Last night when Todd got home the weekend father had his music blasting (not the Eagles, surprisingly — we do know he has a radio because he spent Christmas Eve two years ago with it on a station playing Christmas carols; maybe someone should let him know that The Little Drummer Boy isn’t meant to be played at top volume — we’ve even toyed with the idea that he’s actually a bit hard of hearing, although he seems to hear just fine when he’s talking to people) and Todd grinned and started humming “Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood”, that old song from Sesame Street. Who are the people in your neighborhood
In your neighborhood
In your neighborhoooood
They’re the people that you meet
When you’re walking down the street
The people who you meet each day…
Oh the weekend father has no li-ife
He has two kids and an ex-wi-ife…

Haven’t heard from Kitey in forever, I think she’s still reading my daily journal entries but I’m not sure. Don’t really have much of an idea of what’s going on in her life, either, I wish I did. Oh, gad, speaking of neighborhoods — a couple of days ago we were on our way to the library. There are two new independent stores, selling ice cream and pizza, that have just opened and as we passed them I said, “I hope you do okay! I hope lots of people come to your stores!” and Todd laughed and said, “You care about this neighborhood, don’t you,” and I said that yes, I really do. Todd thought about it for a minute and he turned to me and said, “Geez, you’ve never even HAD a neighborhood, you poor thing!” Listen, in California you’re lucky if you see the same cashier at Safeway in a month, and I think I would have collapsed from the shock if one of them had recognized me, much less asked how I was doing. I’m discovering for the first time in my life that I can actually enjoy being outside, I mean for one thing everything looks familiar. I know this can’t compare to those of you with parents in the military, but it was quite enough for me — from first grade to my senior year, I went to nine different schools. Familiarity is definitely a novel (and wonderful) concept. Anyway, after moving so many times I started staying more and more inside the house, because at least the furnishings inside the house were familiar, and that’s only just now gradually changing.

Spent much of last night on the phone with Sean, things are going badly again and he needed to talk to us. I wouldn’t be seventeen again for eighty thousand zillion trillion million dollars.