"In the void of my youth..."

Those words are the phrase of the day.

We had lunch today with our friends K and B, and K's granddaughter E. We hadn't seen K and B for weeks now. We were away in Germany, and K was off in Montana, where she learned that bears are pronounced bars over there. Given a few moments, K can carry on an entire conversation in Montana-speak, as she calls it.

We all had a nice lunch, in a corporate-type of local restaurant. My husband and I usually avoid that restaurant, not because the food isn't good, but everyone in it seems to be on their lunch breaks from the nearby office complexes. Cell phones going off, sales people meeting clients, tables of staff members discussing office politics. And-- my biggest peeve -- two walls filled with floor to ceiling windows, none of which are tinted or covered, so the sun shines in off of the surrounding parking lot, blinding anyone sitting near the windows. And guess where we were sitting....

Oh well. As I always say to my husband... this wasn't our last meal, so we just enjoyed the lunch and the company, and tried to ignore everything else.

While my husband was showing K and B some of the pictures from Germany, I was talking to E, asking her what books she was reading this summer (she's an avid reader) and what classes she was planning to take during her visit with her grandmother. K always signs her up for special programs during her time in Houston-- this week, it will be watercolor art classes.

When E was talking to me about some of books that she has read, she was telling me about a science fiction series that she had been particularly fond of, "in the void of my youth." All I can say is, I must have very good self-control. I didn't smile, didn't laugh, just looked at E and let her tell me about those stories. She takes her reading very seriously, and that phrase was said very seriously. The funny part about that phrase is that E is a young teenager, just graduated from 8th grade and will be a high school freshman when school opens again.

"In the void of my youth" is a phrase for someone much, much, much older than E. But, in the context of her conversation with me, she said that without blinking an eye, without a thought that "her youth" is still with her and not in the distant past, as that phrase would suggest.

I think of that phrase now, and I'm not laughing at her, but I am smiling and wondering what book of her youth contained that phrase.