Juggling Monkeys

My best friend has injected enough propaganda into my godson's short life to make him a monkey-lover like me. When I picked them up at the airport he had his monkey shirt on and his monkey backpack in hand. Once home, he suited up in his monkey jammies for bed. His favorite toy since he arrived has been my barrel of monkeys game. We spend a portion of each morning juggling the monkeys or throwing them up at the ceiling. Have you ever seen a 2-year-old attempt to juggle? This is funny stuff, people. Kind of like watching a drunk guy juggle. I may be biased, but Matthew is a cute, sweet boy. As a two-year-old, he has to put up with a lot of adults who don't understand what he's saying at times. This is exacerbated by the fact that the kid speaks half in French. The other night he kept saying what I thought was "Dike outside! Dike outside!" It took a while to realize he meant it was dark outside.

Anyway, he has been an angel during two of the hottest days of the year. Yesterday we went to travel town to see the trains and then out to dinner, where he complimented the waiter on his groovy hair and shoes. Today he was a trooper at the Los Angeles Zoo. He was obsessed with both the gorillas and monkeys. And tonight we went to a goodbye party for dear Jim, an incredible man from my theater company who is moving to Oklahoma to start his own restaurant (he is an AWESOME chef! My favorite Thanksgivings have been hosted by Jim (always with several turkey selections, including deep friend cajun turkey!) and a large table filled with other actors). Jim is one of the best men I've ever met. Such integrity. He has mentored so many young men and has been an encouragement to scores of people, including me. He was incredibly supportive of my creative endeavors. It was nice to see him tonight and thank him for being such a stellar friend and role-model. He will be much missed...

Why this was painted on the side of a historic train, I have no idea. We think maybe they lost the letter "j" in the stencil kit. Or so we hope...

With Sweet Jim