Two Observations—Buenos Aires    Journal Entry: January 14, 2008—6:20 a.m.

1.

Sitting at a seat before a wall-size window oriented toward the corner, as many cafes are oriented to the corner, and two delightful events are performed before me. The first one involves an old grandma in a cotton dress, stooped over to help two children, presumably her grandchildren, with their ice cream melting too quickly for the knee-high little boy who appears to be about 2 ½ years old. The boy’s sister looks all of five years old, and the grandma quickly folds back the paper from the girl’s ice cream on a stick, and the girl competently returns to licking and biting, only dropping small bits of the ice cream and chocolate coating to the sidewalk. The majority of the grandma’s stooped time involves folding back white wrapping from the little boy’s ice cream. She scrunches back her upper lip, revealing her yellowing top teeth, and bites to keep melting ice cream from dropping off the side of the stick, hands it back to the little tyke, who has difficulty holding the ice cream as he squeezes the slick paper in his hand. The old grandma quickly snatches the ice cream back for another bite and an adjustment before passing it off to the two-year-old again. This time he tightly grips the wooden stick and concentratedly eats, much of the ice cream and remaining chocolate coating dropping to the sidewalk just four feet from my window seat, and off they all toddle as he happily works on what little of his treat remains.

2.

My second observation from my window seat is more of a fleeting image. A chunky, jowly middle-aged woman crosses the intersection and passes before my window. She pushes an empty stroller and carries a fat old dog, a boxer if I’m not mistaken, over her shoulder. It is strange to see her with that big sack of a mutt on her shoulder, but I also wonder if the empty stroller is intended for the dog. I will never know, of course, which is what will keep this simple event lively in my mind. Does she sometimes strap that roly-poly dog into the stroller and take it for a stroll in the carriage like some weird science experiment of a child? The tabloid might read: Woman Who Gives Birth to Boxer Seen Taking it on Strolls in Her Neighborhood. Maybe she is on her way to pick up a child or just dropped one off, and the dog has a bad ankle. I don’t want to know.

               Steven Jay Weinberg

June 10-11, 2008/Revised from Bainbridge Island, WA

Note: The above observations were originally written in the past tense in my South American journal, and I sent a slightly modified version of the original to my daughter Ari in an email.

Note: Sometimes it’s best not to know or understand.