/p>\n<p>And so over a quiet, candlelight dinner of soup and salad (her choice), we had a chance to talk. She raised a couple of pretty insightful questions over the course of 30 minutes or so, things that make me sure she&#8217;ll go far in this life, or at least in the world of entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>Question #1: If Goofy is a dog, and Goofy can talk, why can&#8217;t Pluto talk? Ah, this is an age old question, one that has confounded Disney fans for generations. It is, as we say in Catholic lingo, a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Question #2: If the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz knows she can be melted by water, why would she keep a big bucket of water out where anyone can grab it? And her follow-up question: I wonder if she can drink the water? Excellent question. I wonder&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s time to play a board game. Then it&#8217;s popcorn and a movie. I believe her pick is Peter Pan. It&#8217;s certainly not how I intended tonight to work out, but in the end it turned out to be exactly what I wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chiara and I ended up home alone this evening, sort of unexpectedly. 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