Received as a text on my phone early this morning: ‘Good morning, Mark. Adam and I stopped by and dried out the rear lot camera and checked the other two. Please let us know if you have any further difficulty…Charles’.

I do not know Mark. I do not know Adam or Charles.

I am unclear as to what a rear lot camera might be.

I may have further difficulties, but I suspect Charles will not be able to help me. I hope these three men had a successful day.

This afternoon…the little one coughed, raised his hand and when called on said simply, ‘Miss, I have a hair ball!’

My response…’I can’t take care of that right now’…

Back to work.

Can’t make this stuff up…

The look on the head secretary’s face when I told her I was going to hop the counter instead of being buzzed into the office; priceless.

I know I would never do it. She knows I would never do it. I actually am incapable of doing it. No way. Not if my life depended on it.

But for a split second…I ruled the world.

Hands down the best quote of the day: I was talking with an elderly neighbor this afternoon, a retired teacher. She crossed herself and said ‘I would testify in a court of law…truly, the lowest form of life is an 8th grade boy’.

Agreed…

At the corner of Westcombe and Longton, she sits in the front yard on a small wooden chair. She sits brilliantly in the cold sunshine. A slight woman dressed in long fuchsia cloth and wearing a small turban, she watches as I drive by. I wave. She turns her head slowly toward me, unmoved; unmoving.

I think about her as I run a number of errands. I’ve seen her walking slowly along the sidewalk, barely five feet tall; age undetermined. Her face is wide, brown and lined. She could be sixty or one hundred. I have heard her homeland is Nepal.

She stares out and up at the sky at lands I don’t see, feeling winds I don’t feel; seeing the sun at an angle I have never felt. Her face is stone; absorbing with a direct stare the range and depth of the mountains from whence she came. My face is fluid. I look around mountains, above mountains and beneath mountains; thinking of how I will traverse the heights.

On my way back I look for her again but she and her small wooden chair are gone. She has left the mountains, the wind and the waning cold spring sun and the shaggy front lawn. She has closed her door against the fishbowl which is suburbia…

A week or so ago, my downspout responded to the call of the wild, shook free from shackled moorings, sailed with wild abandon toward Blaydon Loop, and settled quietly in a stranger’s front yard. New home, new beginnings? Alas, no. Through social media, said downspout was promptly retrieved, scolded and reassigned to the porch post, promising to behave.

Yesterday, wanderlust struck again and assisted by winds over 80 miles an hour, the same downspout made a farewell speech and set sail, permanently resettling on distant shores; I know not where.

I have a stash of downspouts plopped in a paint bucket and resting all coddiwomple angles in the garage; a collection of other criminals recaptured but never claimed by owners.

I never wanted my downspout anyway as they are prone to head for open seas, unduly influenced by New York winds and seduced by the lure of dangerous adventure…

I am not listening, as I am not yet wearing my glasses…

I recently had a lengthy conversation with a four and one half year old while waiting in the lounge at the Hochstein Music School. He told me about himself and his family and that he ate ‘stinky cheese’ and did not like it. I said I wouldn’t like it either, most likely.

He asked me if I needed a picture drawn and I did. This happened four times. It was a lengthy conversation.

There are four crayon drawings of me on the couch. I told him they were good because they were how I felt.

I don’t know that he understood, but we both laughed.

I don’t think retirement or old age will require much adjustment…

She looked at me and said, ‘I hate your jacket’.

I looked at her and said, ‘I hate your hair’.

Then she laughed nervously and said, ‘Miss, I’m only kidding. I like it’.

I didn’t laugh but I responded, ‘Me too. I like your hair. It looks good’.

We went back to work.

And that is how sixth grade gets handled.

Spring winds at my back; I can almost see her behind galleon clouds…faded Emerald Isle; she rests in green splendor side by side with family bones, rocky soil and troubles. The troubles.

A simple jig plays, as I search for verdant velvet hedges and my own leprechaun waiting for me at home. I dream and drive, while sailing homeward bound in fresher, safer spaces.

On my mind, a photo of my Grandfather McMahon at the tender age of twelve…standing with no shoes…in a glass factory…surrounded by rough looking men.

The boy, the man with the lovely tenor voice…