The King and I

I saw Hannah yesterday after not seeing her all last week because her grandma was on vacay, a big ole cruise ship touring the outer ridges of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I was the only person at work, enjoying my time alone. Not even one phone call from Hannah though I know she missed me. One thing I've recently discovered about Hannah is she loves everything and tells everything she loves it. Like my cat. And she misses everything and tells everything she missed it, like my cat. It's still adorable to hear it.


Yesterday the first thing Hannah says is "What did you buy me?" To which I reply "What did you buy me?" She's empty-handed as usual. I'm seriously reconsidering our relationship - as is she. 


She sits on my lap. First she sits on one of my knees. When her weight becomes unbearable I shift her to my less arthritic knee. Then when that knee collapses, I move her back to the other, once-again, slightly-functional knee. This extra weight may not be so good for the knees. I have been walking like a human candy cane. I should blame the knee pain on my own weight, and typically I would because I've been blaming me for most of my misery for over 50 years now. Though now I'm thinking with Hannah's child body growing from a once cute little baby into a surly, present-grubbing 5 year old, the enduring endearing relationship we share will completely wipe out what's left of my knees.



Which brings me to the question -- how does Larry King do this and hold up? Doesn't he have 27 three to five year olds from his 14 marriages? It occurs to me that he and I have a lot in common.


Consider the following: 

• We are both living on borrowed time.
• We both hang out with chicks far too young for us. 
• We both wear glasses. 
• We both have jowls.
• We both have these young women who are after the gifts.
• We can barely walk.
• We are both astonishingly good looking for our age. (Well, I am, at least).
• If I shave the blond swatch of hair off the front of my scalp, Lair and I could be twins.

I even have some things in common with Lair's latest, last, most recent wife pictured above. I used to highlight my hair, have a full set of teeth and pretend to be happy around old people too.

This photo reveals one of our moments of sharing and closeness even though I didn't buy her anything. Our sharing starts with Hannah sitting on my lap rendering my knees even more useless. It our game, Hannah plays Isabella the waitress, while I am Joanne, her persnickety restaurant patron. We play the restaurant game for a long time because the list of available food items is endless. I can order anything I want and no one ever says in a snotty voice loud enough for the tables across the room to hear, "Are you sure you should be eating that?"


Sometimes Isabella uses the Kindle as a prop so it appears to any onlooker as though she's really on top of her game, placing Joanne's enormous food orders on the gadget. Isabella likes to switch things up, working her flair in a hipster, high-tech restaurant space where all the restaurants look like the Jetsons cartoon stage, immobilized in space, Isabella ruling her restaurantdom, Kindle in hand, offering up imaginary delicacies. Though in this pictured instance, Hannah's using a huge black Sharpie™ (my hand raised to guard my face in case she mistakes me for a passed-out, drunken buddy) and a tablet of paper with which to take Joanne's ongoing fantasy take-out order. Isabella informs Joanne of the restaurant's latest specials. "Today is schmushed pancakes," she said, "with syrup." Then Isabella encouraged Joanne to order the peaches "because they are hell-fee." When Isabella said her phrase hell-fee I realized I had yet one more thing to add to Lair's and my list O commonalities. Hanging out with these young chicks is really hell on our old knees.