Formal Wear

Joyce's brother Walter was just over for dinner. We have now made it official that he will be joining us every Wednesday for dinner. He is to arrive at 5:30, just after the last of the day-care kids leave.
He arrived today at 5:15 with a bottle of Wolf Blass Merlot. Quite nice and fairly robust, not quite as full as the Yellow Label last week but that is to be expected from a Merlot.
The evening was quite relaxed as the meal progressed. Joyce made a wonderful roast which she slow cooked all day long. Of course mashed potatoes had to be served to please Micah, Jane and Samuel. Micah loves to pile his potatos high and make a volcano with the gravy. I think he had threee portions in the end. Sammy quietly consumed as the rest of us conversed about the day.
As the evening wore on, Walter made some comment about how well I delt with a situation with the kids. Joyce jokingly said something to the effect that he should really be here for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday if he wanted to see the real Brian. Of course any thinking human cannot write that sort of a comment off completely as a joke, so I am now set to wondering. I wonder what the mirror really sees. I was reading a random blog earlier today where the woman was commenting on her husband. She mentioned that when she comes home from work her husband tags off and is done for the rest of the day and all he has done is the bare minimum. She says that simply feeding and clothing the kids does not cut it as fully parenting. Her husband said that at least he was doing better than the majority of the men out there. I told Joyce about having read this when I got home from work today. So here I am thinking that her comment about the other days of the week are somehow connected to what I told her about this other husband. Am I putting on a show for someone who is not normally around? Do I really need to step into the dressing room and put on a finer suit when someone new is watching?
I don't have any conclusions about this today but I will certainly keep looking in the mirror. I'm still quite nice and fairly robust, not quite as full of myself as last week, but that's to be expected of a man who fully considers his reflection.