things to wonder over

Ocean and sunlight, San Diego, July 2011

*A friend who had been on dialysis got a new kidney from a living donor, a woman who is a friend of a friend but not someone she had ever met before the transplant process began. Recipient and donor, both young women, are doing well post-surgery. I am blown away by the generosity.

*Emry can crawl.

*Elan can read.

*Both my children slept until 6 a.m. this morning, drank some milk, and went back to sleep until after 7:30.

*I went to sleep at 10 p.m. last night (a minor miracle in itself), so I actually had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

*Fall weather in the Bay Area is glorious.

*And a story: One of Elan's new favorite toys is a set of 4 Boon odd ducks (think mod rubber duckies - we had to toss our old rubber ducks after they tested positive for lead, yum). These ducks come with names: Jane, Bob, Slim and Squash. Or is it Squish? I can never remember. Anyway, the ducks have been going to preschool with Elan daily to his new Pre-K class. On our way home one day last week, I decided to stop at the new Local Butcher Shop. This is the kind of local, sustainable foodie place Berkeley-ians love. They are all about using the whole animal (nose to tail eating as it's called), so they had lots of whole animals in the case. Elan peered in at them, curious and not as squeamish as I expected him to be, reading the signs: chicken (he noted they still had their heads), rabbit (thankfully without theirs), squab (they were out, and I didn't know till I looked it up online that this is pigeon), duck. He looked at them casually, got preoccupied for a while by the butchery charts, then suddenly ran over to the stroller and stuffed the pink rubber duck behind a blanket. "Mama, we have to go!" he squealed. "Jane saw the ducks, and she's very worried!"