For the first time in recent memory, our neighborhood is thick with little girls. They’re all cute as bugs and endlessly entertaining, but I’m quite certain that they communicate with one another in dolphin language. There’s just no other earthly explanation for the sounds that they emit from their little larynxes when they’re together as a pack.

When I was in pre-school and kindergarten, I had the can’t-miss Christmas Tree decorating party of the season. I went to Jewish school, so I had the only Christmas Tree decorating party of the season; that’s not the point. My mom used to voluntarily let me fill the house with my little friends for this and other occasions, and, although I have no memory of it, we must have communicated amongst ourselves using these strange and possibly ultrasonic frequencies. I have no earthly idea how Mom survived.

On a related note, I should scan pictures of our Christmas trees from the Seventies. I’m surpised Mom didn’t get up in the middle of the night and fix the poor thing up a bit. They were quite lovely from about 4 feet to the ceiling, but the bottom halves were always a riotous, tinsel-bedraggled thing of wonder.