-Scenic route sans air conditioning. And toast.-

My mistake.

I thought we might take the scenic route, but so did everyone else. Plus, the car’s air conditioner had broken.

Yikes.

Much later, about three hours after we’d reached our seaside destination, and twelve hours before I would blot out the specific memory of the automotive crawl, my siblings and I took our parents out for an anniversary dinner.

Much, much later, I would learn that my oenophile brother had ordered a ninety-dollar bottle of champagne for the toast.

Ah, the toast. We’d scrambled to coordinate our speeches before arriving at the restaurant, but our reservation time rushed our preparation. In haste, we settled on three variations to a theme: the effect they had on their parents, their children, and their friends and community. The order of speakers? Oldest to youngest. Which is good, because I needed a few extra moments to pull my phrases together. Our collective effort yielded happy tears.

Dinner was followed by cocktails and skee-ball.