I was telling June the other night that this trip feels baggage-free for me (hee); that doesn’t mean I’m not suffused in a strange brew of emotions, though. Home is so evocative for me of the things that made me the person I am and the things I value in life that it’s impossible to be here and not be thoughtful. But this time around it’s not really about nostalgia, which is an odd relief. I’m not sleeping in my old room (my sister and her little family need its sunlight and space), so I don’t get flashbacks every time I wash my hands in the sink or look out the window.

Instead I find myself thinking about choices, and how to make them well, so that I get to spend as much time as possible with the extraordinarily lovable people I happen to be most closely related to. I also think a lot about love and affection, and how we express it, and how lucky we all are to be forgiven for being teenagers.

My parents took me and Ross to Meleka on Tuesday. The city was aflutter with red lanterns, and everywhere there was dark wood glowing, old paint peeling off stone, clay tiled roofs, and the smell of frangipani in the air. We had dinner with Kubhaer and his girlfriend, which was lovely. I have two really adorable photographs of them but I think I need Wen’s permission to post, so just let me know, Koobz. It was great to see you shiny with confidence and baldness.

Yesterday on our way back home we drove through three rain showers, brief and noisy, the kind where the sky stays bright and open above you but sweet warm drops pound on your roof. It doesn’t rain like that in Boston. Some of you reading are driving through rain showers; I hope they are over soon.

I know, it sounds worse. But this time I was sleeping by 11:30, and I didn’t wake up until 5:30. So I think that’s an improvement. Plus, it gives me time to make these updates before Asher wakes up and I lose all motivation to do anything but talk to him.

I do mean talk to him. His comprehension, speech, pronounciation and ability to understand and connect concepts are astonishing. Yesterday he was having breakfast while my father was washing the car, and he strained out of his high chair: Want to help grandpa wash the car. So 10 minutes later he was out on the front porch, pyjama legs rolled up and a big soapy sponge in his hands. Swish swish. Asher is Cinderella!

Later my mother was carrying him and showing him what the engine looked like under the bonnet (hell, I’m home) because my dad had left it open. She told him it was very complicated, and he repeated very complicated. Then she walked away and he said Asher want to see again, please may I? He can identify and pronounce bougainvillea. He expresses likes and dislikes and explains his reasoning. If you tell him something and he wants to remember it, he asks you to repeat it (sometimes 5 or 6 times) until he gets it. He likes wordplay (Open Sesababybyby!) and he repeats everything, so every five minutes he is chirping something like Pokey McPokerson! amidst hysterical giggles, because I’ve just called him that. Yesterday my mother said, Asher, you really have echolalia. Can you say echolalia?

Eh-ko-lay-lia.

I do a lot of thinking and research about vocabulary acquisition at work, and I know my nephew isn’t just lucky enough to have good genes. He’s also incredibly lucky because he has a family (especially a grandmother) that talks to him constantly, uses a huge number of different words in conversation with him, and gives him a thousand opportunities a day to hear, understand, and repeat new vocabulary. He lives in a language rich enviroment, and it really shows.

He’s still a stubborn little punk, though. Or as my father likes to say, he has a soul that yearns to be free.

Looks pretty free to me.

P.S. Re: the massage (preceded by coconut scrub) that I had yesterday — boy, when they say “full body,” they really mean full body. That puffy disposable underwear is just a formality. I think I may technically be married to my masseuse.

But that’s ok, because by the time she was done I was in love with her anyway. Also, my armpits are very smooth.

Woke up at 5:15. Not so bad, except we went to sleep at 2.

I think this is the first time in living memory that I have been here and had such a tremendous feeling of peace and pleasure in the place, not just the people.

The food helps, of course. Here’s the tea that helped me digest our enormous meal yesterday at a gorgeous chinese restaurant.

Today my sister has arranged massages for us. Sigh.

We have arrived. It is balmy and beautiful and it smells good. Asher is a king. My parents are at church, so I have already gone through half the detritus of my youth that is cluttering up the shelves here. I will probably mail a bunch of things home to myself. I have hundreds of photographs and letters to sort out. I have drum sticks. I have bleedin’ friendship bracelets.

We’re off to lunch soon. Downstairs the kid is talking up a storm.

I missed my animal training session last week at the museum, so I made it up tonight. I didn’t know till 5pm what the two creatures assigned to my zone were (they’re all reptiles and amphibians, so I knew it wasn’t the awesomely beautiful screech owl). Dad, or anyone else who’s squicked out by herpetological wonders, you’re going to want to avert your eyes right about now, because here are my two adorable charges.

* * * * * * *

Okay, seriously. Fair warning.

* * * * * * *

After logging my hours of practice, I’ll be responsible for running short programs at the museum using…..

The Western Hognose Snake, and…

The Tiger Salamander.

(Note: just in case you were wondering, these pictures are not on the same scale. The salamander fits in my hand. The snake would probably almost wrap around my waist.)

The salamander is wriggly, and his skin is sort of like an over-ripe grape — smooth and cold and fragile looking, like it’ll tear if he moves around too quickly (it won’t). The snake is warm and dry and rough and substantial, as well as very long-suffering and patient about being handled. All the animals are, really. It’s not the most ideal life for them, but they’re well taken care of and if they get one kid a week to remember how cool they were and think about how they can be protected, they’ve done their job.

The salamander also did a good job tonight of peeing on my trainer. Goes with the territory. Sadly, as we were leaving the (very ancient) possum seemed to be having an emergency, and we ran around the building in the cold so J. could call the vet. Poor possum. I hope she’s ok.

I have a million loads of laundry to do and an article to write before we leave, so I’ll get on that. You stare at the pretty snake and salamander and just try to tell me I don’t know how to have fun. ;-)

This morning Ross drove me to my dermatologist’s office to pick up a week’s supply of some antibiotics that my EVIL mail-order prescription company is taking forever to process. While we were beetling down Cambridge Street, there was a beat up old car in front of us — it might have been a Chevy Caprice, I don’t remember. It was rusty and blue, one of my favorite kinds. So I was staring at its rear end when I noticed that its owner had slapped two stickers on either side of the back windshield. On the left side, the words “If You Hate This Land” appeared, in a friendly yellow font that looked sort of like it belonged on a Woodstock program. The sentiment concluded on the right side with the words “Go Home To The Sand.”

Ross and I spent some time muttering at each other. He switched lanes and as we drove up we could see into the front of the car. The driver was a mustachioed man in his forties (I think) wearing big dark glasses and a mean, stupid look. Or maybe I imagined the mean, stupid look. I think I have the right to do that when people put idiotic stuff like those stickers on their cars. I mean, honestly. What on earth do you think that is going to accomplish?

Some people will see it and think, “Ugh. A mean, stupid person drives that car. I feel like ramming into them, but I won’t because that would only make them meaner.” Well, perhaps it satisfies you to feel like you frustrated and disgusted a damn liberal.

Some people will see it and think, “Yeah! Right on!” Those people are just as mean and stupid as you, and they already agreed with you anyway.

Some people will see it and think, “Um, I think that’s directed at me. Well, I don’t hate this land, but now I kind of hate you.” Smart move, mustache-dark glasses dude. Way to exercise your constitutional right to be a giant wanker.

Cooking dinner last night we had NPR on and first there was a thing about Bush’s highly surprising new budget (More money for bombs! Less money for hospitals and teachers! Rich people pay less tax! Happy plans for the money we hope we’ll have from drilling in Alaska’s wildlife sanctuaries!), and then there was a report on that charmer Reverend Fred Phelps and his noble plan to protest at the funeral of Coretta Scott King because of her support for “the homosexual agenda” during the course of her life. I was just looking on Google News for an update and it looks like either he didn’t make much of a showing with his goons, or the media was good enough to completely ignore him. But sometimes it’s a bit hard to go through a day in this country without feeling like you need to take a dose of Pepto Bismol.

I know, free speech and defending to the death the right to spew bile, and all that. I do have to admit that I get physically uncomfortable when I’m listening to someone whose views contradict beliefs I hold to be — well, self-evident. For instance today I was listening to an episode of Science Friday about the catchily named field of biology called “Evo Devo,” and a woman called in who wanted to know why scientists didn’t consider the possibility of an intelligent creator, if there were “so many holes in the theory of evolution.”

She sounded like a nice woman. I felt very ill. Not because she believes in an intelligent creator, but because she clearly doesn’t understand the science she wanted to talk about.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t go and picket at her funeral or anything.

I might be tempted to glare furiously at the hearse of the irresponsible pseudo-expert who gave her the erroneous idea that there are “so many holes,” though.

No words tonight; I saved them for the letters I just wrote and the conversation I plan to have with Ross later about how weird Twin Peaks is.

Here is another from yesterday’s walk.