Weird, when you have to retrieve your 15 year old boy who has without announcement skipped his sister's birthday dinner to have Shabbat dinner at the rabbi chaplain's table. You don't know the address, although you've been provided with a general description of the house. After dark, You can't count on finding a porch light on, so you have to squint for clues like a mezuzzah. You can't call him after dark, and the family doesn't know who you are or why you are there. A minute after starting to pound on the door, you're being shown into a brightly lit dining room and introduced to most of the dozen people at the table -- the rabbi's wife, three daughters, and son; a couple of chaplaincy students from the Army post. Three or four others are better known to you, schoolmates of your son's, and the son himself, in a Yemini-style kippah. You're supposed to extract him from a vegetarian Shabbos dinner in favor of Outback Steakhouse, but as he says, "This is the best challah I've ever tasted." I don't know how much of a diplomat my wife thinks I am, but if ever I needed to be, that was when.