HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU? I HAVE MONEY!

     Have I ever told you about the dinner and a show in a Vietnamese restaurant?
The kids were about 4-5 years old. They are a year and a half apart, so I can just say that. My husband discovered Vietnamese soup Pho, and both of us fell in love with it. It's a big bowl of soup, which is a meal in itself. It's made by boiling, I believe, beef shanks for a long time and then adding to it some gooey tendon, tripe (not the favorite of mine), cilantro, onions and thinly sliced beef or beef balls. or seafood. The beef is not cooked; it cooks when introduced into the hot broth. Pho is served with some bean sprouts, jalapenos and lemon or lime wedges. Mmmm!
     We found one of the Vietnamese restaurants nearby, that had reasonable prices and also offered an extensive menu of Chinese food. Sonny was still in the stage when he either fell asleep in the car before we got to a restaurant and then refused to wake up and slept with his head on the table or my shoulder (great), or was just really messy. In any case, feeding him at an eating establishment presented a problem. Usually, by the time we left the place, the waiters looked desperately at the floor under our table, strewn with most of Sonny's dinner.
     The place that we found was a family restaurant, so they were used to children. This one time, we went there thinking to get soup for us and Chinese for the kids. Taka, though, got tempted by an offer of a combo. We could get a lot of food for a little more money than we were going to spend. I said: "I don't have that much money." Hanah piped in: "I have money!" We ignored her. How much money could she have? Taka and I went back and forward, he - trying to convince me to get a combo and I - telling him that I didn't have enough money. I became aware that every minute or two Hanah would interject: "But I have money!" People at the neighboring tables began to notice our lively discussion and pay close attention to it. "But I do have the money!" Hanah took out a tiny wallet from her pocket. It was a little bigger than an inch in diameter. To the rapt attention of our audience and our own patronizing eyes, she pulled a $20 bill out of it! My jaw almost hit the table. She took out another $20 and another! The bills were crumpled to fit into that ridiculous wallet, so it took Hanah a long time to unfold them and present to her astonished public. We couldn't even find words to ask her where she got her treasure. It turned out, she picked up the grocery money for the next week that I left on the dresser. Needless to say, we did get a large meal that evening. And the restaurant patrons got a show.