Sleepover.1

Anticipation ran high all day. First, these little guys had a sushi party, one of the distractions that helped us fill up the waiting time.



Also, there is the work of drawing a special "Welcome" sign and taping it to the front door.



There are dozens of last-minute details.



Including inventing a new salad (sourgrass salad) featuring a fresh ingredient from our backyard, plus baby carrots, sweet grape tomatoes, daikon slices, broccoli, cauliflower, Persian cucumber, onion, and spices.

***

Julia asked me today: "Daddy, if I were alive in Dr. Martin Luther King's time, would I be considered a white person?"

"Yes," I told her, since there is no doubt about that. Her worry was that if that was the case, she would not be able to be friends with her favorite girls, many of whom are African-American.

A couple years back, Julia was invited to a birthday party at an airport hotel, where all the guests swam in the pool and then gathered in a suite upstairs. As I dropped her off, I noticed that everybody except Julia was black. Little kids, big kids, adults -- all of them were black except Julia.

She was oblivious to this, and had a great time. She has grown up in a place and time where skin color is less relevant than before, thankfully.



We also bought a new pair of shoes for Aidan today, on Haight Street, for slightly more than $80. He is growing so rapidly! Now over 5' 1" and 90lbs. He no longer looks short on the basketball floor.



Dylan, my youngest boy, has a gentle nature. He loves birds. A gang of mean girls recently reduced him to tears by joking about torturing pigeons and eating pigeon pie.

He tells me he knows what to do with a bully of the physical variety. "I'm really good at fighting," he assures me.

It's the psychological torture by girls that he lacks a defense for.

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And the beat goes on.

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