This past weekend E and I went to Connecticut to visit two of his high school friends who - pretty much by coincidence - ended up living near each other in Hartford.  We stayed with a married friend of his who has an almost-one-year old child who was probably the cutest baby I've ever seen.  I guess all babies are cute, really, but this one had a charming personality: he never cried, even when he'd fall down, and he would frequently just randomly stare at E or me and then just bust out a smile and a laugh, showing the only two teeth in his mouth.  Although I thought it was exceptionally cheesy when I first heard her say so, I now have to agree with Rosie O'Donnell: a child's laugh really is a wonderful thing to hear. 

He was not quite a year old, as I mentioned, and pre-verbal, but it was still fun to play games with him because of his wonderful attitude about the world.  The great thing about extremely young children - when they are well-behaved non-whiny ones like this kid was - is that they haven't been jaded by the world yet, so even extremely simple games that adults such as you or I have grown tired of doing are still fresh and exciting for a baby.  Because of that, the little kid was able to still be amused by games like the "Peekaboo!  I see you!" game and the ever-popular "Does this toy fit in my mouth?" game.  Peekabo was especially fun - for me - because it involved slightly less saliva.

The house we stayed in was humongous and lovely, especially when compared to a New York apartment, and the only downside came when I went to our bedroom (one of their two or three spare bedrooms)  to take a shower, and it was a bit chilly, so I set the thermostat a teensy bit higher in our room, and then there was this little button below the thermostat, which I naturally assumed was some sort of "activation" button for the heating fan.  I have a hard time not pressing buttons, and this particular button seemed innocent enough, since it was placed right above the light switch and below the thermostat. 

So I pushed the button, and was quite surprised that the heating fan was not activated, but instead what came out - from down the hall - was a huge WHOOT! WHOOT! and DANGER! DANGER! conflama, because the "fan activation" button was actually a panic button for the burglar alarm.  Luckily they had just the alarm and not one of those Jodie Foster-style panic room elevators doodlehickies, whisking me away to a secret passage in their basement pool room or something.

Did I mention they had a pool room? 'Cause they did.  The pool room could house two New Yorkers quite easily, especially since it had a rather large bar.  I've actually been in a NYC bar  - (the former I.C. Guys bar, specifically) - that was smaller than their pool room bar.   In fact, I'd bet I could house a family of 5 in their basement for days before anyone found out - assuming the family of didn't push any fan activation buttons, of course.

I'm going to be visiting The Clever Man in Santa Barbara this weekend, and with any luck I'll also get to see Toddles, too, if he can tear himself away from the excitement and glamour of - or, realistically, what passes for excitement and glamour in - Los Angeles.

That is all.