The glamorous Miss Tahmi, who came to dinner on Sunday night, brought along some lovely prizes in honor of my birthday. Try to decide which was my favorite!

1) A floral art deco brooch, made of tin, circa 1940;

2) A curvilinear brooch of sterling silver, featuring a dogwood blossom;

3) An oval lucite pin featuring a faded color photograph of what at first appeared to be a mid-level government official, and on second glance resembled someone's grandfather, although I realize that those two things are not mutually exclusive.

That is correct! Number three is my favorite, largely because its existence isn't easily explained. The photograph shows, against a deep green background, a grey-haired gentleman wearing a suit, glasses, and a solemn expression, as if the picture was taken just as he was turning someone down for a home loan.

Madrina, who was also at the restaurant, immediately insisted that the man resembled our Uncle George, who for idiosyncratic reasons went by his middle name of Ethelbert. The resemblance is minor, as the picture looks like any number of grey-haired executives from the '50s, but in Madrina's world, everything, no matter how minor, relates directly to our family lineage. She once knitted a scarf of fuzzy brown yarn, and argued strongly that it should be named "Effie Toast," as the color reminded her of the burnt toast her grandmother used to make. It seemed like too much of a stretch, and I shouted the name down, but the issue was never resolved to anyone's satisfaction.

At any rate, I was very pleased that Tahmi would run across this odd man glowering atop this piece of jewelry and think immediately of me. I agreed to name him Uncle Ethelbert, as a sort of apology for arguing so intractably against Effie Toast.

Star of the day. . .Calvin Coolidge