One of my Birmingham rituals is to eat Indian food with David Clark. It doesn’t always work out that we can get together when I’m in town, but we usually try to arrange it. The last few years, Taj India on Highland Avenue has been our standard destination. The only difference this year was that David brought along his lovely new wife Lira.
David’s brother Adam Clark played bass in one of the first bands I was ever in when I was in 11th grade. In those days, I used to go over to Adam’s house, and David would always be sitting in his room practicing the banjo. Later, when I was at UAB, David was in medical school there, and I got to know him much better. We would sometimes get together to play music, read each other’s short stories, or just to eat dinner. We were both just learning about Indian food then. There was no such thing when we were growing up in Dothan, and the discovery was sort of like opening a portal to a new dimension.
Before dinner, I spent the day just hanging around my parents’ house doing some writing and taking some pictures. My niece and nephew came over for a while. This is Anne Harman.
This is George.
And this is my parents’ dog Maggie.
This is the koi pond in the back yard.
And here are some koi.
Tomorrow I go to Dothan.
M. David Hornbuckle 
Everyone is cute. Anne Harmon looks quite mature. She looks like she might scold me about something.