of course, the five things we can’t wait to do when we get back to the other OC.  in no particular order, and all at once is preferable. 

5.  hugs.  baby hugs, boy hugs, mompair hugs, group hugs, highfivedownlowhugs

4.  have an unbirthday party.  with balloons, of course and cupcakes with pink icing.

3.  frolic.  here, there, everywhere in the other oc.

2.  scrapbook and sing.

1.  coffee.  just to be in the same coffee time zone is beyond brillig.  drivethrus, drivebys, and sitdowns.

Lines from a certain three-year-old on Main Beach in Laguna:

“People in Laguna don;t like trains, do they mom?”

“Oh I’m sure they do like them.”

“No. No they don’t. They don’t let the trains near the beach here. That means they don’t like them. Actually they don’t like them at all.”

—

And right there, without even knowing, another line drawn [down the tracks] between the OC and the other OC.

so we were enjoying our last norwegian picnic out in this  aamilne blustery kind of day and the wind suddenly stopped.  really, it just stopped.  and then the strangest thing happened.  it started blowing the other way.  and m. said–hey, the wind just changed.  and o. the echo said–the wind changed!  and i said–sthe wind has changed,  it is time to go home.

pardon the glare…i guess i should have taken them out of the sleeves before i clicked… but there’s only so much you can do one armed, one-handed.

is for getting packages of paper and ribbon and cards that say “after we have taught her about scarves and loaned her our pink birds.”  really, what’s a girl to do?  come home, of course, with a satchel of postmarked stamps.

“I had a brother, once. . .”

GertrudeStein is fond of throwing this non sequitur before the baffled faces of her newly formed acquaintances. . . .

“Actually, she has three and a sister, ” Miss Toklas can often be heard amending from the corner of the studio.

“But, Pussy, for me there was only one,” my Madame would then insist.

How true, I think. We all have only one, no matter the szie of our family. The one for whom we would dive into an algae, pond, drink in its muck, and sink into its silt to save. The one for whom we would claim, “It was all my fault,” no matter the infraction for the crime. The one whom we worship and envy in tandem, until envy grows stronger and takes the lead.

GertrudeStein had a brother, once. She crossed the Atlantic Ocean for him. She had reached the age of twenty-nine in the land of her birth to find there nothing but a sharp, sloping hill. She could take graceful, mincing steps down it, or she could ask, “Can women have wishes?” and run down that same hill flinging her arms in the air in a series of “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Paris had two things to recommend it, her brother Leo and the new century.

–m. truong from the book of salt