It being summer vacation, we hardly see Lydia these days.  She usually leaves the house within an hour of getting out of bed (assuming she even slept here, of course), and unless she needs her swimsuit or money (or both), we might not see her again until eight or nine o’clock.

Because I made too much chicken for dinner last night and I needed to have it eaten up, I told her before she left this morning that she needed to be home for dinner at six.  When she came upstairs at five after six, I was just pulling french fries out of the oven and getting ready to put the chicken in the microwave.  She took all this in at a glance and burst out, incredulously, “Have you not even started the chicken?”

“I’m just heating it up,” I explained.  “It’s really quick.”

“How long?” she demanded.

“Like five minutes,” I said.

“Hmph,” she grunted, shaking her head and putting her hands on her hips.  “I want dinner cooked and on the table at six.”

I couldn’t help laughing then.   “What?”  I asked, “Now you’re a 1950s husband?”

“I guess so,” she said, clearly irritated.

Later, after dinner, I recounted this conversation to Olof.  He laughed, too, but hastened to point out, “Though actually it should be a 1960s husband.  In the ’50s these things went without saying.”