it's a lovely day in the neighborhood

this is like a krogering story, but it isn't.

there's a man who walks through our neighborhood several times a day. ted calls him cletis (courtesy of 'the simpsons') because he really is our very own slack-jawed yokel. shortly after we moved in, got zoe, and i returned from teaching the summer away in miami, i met cletis. i had little zoe-pups in the front yard, watching her trip over her very big paws. she was just eight weeks old. cletis came ambling down the sidewalk. i guessed that he'd come from the general direction of 'the hot spot,' a sketchy gas station/buffet that has since been renamed 'tasty haven.' sometimes on saturday afternoons, someone sells chicken out of a white van in front of 'tasty haven,' but that's neither here nor there.

cletis shuffled to a stop in front of zoe and me, with a tender look on his face and, i swear, the glistening of tears in his eyes. he was emoting over zoe. admittedly, she was the cutest little bear-cub-pups on the planet, but i was surprised that the seemingly hard exterior of a long-term substance abuser (so i'm assuming) could so easily dissolve in the presence of a furball.

and then we met.

cletis drawled, 'that's a cute pup. shepherd? gonna be a big'un.' he then bent down and with one hand, scooped her easily off the ground. for a moment, i thought he was comparing her weight to the open 40 in his other hand, but then i realized he was just weighing her objectively. 'bout eight pounds so far,' he pronounced. zoe went to the vet the next day, and sure enough she weighed eight pounds.

the point of this story is to introduce you to cletis and the prowess of his observational powers.

i haven't seen cletis in some time because we've been keeping different hours. i saw him this afternoon, and he noticed i was pregnant. expressing his surprise, he said, 'i didn't know you was pregnant!' as i neared him on the sidewalk, i saw that he had that same glistening-eye expression. apparently babskis in potentia rate right up there with pups. after making sure that ted and i were married and high-fiving me on all the good decisions that i'd made in my life, he asked if we knew the sex of the baby. i said we didn't, and that it was going to be a surprise. he stepped back, and using only his eyes, appraised my belly in the same way that he weighed zoe three years ago. 'it's gonna be a little girl.'

there you have it.

ted is dj'ing for us, jordan is doing an intergalactic version of the electric slide (i don't know what it means, but jordan does), and the dogs are dancing with ted. i should sign off and enjoy these moments.