"Hey Mom! Ralph fainted yesterday!" my son calls to tell me. Ralph is one of his goats. He has two fainting goats that are about eight months old. He has not seen them faint because he will allow no one to scare them into fainting.

"How did that happen?"

"Well, he was in the kitchen and he hit his head on the counter..."

"Back up. Why is the goat in the house?"

"I...ah...he hit his head on the counter and it scared him and he flopped over and made the most pitiful sound. Like gaaabaaaaaAHHHHH. Then he laid there with his legs kicking. I kept trying to get him up, but we had to wait it out."

"Ah huh. So...why was the goat in the house?" I never got an explanation that made any sense.

Driving by his house, you’d think – that looks like a place where goats might reside in goaty bliss. A small wooden shack with a tin roof. Half an acre of tender overgrown weeds, grass as high as your shoulders, and many many beer cans. Delicious! The church ladies came at Thanksgiving, with a basket of canned goods and a Walmart gift certificate for a turkey.

"They gave me a can of gravy. Who eats gravy from a can?" he asks with genuine surprise.

I remember the state of the front porch the last time I saw it. Eight or nine bicycles lined up next to the front door, all missing parts, slowly cannibalized to repair other bikes. Stacks of boat sails and coiled rope, and many many beer cans. By the time the church ladies saw my son in the doorway – tall, bearded hippie in Birkenstocks and a Politricks t-shirt – and were hit with a waft of pot smoke from last night’s jam session, it must have been too late to hide the basket of goodies for the needy and make up some other tale for knocking on his door. So they handed it over.

"You need to come hang out with me," he says.

I’ve spent many hours at his house painting walls and cabinets, but the last time we just "hung out" was when I visited him during his senior year in college, at the off-campus dump he shared with his girlfriend and two other boys. A consummate host, he made sure my beer bottle was always fresh, until I lost count. A guitar sprang from nowhere and was thrust into my arms. I played a few of my songs. Touchingly, my son knew the words and sang them along with me. We wrapped up with the Aussie campfire classic "You Will Throw Your Arms Around Me" and then in true rock star fashion, I passed out on a futon. A futon! So when he invites me to his house to hang out, I always think he’s planning another spectacle, only this time he will invite even more people to witness his snoring mother drool PBR-flavored spit onto a couch cushion.

"Your sister and I are coming out your way on Saturday," I say. "She wants to see the goats, and then go to some of the galleries down at the beach. So we can do that, and then go to the farmer’s market, if you want."

He has to be at the restaurant 3:30, so it is decided that we will hang out at the beachfront galleries, hit the farmer’s market and then at 4:30 when the restaurant opens, he will make dinner for me, his sister, and his girlfriend.

On Saturday, we tour the seaside galleries, walking on sandy pathways, canopied by scrub oaks that look like bonsai trees all grown up. We stop at the farmer’s market where my son looks so longingly at organic, free-range duck eggs costing $10 a dozen that I make his day and buy them for him, knowing he will treasure each one. At 3:30, cradling his carton of eggs, he heads to the restaurant, and my daughter, the girlfriend and I window shop. Imagining we can afford the things we see. Imagining we wouldn’t want to buy them even if we could. We find a boutique with a 75% off rack and I buy each of them a pretty, off-season dress, and then it is time for dinner.

We are seated at a bar in front of the prep area where my son works. My son alerts the waiter that we are his guests – his mom, his sister and his girlfriend. This bashful, beamish boy who can’t remember birthdays, marvels at canned gravy, and is learning to love his girlfriend -- how he touches her hair and talks to her casually, as if he has always known her and always will. He makes pizzas for us. One dotted with roasted vegetables and topped with lightly dressed arugula. Another with prosciutto, and fontina, drizzled with a bit of honey. All on a charred, cracker-thin crust, pulled just in time from a wood-fired oven.

Any observer wouldn’t miss this: the girlfriend looks like the sister, and the sister looks like the mother. This warms me more than I can say. But I won’t say it, because he has never seemed to notice. When we go to leave, with thrown kisses and thanks for the marvelous meal, the waiter tells us it’s paid for. My son waves, and I want to throw my arms around him. I feel like crying, but I don’t want to make a spectacle of myself. Because I’ve done that already, and I have no futon nearby to break my fall.