lead...

my nephew's first language is mandarin. he speaks english fairly well for a six year old whose first language isn't english. but at home he is mostly exposed to mandarin. my brother (his father) was telling him in english about a fishing trip that he accompanied our grandpa on when he was a boy. my brother accidentally put a snell through the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. our grandfather cut the tip of the hook off and pulled it back through his hand. a week elapsed after my brother first told the story to my nephew. without prompting my nephew asked, "da, why'd grandpa stick that hook through your hand?" poor kid. he went an entire week thinking my grandfather was some wicked child-snelling weirdo. but when my brother told me the story on the phone this afternoon i laughed something fierce.

it's still raining. there was a break this evening and we went for a walk. smelled like spikenard on h street. then gingerbread. then very terrible cheap perfume. offends mine nostrils. but it was brief. i suppose smelling bad things briefly is really not so bad.

the sister purchased halloween lights. i'm over the moon about that. i like orange a lot. the lights are orange, you see. the unfortunate part is that the lights are covered in lead. at least the packaging tells us so. and really why would it lie? that would be a silly lie on its part. i'm covered in lead. (wink). to what purpose? i just don't know. they were all of $1.99. maybe for lead covered lights we scored a bargain. it really is hard to say. in any case so long as we don't lick the electrical cord we should be okay. i'm still not comfortable with them in the house but i promise not to put them in my mouth.

i'm going to try and sleep now. counting stitches in the duvet. it's not compulsive. it's a stratagem. she's very fond of stratagems.