We�ve been getting a whole bunch of wrong numbers this week. It�s notable, I guess, because this is the first phone number I can remember having where I did not get a lot of wrong numbers. When we lived in the Loop, our number was one digit off from a law firm, so we talked to a lot of clueless paralegals. In the apartment before that, I would get frequent wrong numbers in Ukrainian, which I could usually handle in my schoolgirl Russian, but I wasn�t always sure what I was saying. Before that my number was the same as the local video store with two digits reversed. While I did get some requests for movies, mostly I fielded a lot of calls from the drunk boyfriend of one of the clerks. And for a while I was one digit off from a gynecologist�s office. I remember picking up the phone one time and having a woman launch right in to a litany of her concerns in the most intimate detail. I barely had the heart to tell her she had the wrong number. And when I did, she hung up on me, which I totally understood.

The calls we�ve been getting this week, however, have been from a small boy desperately seeking his friend Sean. Given the messages this child has left on our machine, I would guess he can�t be more than seven. It breaks my heart to hear these messages, which in truth are nearly incomprehensible. Best friends separated. Lifelong bitterness ensues. Years of therapy ahead. A Lifetime� movie in the making. So Sean, if you're reading (and really, you are too young to be doing so. Do your parents know what you're up to?), do us all a favor and call your friend. He's trying to reach you.

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The houseguests have departed. Things are beginning to return to normal. Despite the huge pile of toys in our house (some of which are destined for a nearby homeless shelter, as soon as I can get to sorting them out), AJ prefers to play with a pile of fuzzy mice stolen from the cats. For some reason the door that separates the laundry room from my office (also the repository of many of the larger and noisier toys) has a cat door in it. Our cats have elected not to figure out how to get through said cat door, so we leave the door between those two rooms open. AJ has been sitting next to the door pushing the mice through the cat door for the last 20 minutes, while making them talk to each other. Every now and then the �mouses� take a break and play ring-around-the-rosie, which seems to involve AJ grabbing a fistful of them and spinning rapidly around in circles until he falls down.

�Mommy, they�re sad.�

�Why are they sad?�

�Because they played ring-around-the-rosie and they fell down.�

�Can you make them feel better?�

[He picks each up and gives it a kiss].

My sweet boy.

[This is my second entry of the day -- click back to see a picture of 12-year-old harriet.]

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