To my total amazement I discovered that JM has a palm like mine, the only person I’ve ever encountered with, what I am told, is the heart and head line combined in a braided band straight across the palm.

Landlady said “that means he’s naughty.” Well, I guess I’m naughty, too.

I guess it’s time for a domestic update.

LANDLADY. Well, for over a month she wasn’t summoned to work at the hospital and, as always, she got quite grumpy as a result. She has a really anoying Mother Complex, consistently knowing better how to do whatever you are doing. Really tries my patience sometimes.

HUSBAND. He went whacko yesterday and pruned a tree almost to oblivion, in the process wiping out most of my little garden which hadn’t already been destroyed by the five furballs who constantly romp through it. My virtual gardener is almost boringly successful but I’m afraid there have been just too many obstacles for the real-life version. I did get four harvests of collard greens, three cucumbers and three Bell peppers. The catnip is thriving and the sticky-seed-pod tree is over two feet tall. The rest was a disaster.

ELDER SON. He quit his job, spends all afternoon and night playing computer games, sleeps all morning. When I wake up for the new day, he’s often still awake.

HANDSOME SON. He got a scholarship to attend HPU (Hawaii Pacific University). Bizarre, considering UH declined to accept him. He also has a new Corolla, since some of his HPU classes will be on the campus on the other side of the mountains.

THE BOYS. Sweethearts, both of them. As I said in an email earlier today, I’m grateful pedophilia is total anathema to me.

“What is this?” asked KM, exploring my little wooden box of treasures.

“A rabbit’s foot.”

“Eeee-uuuu,” he said and put it back in the plastic bag.

“It’s good luck,” I said.

“Wasn’t good luck for the rabbit.”

I had to agree with that, didn’t tell him it had been dipped into the Ganges, since I would then have had to explain what and where the Ganges is, and I’d already tried to explain where Tibet is since he’d also found my three Tibetan coins.

“How old are you?” asked JM.
“How old do you think I am?”
“99,” he said.

Yikes. I suppose to an eleven-year-old I do indeed appear ancient and I confess that he does often make me feel that way. Boundless energy and endlessly inquisitive. He subjects me to intense scrutiny, even noticed that my few remaining real teeth have gold fillings. He wants them when I die. Considering the price of gold these days, they are probably the most valuable thing I could leave to him and of course he’d be welcome to them.

Recently he and KM, his slightly older brother, marched into my room, raised their tee-shirts and demanded to know which of them had the “nicest belly”. I assured them they both have fine bellies, which is true, but kept to myself the thought that JM not only has an adorable face and a dazzling smile but also has a beautiful body. In four or five years time he is going to be a total knockout. I doubt I’ll be around then but if I am, I also doubt, alas, he’ll still sprawl beside me on the bed and rest his head on my shoulder, all the while intensely concentrated on his game.

Well, in addition to this totally new role of surrogate father, life has also taken on another twist. I have a television set for the first time in … hmmmm … eight, nine (?) … years. Elder Son bought a new tv so I inherited his Panasonic. By today’s flat-screen enormous versions, it’s not large but is certainly the biggest one I’ve ever had and in my little room is more than adequate.

I have to say that this television option for spending time hasn’t really changed very much at all.