whatever

We were discussing palm reading/life lines over dinner, so Caroline looked into the palm of her hand and said: "I think I have a small life." Then the topic turned to Alzheimer's (yes, we are a cultured family, ha, ha)and I asked William if he knew what that meant. He said: "Oh, Old Timer's...yes I think that's when the memory parts of your brain turn into apple sauce." Now! I could not have invented that.

Earlier I was at William's baseball game-- he's a dreamer who'd rather read books than hit a home run but he tries to so hard to be like one of the boys. He was about to bat, all bases covered with points to be collected and William misses-- three out, the teams change fields and the sinking feeling I shared with my son. I know it so well. Like the ball you were supposed to catch in outer field but because the whole field was watching, expecting you to catch that friggin' ball, you missed it anyway. Argh! The humiliation. Maybe it is a bit like writing-- all that work and anticipation and then missing perfection at the crucial point. Or as Ham Basso said, writing can be like walking across a tightrope over Niagara Falls. You have perfection in your mind but what falls down on the paper is nothing what you had in mind. Back to you Lynn Ruth,