How to Cook a Pygmy Goat

I saw my dad last night. He and his wife, Leann, are in New York for a few days and we went to dinner at this French place in the West Village. He looks good, he's lost weight, and he's got some exciting career possibilities working, but all of this pales in comparison to the most important thing I learned last night:

The first woman my dad ever proposed to was Julia Child.

Yes, the Julia Child.

Before I explain, let me tell you that I'm 25, that my father has known me for a quarter of a century, and I'm just learning about this. There I am, sipping cocktails with a man whose biography I assumed I had down, and he starts talking about how, when he was in college, he interned at the TV station where Julia Child filmed her show. I knew this story. I'd heard about how Julia filmed five or six shows in one day, back to back, how the meals she cooked were put out on the craft table for any skinny, long-legged interns who might have happened to stay late that day, conveniently enough. I'd heard about how Julia liked to cook with a glass of wine nearby, so that by the time she got to the third or fourth show, chickens were sliding across the floor, flour was dusting the camera lens, and her trademark if-no-one-saw-it-it-didn't-happen-rule was in full force.

What I didn't know, what I can't believe my dad had left out of past retellings, was that one day Julia prepared duck a l'orange. Apparently it was sublime, because as she bustled boozily by after taping, my dad stopped her and asked her to marry him. Sure, he was twenty and she was fifty. Sure, she was already married. But love doesn't make these distinctions.

Needless to say, she waved him off, and though it would preempt my entire existence, I have to say that part of me kind of wishes my dad had married Julia Child. And my mother? In this bizarro world, she'd have married Bob Dylan.

Anyway, as if that wasn't enough revelation for one evening, Leann told me about a new ecological fad that I only wish I had the startup capital to join: raising pygmy goats. Apparently, pygmy goats are the perfect environmentally-friendly lawnmower. They trim plants without pulling up the roots, so you can rent them out to people who need large areas of land cleared. And they're ridiculously cute. There might be petting zoo possibilities.

Isn't it funny how, when you hear of some brilliant new invention, you're like of course! Of course bread should be sliced! Of course internet should be wireless! Of course pygmy goats are the lawnmowers of the energy efficient future!

The only snag is that, apparently, rain freaks them out. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that yet, but I'm working on it. Pygmy barns? Pygmy rain slickers? One of those huge seven people umbrellas people in New York love to use all by themselves on some of the most crowded streets in the word?

Regardless, this is a brilliant idea, it'll just take some planning. I'm not gonna let a little rain stop me. I'm like the postal service.