Zorro in my kitchen

Zorro stopped by for coffee today.

This was brought about by my daughter, who even though she is under two can recognize the instrumental soundtrack to the movie "The Legend of Zorro." As in, cue the opening orchestral piece; see Emily look up quickly, point her finger toward the Hello Kitty cd player, and proclaim in a high but very clear voice, "Zorro!" Which is closely followed by, "Zorro in the black dress!" and "Go see Zorro?"

Which is about as close as we'll ever get to having Zorro in our kitchen. Still, his presence is deeply felt.

He is rather popular in our house lately. We had some friends over, and agreed to watch the Zorro sequal DVD. Since we both have little girls under two years old, we kept them in the room with us to play with toys while we watched the movie.

It was the middle of the afternoon. It was daylight out. It's not like we blacked out the room and obscured their view of toys and each other and the door-sized window views of outside. It's not as if we held their little faces parallel with the tv screen. It's a fairly big room with enough space to play undistracted.

But that television is hypnotic, isn't it? So Emmy now considers herself on visitor's terms with the man behind the mask.

Hence, Zorro is still looming large in our collective imaginations. Especially during breakfast, when we turn on the cd player.

I guess I can't blame Emmy--what’s not to like? There’s the tall black horse, the sweeping cape, the mysterious black eyes behind a mysterious black mask. And if you've seen the movie, you even get to see a hero who can admit to more than a few mistakes. Always better when those heroes are still shown as human.

There’s also the fencing thing. I'd like to devote some of this space to bragging on how my husband was an excellent fencing athlete, but I never got to witness this marvelous feat. I met him after he stopped pressing a blade of wobbly steel against more than a few advancing abdomens. Apparently he was so good that he bested his fencing coach during a lesson. Allow me to lament the fact that I never witnessed my husband’s close proximity to Zorro-like swashbuckling. Sigh…Perhaps someday.

I also never got to see Andy beat an ex-Navy Seal in an impromptu wrestling match in Italy, either. (I was sleeping, but reports from friends were that said Navy Seal was pinned fairly quickly. Doesn't that just beat all?) I did, however, see him flip my Dad into the pool once.

Not the same.

In the meantime, Zorro continues to show up for breakfast. Perhaps huevos rancheros should be on the menu?