December 1. Thursday Night.

Hi Journey.

I just wanted to wake to a Jeep sitting on my driveway this morning.

Then I realized I was dreaming. I don't even have a driveway, just a parking stall with my apartment number painted on the curb in faded numerals.

Car lust; beats leching after males hands down, that's for sure. A car is stable, not a damn shape-shifter like a man.

Speaking of men, looks like the Christmas gifts for the Siriso twins are finally all worked out. Mom is going with a couple of VTech Tote & Go's; with two teddy bears tossed in for good measure. Dad has his rocking giraffe cut to finish size but is still sanding away on it. He hasn't quite figured out what he's going to use for a mane, though.

Sounds like Thanksgiving went well for everybody. Mom and Dad spent it with some neighbors; Percy and Carmen and the kids went over to his folks' apartment in Manhattan.

Mom and Carmen seem to be OK again. Their fights have never lasted long. Spoke with Mom for an hour on the phone tonight. Longest we've talked in one sitting in, oh, probably over a year I'll bet. She sounds happy. Her hip had been troubling her. It's the same one she injured her junior year at Mt. Holyoke . Kept her out of the rugby starting lineup for three games. The Lyons lost all of them.

Reminds me, Journey, let me tell you more about what I found in the archives after work tonight.

But like I said, the hip isn't paining her as much, so she's back to swimming. That must be a relief for dad. Mom's a caged cat when she can't exercise.

She and Mattie spent heaps of time on the phone this past week. I'm glad. The two of them chatted daily when they lived across the street instead of across the continent. Mom's own mother died young, when I was just three. Dad's mom was a delightful Grandma and great built-in babysitter, but never really had the greatest practical advice to give. I overheard Mom say once that Grandma Dinah could spew more words while saying less about anything important than anybody outside of politics.

Maybe that's why Dad was so skilled at listening to people's petty little concerns during his career as an insurance peddler. To him it was all just so much background noise.

Many, many times Mom rang up Mattie when one of us had a fever or Mumps or was puking. Mattie was the one who Knew, and everybody on our street gravitated toward her knowledge like moths to a bare porch bulb on a summer's evening.

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