Last night Tom and our 17-year-old went to Portland to see a rock show and had an excellent time together. One of the loveliest adjustments in parent-child relations has been our generations' ability to interact over popular music. My parents would never have taken me to a rock show. They barely knew what pop music entailed. In fact, it didn't occur to them to buy me a radio until I left home for college.

I did not go to the show but stayed home convalescently on the couch and watched Houseboat, a terrible movie starring Cary Grant, a young thin Sophia Loren, and a trio of annoying child actors. For some reason I did not fall asleep but watched the entire dreadful thing. The only constructive thing I learned is that Sophia Loren became much sexier as she aged. Let us always take comfort from the fact that some people really do look better when they're not young and thin.