Summer In Gaza

The gardener now comes on Wednesday morning instead of Friday because the Muslim Brotherhood next door said the baby wakes and cries when they come on Friday, we have the same gardener, something I regret when he asked about my gardener and recommended him.

I really don't care what day, but Friday is a good day because the front looked nice for visitors on the weekend. It's a status thing, "Oh, your gardener comes on Friday," because it's hard to get a gardener on Friday, that's when everyone wants the gardener.

Then there is the showing of the baby. Sitting in the backyard with a six foot fence between us, she raises the baby above her head for me to inspect. I don't know why, I find them rubbery and, at times, disgusting. Snot drips from their nose, they demand constant attention and shit at will. But I know what to expect. I'm to ogle the baby. Lavish attention on the bundle of joy. Say things the mother wants to hear like, "What a cute baby!"

Cute is someone eighteen years old in a Speedo, not a rug-rat trussed up in diapers and yet there I am, with this baby's prune face hanging in the air above an unseen mother, as if floating in air. And I'm wondering, 'How long can she keep the kid over her head?' So I keep praising the child to see if the mother will finally drop it in exhaustion.

She doesn't, I'm disappointed and want to go back to getting stoned in the backyard without being interrupted with floating babies.

Really, doesn't a six foot fence tell you something? Does not that, in itself, say this is a private area. You have your private area and I have mine. That is until you start wearing stilts and wave hello while I'm scratching my ass and picking tomatoes.