HAPPY FEET

Sequelizing the Groucho event, I managed to get into the house without anyone seeing me and acted normally as I took my shoes off in the genkan.

The girls running to greet me fell back aghast when they parted the entry curtain and saw there the creature that spoke with my voice, saying "I'm home" and other common greetings in a normal way, compounding the surprise. From the initial shock came horror, then puzzlement, then laughter as I wore the joke out to its very end, savoring every moment of masking around in front of these quick-minded new creatures who had never before seen such a thing: it was great indeed, as masks have always been, throughout the firelight of our history.

So the trio stayed the night while their parents went to visit friends in Kyoto, the family being here for only a week this time. We got to bed early, then in the morning before heading off to the beach, happy arms dug into the garden dirt with trowel, hand hoe, shovel and pitchfork after some of the small but extra-delicious Inca potatoes that were hiding there for lunch, always right where the girls weren't looking! Happy ears as well, as I could tell by the made-up songs they sang as they dug and discovered, like ancient ancestors.

Then back from the beach we organized another late afternoon work squad, happy eyes finding all the ready cucumbers with the yellow flowers still on the ends and all the red tomatoes hiding in the big long green tangle of mystery fragrance leaves, happy hands picking all the greens and reds and putting them in the big bamboo basket, then we set up the hose out front and happy legs ran the long road downhill, flailing like a mob of gangly kids, then back up for a moment under the hose to wash the happy feet before running down again, all to the same ear-splitting squealing I heard the other day when I came downstairs with my hands full of sticker seals and became the hero of the world.

Big things happen among grandies.