WINTER

I Took Alan to a party and introduced him around as if he were a big stuffed toy, like Jimmy Stewart did with his tall white rabbit Harvey,in the movie "HARVEY", whenever he got drunk. That is, when Jimmy Stewart got drunk, not Harvey. Harvey wasn't really real. (Or was he?) I've never had a big (well, Alan's not exactly big, he's slender, but he's certainly tall) - - toy to show off before. It's fun. And it's interactive.

You get to show the tall toy off and then the person you're showing the toy off to asks (they have to ask SOMETHING) how you met so you get to tell them and that leads to more questions and pretty soon you're just babbling away, happily filling them full of all sorts of information they probably don't really want to know but boy, do they ever know it now. It's good for diets, because, as everybody knows, if you're talking a lot, you're not eating a lot. I didn't eat until I got home. That was our one and only Christmas party and I'd say it was a resounding success.

We couldn't wait for Christmas, so we opened our presents this past weekend, paper flying everywhere. I had only Bainbridge Island to choose from so Alan's presents from me were a little........"Islandy".....and he had Olympia to choose from, so his presents to me were perfect. Perfect. Some were practical, like the beautiful knitted and lined wool gloves and slippers or the furry hat or the gorgeous multi-stone earrings with the turquoise in the center or the terrific book written by Kurt Vonnegut's son titled "Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So" or the beautiful little turquoise colored lidded pot which now sits on the table next to the turquoise blown glass bowl or the couple of ___________s I won't be mentioning here but they look like they could be fun when we have time and inclination. Well, we seem to have the inclination all the time, so I guess it's Time Itself we don't have. Would anybody out there like to donate us some of their precious time? Somebody out there with too much time, anyone?

We paid a visit to Aleister and his family on Sunday. When we walked through the door, Aleister was bent over a pamphlet-thing, filling in a page or two with check marks and words. "What are you doing, there, Aleister?" I asked. "I'm giving out vaccinations," Aleister said, "it's my Christmas present," he added. "You mean your Christmas present is going to be giving vaccinations to kids in Africa?" I asked, looking at the pamphlet? "Yup," he said, "fifty vaccinations for fifty poor kids." I pulled up a chair across from him. "Aleister," I said, "I think that is a really great Christmas present." He took a moment to lift his head and look me in the eyes. His eyebrows have turned really dark and, at the young age of ten, his voice has gotten quite deep. "Mama Kay," he said, "it is a super duper really great Christmas present," he said. Before we left I asked him what he planned on doing with the money I had given him for Christmas. "Uhhhhh," he said, "maybe give more vaccinations or some goats?" he said. "Oh, ALeister," I said, "how about taking some of the money and giving yourself something?" "Okay," he said. He looked at his Mom. "How much do one of those games I like cost?" he asked his Mom. "Fifty dollars," she said. "Then I'd like to buy one of those games and then give my Mom fifty dollars for her car engine," he said.

There's no stopping him. He's just a dang good kid, that's all. People can get wrecked at any time, of course, we all know it happens, we just don't like to think about it. Something happens and ka-boom. One night a rat crosses your path and your doomed. It's the spirit of the times. One morning you get up at an unlikely early morning hour and it's raining outside and even a priest can't save you. But these events are most unusual. But even more unusual is ALeister, hunched over his pamphlet with pictures of African children,his heart swollen in a mix of love and agony of sweetness of spirit, so deep and amiable that it is as stark in unconsciousness and consciousness as that perfect spot of purity that sways in silent balance between the light and the dark that keeps children mostly safe and adults mostly in awe throughout the greyness of the winter days.