THREE QUARTERS OF A YEAR

Where does the time go? I could ask my friend who made me start this blog back when I was recovering from a surgery excursion my GP referred to as a "barbaric procedure." I could ask my cat. Either one would probably say something about time passing. During said time I have morphed into something both curious and common: a grandfather. Yet I remain everything I was before that: a husband, a father, an uncle, a brother-- all those and more remain unchanged, yet here I am, a grandfather for heaven's sake. Shouldn't I be older or wiser or more grandfatherly? What I am is the guy who watches this now-eight-month-old little girl (a girl? what do I know about baby girls? Well, enough I suppose. They seem to make feral noises, noises of the forest, both modern and primeval-- sometimes owl or monkey sounds, when hooting in triumph out the window over vanquished articles of clothing cast away. Sometimes the calls of forgotten dinosaurs roaring and growling in hunger or menace. Sometimes birds-- happy birds, chirpy birds, angry birds.

She eats like a dinosaur too. She is ravenous and messy. She leaves a trail of glistening gore in her wake: cucumber slime, cereal moosh,trails of noodle entrails. And she hoots while she eats, like some carnivore gloating over the vanquished foe she is internalizing. It is, of course, grand fun. There is hardly anything more fun than children, whether of the teency tincy sort or of the larger variety all themselves grown up with children of their own. There are so many marvelous quotations about the joys of children, the happiness of babies, and they are all true. Not that there aren't, you know, down times. But those are just the infrequent bitters with the sweets. And our Joon is a lovely, sweet, marvelous creature.