Blue Gloves Vs. Lions

For this story, you need to know that I always wear gloves when I wash dishes. I hesitate to tell you this because I know you might not consider it masculine. If it helps, they're blue, not yellow.

I know it probably doesn't help because, whenever people come over to Garnet's house while I'm washing dishes few can resist making a remark, especially when they see Garnet sitting in the living room, eating bonbons and reading a magazine.

But I put up with the abuse. It's not nearly as bad as having my fingers crack and bleed, which is what happens when I do dishes without gloves. (My skin is really dry.) Plus, with gloves, I can use hotter water for rinsing.

You also need to know that the name of the street that Garnet, Sparkle Girl and Doobins live on ends in "way." For purposes of this story, Garnet suggests "Placeway" as suitably generic.

As Garnet and Sparkle Girl were riding along one day, Garnet made up a song about Sparkle Girl called "The Princess of Placeway."

After she finished singing it, Sparkle Girl said that, if you made up a song about Doobins, you would have to call it the "The Prince of My Way."

This is true. Often, Doobins roars when things don't go his way.

One of the things I'm learning about Mr. Doobins, though, is that he's not always being a beast when he resists.

I used to think that he was just being ornery when he made a ruckus about not wanting to go to a festival or a party with strangers. It has become clear, though, that such things genuinely shock his system.

In this, Doobins and Sparkle Girl are quite different. Drop Sparkle Girl down in the midst of 75 strangers, and her response is, "Oh, my! Seventy-five new people to give me attention."

Garnet and I can both be iffy in social situations. So, sometimes, we tussle over who stays home with Doobins. Of course, each of us pretends that we are doing the other a favor.

"I know you've really been looking forward to this, so I'll keep the boy."

"Oh, no. You haven't had a chance to get out in a while. Go ahead and go. I know you'll have fun."

One thing that I like when it's just Doobins and me is that we almost always get along well. Apparently, this is not unusual. I have heard from more than one person that a boy is less likely to act up when his mother isn't around.

Doobins' latest pleasure is the Roman gladiator game on the Playmobil Web site. He is happy to take on the first-round opponents - men armed with swords. But he doesn't like to battle the lions that charge at him in round two. So after dispatching the men with swords, he calls me in to take on the lions.

The other day I was washing dishes when the call came.

I took off my blue gloves and set them down on the counter.

I went into the other room, sat down at the computer and killed the 16 lions that had to be killed so that Doobins could move to the next level.

I went back into the kitchen. As I put the gloves back on, I wondered what the men who fought real lions would have thought of a man washing dishes in blue gloves.

Only 60 Days Until Garnet Can Decorate

Poos the Cat had run out of food.

Garnet had been feeding him tuna until one of us got a chance to pick up a bag of his special food at the pet store in Thruway Shopping Center. So, when I came over after work, I asked Garnet whether she had had a chance to get it.

Well, she said, she had driven over there but, as she was parking, she noticed that the Christmas merchandise had arrived at the Hallmark store next door. So, naturally, she went in to look around.

Garnet loves the trappings of Christmas. She has seven artificial Christmas trees - don't hold me to that exact number - of various sizes that she sets up throughout the house. She has a lighted Christmas village. She has a collection of Nativities. And she has loads of other holiday decorations.

She remains ever-vigilant for any new Christmas decoration that might fit in. So I have an idea of what a powerful force a Hallmark store filled with newly arrived Christmas merchandise would exert on her. When she came out of the Hallmark store, she said, she didn't give a thought to food for Poos and got in the car and drove home.

To keep her impulses from getting out of control, Garnet has a rule that she doesn't set up the first tree until the day after Thanksgiving. So I'm guessing she was eager to get home as soon as possible to consult the calendar and count off the days until the day after Thanksgiving.

These Boots Were Made for Talking

Garnet notes, rightly, that I have a hard time throwing away things. When the hole in the heel of a sock grows so big that it no longer functions as a sock, I don't throw it into the trash. I put it into the rag bag.

Not that I need any more rags. I already have enough rags to see me through any eventuality well into the year 2027.

Recently, my mother decided to stop driving. A couple of years back, someone whanged into the side of my car, and the insurance people declared it a total loss because it would cost more to fix it than it was worth.

I still drive it but have had to make a few adjustments. With the frame bent, the front door on the passenger side no longer closes flush. So, to keep water from coming in when it rains, I have to tape a strip of duct tape across the top of the door. Whenever anyone gets in on that side, I have to pull off the tape and replace it later.

And, at times, the bent quarter panel vibrates so loudly that it impairs conversation.

With all that in mind, my mother generously offered me her car.

You're not going to get rid of your car when you get your mother's car, are you? Garnet asked right off.

Of course not. I love that car. I figure my old car can be the one that His Dogness and I use, and the new one can be the one I use when I have Garnet and the kids and don't want to mess with duct tape and with people asking each other to repeat what they just said.

Enter Garnet's new boots.

Ever since I have known Garnet, her favorite boots have been seriously worn. The leather on the toes was so thin that she feared that a toe would poke through one day. To keep that from happening, we had the man at the shoe repair shop in Madison add leather strips to the inside of the boots.

Even so, we have been on the lookout for satisfactory new boots. Recently, we found them. For the first few hours, Garnet thought only about how excited she was to wear her new boots.

And, then she said, what am I going to tell my old boots?

My car came immediately to mind but I didn't say anything.

It's kind of like you and your car, isn't it? Garnet said.

Don't you love it you can award yourself points for keeping your mouth shut and the other person brings up whatever it is that you're keeping your mouth shut about?

The parallels between the two did come to mind, I said.

Well, I'm just going to have to introduce the boots to each other and wear both of them, she said.

I think they're all going out to coffee together later today.

Sparkle Girl and Doobins Set Sail

Sparkle Girl is reading her first Nancy Drew book.

It's not her first chapter book. She started reading those a few months back, and I have enjoyed watching her read on her own just for fun.

Nancy Drew, though, registered with me in a way that the earlier ones did not. Those I had not read, so all that I know of the worlds inside those books is what Sparkle Girl told me.

I have been in Nancy Drew's world. After I finished all the Hardy Boys books that I could lay my hands on, I wanted more. So it was on to Nancy Drew.

Sparkle Girl and I have read plenty of picture books together that date to my childhood. But chapter books give your imagination so much more room. Nancy Drew got me thinking about the Technicolor adventures that Sparkle Girl's imagination will be putting on for her in the days to come.

The day brought a second jumbo-size gift.

After supper, we took Sparkle Girl and Doobins to the Rainbow Playground. A little girl about Doobins' size was there with her mother.

You could take Sparkle Girl and drop her in the middle of a crowd of 200 strangers, and her eyes would light up at the prospect of the fun she was going to have meeting all those new people.

Doobins, though, often takes a while to warm up to new people.

Although the years have made it easier for me to talk to people I don't know, I am, by nature, shy. So I empathize.

He and I take distinctly different approaches, though. When I'm feeling shy, I become quiet. When Doobins becomes uncomfortable, he may scrunch up his face and growl. So, Garnet and I sometimes find ourselves in the position of apologizing to people we don't know.

This time, though, Doobins said hello to the girl right off, and, in an instant, they were running around with Doobins just chatting away. That, in itself, was plenty gratifying.

Before long, he went so far as to introduce himself and Sparkle Girl to the girl and her mother.

That I had never seen him do. Such a turn of events was so unexpected that I wasn't sure I had heard what I had heard.

Did you hear that? Garnet asked.

As we were driving home, we said something to Doobins about how he seemed to have made a new friend.

"Yeah," he said. "She was pretty."

Wonderful World

This is Sparkle Girl, Doobins, His Dogness and Jerome, the giraffe that stars in some of the bedtime stories that I tell the kids. As you might imagine, Jerome drives a convertible.