Kid Buddha

So it's 6:15 in the morning and Sophia's daughter is shrieking in anguish upstairs. Her mother has cruelly, cruelly told her for the 29th time to please get out of bed and come down and eat.

Molly is very sweet and is miraculous in uncountable ways, but she doesn't do mornings. Well, she does 'em, but she does 'em the way Mitch and Murray do a sales meeting, the way Republicans lose an election, the way Al Capone chats about baseball.

The shrieks continue. James, 7, is already at the table. He says, in a calculated tone of (mock?) compassion, "That's her level of consciousness."