That's How to Perorate

At my mother's retirement dinner on Thursday, Catherine, myself and the boys read a list of The Top Ten Benefits of Grammy's Retirement -- it contained items such as "Now Grammy will have time to take us to the movies that mom and dad don't want to see"and it was a light and breezy counterpoint to most of the speeches, which were generally sappy and emotional . . . which was to be expected in a room full middle-aged female elementary school teachers . . . but Ian got a case of stage-fright when it was his turn to read, and so Alex stepped up and read it for him, and then Ian kept trying to hide behind Alex, and as I finished the tenth item on the list, they got into their typical horseplay and knocked over the heavy wooden podium, which fell backwards and hit the floor with a resounding THUD . . . and though it wasn't planned, it certainly put an exclamation point on our performance.