News From My Neighborhood

The cat next door had her kittens. Three of them. My daughter A reports that one is black and one is black and white and one is hiding.

Chalk + Sidewalk = Love. While I was doing yardwork out front, my kids left their sidewalk chalk sitting out. Two junior high girls (Rosa and Jennifer) wandered by with Jennifer's little brother, David. Jennifer immediately grabbed some chalk and wrote "Jennifer loves Jimmy" (I am making up some names here, people). Rosa followed suit. Then David wrote "Rosa sucks" and tried to get Rosa and Jennifer to come back to see what he wrote. He ran down the street after them. As soon as he was a block away I quickly scribbled out the word "sucks" and wrote "David loves" above Rosa's name. As I packed up the chalk and moved into the house I could still hear him shouting, "ROSA! Come look what I wrote on the sidewalk!"

One more chalk related incident. Elders J and M dropped by (while I was doing yardwork... it was a busy day) to set up another appointment. My daughter A wandered out and started chalking and before they left (she came up to me and said, "where did you find these guys, anyway, dad?") they stooped down to chalk for a bit with A, which was sweet. Elder M drew a funny cat in blue chalk. A asked them to write their names, and thinking that I might learn their first names I stopped to watch them. But no, they chalked "Elder J" and "Elder M". I laughed about that. I'm planning to find some kids chalking in some other neighborhood and ask if I can chalk "Regional Director Mikalatos" and a picture of a stick animal.

Signed,

Old Man Mikalatos