We all went out last night, the four of us. Beta had a harp recital. She played beautifully. Almost all the other kids, whether on piano or harp, made mistakes here or there, or all the way through. She played perfectly and we were proud.

Her little sister Gamma was on her best behavior as well. Another child in the auditorium was worse-behaved than she was, even. She climbed around on us a little and decorated me with oak leaves she had collected beforehand and so on, but she made little noise and heckled no one. Usually she heckles people.

In fact, it is one of her favorite things to do, come to think of it. Her bedtime routine goes like this: put on pyjamas, brush and floss, pick out a storybook, open bedroom window and lean out for a while looking at things and heckling pedestrians down below, read story, chat, go to sleep.

Anyhow, after the recital everyone – teachers, musicians, families – went to a nearby Italian restaurant for food and drink. It was late, Gamma was tired, we feared the worst.

But the restaurant agreed with her. She ate a little soup and drank a Coke. She crawled around under the table (seats 20) and hit people (primarily me) in the feet. We tried distracting her with a game of hide-and-seek with her sister and another harpist. She went to the toilet and wiped her own ass!! Stop the presses! Of course she announced this momentous achievement loudly upon her return.

Then she discovered two things: the restaurant had a piano, and it had a bar.

First she hung out at the bar for, like, half an hour. The bar was sort of an island in the middle of this cavernous restaurant, so we had a good view of her. She sat there like an old barfly chatting with the bartender. Afterwards she reported everything she’d learned. The bartender was 20 years old. Her name was such and such.

Later, she announced proudly, “I was just talking to a strange man, too!” Sometimes she’s shy (usually), sometimes she’s social. “I want to be a disco girl!” she says. “How nice,” we say.

Then she found the grand piano and played that for a while. By this time the restaurant was emptying out and it was only our party, most of whom already knew Gamma, and were fans of hers anyway. She announced that she would take piano lessons from her sister’s harp teacher, who also teaches piano.

Then we went home, heckled passersby for a while, and went to bed.

The weather is warm, the poppies are blooming, it seems like only yesterday that we could breathe air without sneezing, now we cannot breathe it without antihistamines. The blackbirds are chattering their warnings in the back yard, the cats are on the prowl.

Rodent season is here, with it’s daily gift of a small, furry organism in peaceful repose on the terrace behind the house, nothing but its concerned facial expression belying an unpleasant and protracted death.

I say daily mouse, but our daughters are actually getting a good idea of the wide range of local fauna. Various mice and rats. Shrews. Voles. Wild hamsters (aggressive – so aggressive that they prefer to stand in the street and give approaching cars the finger instead of running away. So you can imagine the amount of road kill in a month or two when they start roaming about.)

And, yesterday, a mole.

Gamma was thrilled. “What a cute mole!” Her mother wanted to toss it in the compostable garbage bin, but Gamma strongly protested. So the mole spent a day on our terrace. On its side, taking in the sun.

Moles *are* cute, as long as they’re not messing up your yard. Plump, nearsighted little guys. Ungainly on the surface; not much of a challenge for a cat. I finally took a trowel and tossed him in the garbage last night after Gamma had gone to bed.

Nowadays, the Daily Rodent is not so bad. Our oldest cat, Oliver, used to climb the birch tree outside our window, jump in our upper-story bedroom window (a skylight) and give us live prey. It usually went like this: cat jumps onto roof with a big *thunk*. I try to grab him before he comes in, and carry him back outside with an ill-tempered golden field hamster cussing a blue streak still in his mouth. This usually involved a certain amount of freaking out on my part, which resulted, about half the time, in Oliver opening his mouth to, to I don’t know what – explain, maybe – which the rodent of course used to make a quick escape, which led to another 30 minutes in the middle of the night of me carrying the cat through the house in search of the little animal, putting the cat down in a good spot and sliding furniture around beneath which the prey was thought to be hiding.

Then, our neighbor killed our tree with a copper nail, we had to cut it down, and sleep better at night.

Eh, where was I?

The Daily Rodent nowadays. Yes, anyway, we just check the terrace in the morning before work. The girls are getting good at identifying them. “Look, a… um… that looks like a mouse liver… how nice, he brought us his favorite organ…”

Had a good weekend, went to a couple spas, learned two things:

• If you have gas, don’t get a massage.

• If you get a massage anyway, don’t doze, no matter how relaxing and soothing it is, because you’ll spend the rest of your day wondering whether you farted in your sleep.

I was also reminded of another thing: naked people are great. At first I was reluctant to go to a spa because only old people with joint problems go to them. Then I remembered that I’m an old person with joint problems. Also, a whole spectrum of people go there, not just limping fat old people. Here is one of the places we went.

Various pools indoors and out, some with little bridges over them, under which I lurked, cool architecture, relaxing, great. Best of all was the big naked area with several different saunas. The naked area, or Zona Nuda as the multi-lingual signs said. Full of all sorts of people, all naked. And all beautiful. Short, tall, fat, skinny, young, old, beautiful.

I’m not saying everyone was attractive. But I was reminded of something Studs Terkel said once, that women look best naked. Men, eh, not sure. Maybe in a classic, dark two piece single-breasted suit. I don’t mean this in a sexual, sexist way, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t know what to think of Studs Terkel, but people are beautiful. Imperfect, but beautiful.

It takes a while to get used to the nakedness. It is a shame that people are led by the media to have this narrow picture of human beauty, though, you know? I realize I’m once again stating the obvious, but someone has to. You’re beautiful.

Don’t believe me? Take off your clothes and look. Look slow, not fast the way you look at some airbrushed fashion model. You are.

X-ray pictures of flowers.

Before I leave work today, in like 7 hours from now, someone remind me to pick up Alpha at the train station nearest my office, where she will be waiting with small red suitcase, instead of driving straight home, okay? We’re going away for the weekend.

Also, Father’s Day contest at Raising Hell, go see, $20 buck Amazon prize.

Oh, and, I almost forgot, new shoes at the Shoe Project.

God, I love this new design. Georgia is such a classy, legible font. Could someone with Opera or IE5/Mac tell me what exactly is breaking for them, so I can beg someone to fix it?

Come with me, the elder bushes are
blooming and the air is full of various
pollen. We’ll live in a teepee in America.
Okay, not a teepee but a succession of
cheap and drab apartments, scary and
underheated and wandering
mental patients will frighten you, them
and the vastness of our commerce.

Come with me. Your childhood has already
broken your heart, so my betrayals
and failures will hurt only half
as much. Come with me and
I will show you a great, big place.
I won’t hurt you on purpose, I won’t
hit you often or hard.

Take me with you little girl, we’ll
give it another try. I’ll scrub your
floors with Clorox, you’ll be important
and I won’t be. I’ll miss you so bad
when you travel I won’t vacuum your
footprints from the carpet, comforted
by your traces.

Take me with you, we’ll have interesting
children. You’ll need someone
to carry your milk to your baby
every day when the two of you are
in two different hospitals. I’ll be
so quiet you won’t even notice me.
We’ll misunderstand each other so
badly it will be as if I weren’t there
at all. Take me with you let’s dance
an awful waltz.

Come with me and I’ll dig you mountains
of dirt. I’ll build you a house,
surprising both of us. Life can be grand,
and surprising.
Stay with me, we’ll sleep in
a yurt yet. Depth, pressure and heat
make diamonds; we’re fucking rich.
The jasmine is blooming
and we’re losing the knack of being
shitheads. Who would have thought it
would ever be this wonderful?

[Today is our 15th wedding anniversary, Alpha and I. Happy anniversary, darling. The above post is posted in violation of a strict ban on love poetry at Feral Living, and with apologies to readers and especially, Alpha.

Also, Alpha forbade me to post a picture of her as a little girl, which would have worked better with the poem, so I was forced to search the Internet for an approximation of sorts. If by chance you, Dear Reader, are the person shown in the above photograph, please contact me, we need to work out a model release.]

What the?????
Who hacked my css????
I’ll bet anything it was that tart!!!!!