Target: another view.

I arrive home from an outing. It's 10 p.m. The historian is not home. He stomps the snow off his shoes about ten minutes later. He's been shopping for a birthday present for our now-2-year-old grandson:

Me: Hi there. Where've you been?

The historian: I went to Target. Lemme tell you, that was an ordeal.

Me: Yeah? (uncomprehending. But on second thought:)

The historian: I walked through aisle after aisle of . . . it was just full of wreck 'em sock 'em knock 'em fight 'em hit 'em . . .

Me: (thinking: if I had been there, I would have known how to lead him directly to all the gentle organic toys:) So what did you get?

The historian: This. (produces an enormous plush toy, a lion cub, pretty much as big as the kid in question.)

Me: Perfect.

What matters.

I was going to write (again) about my irritating, high-end refrigerator that decided not to work (broken tiny heater that prevented a drain from not freezing up, then backing up and filling stuff with ice, which blew a fuse which tripped a breaker that's connected to the thigh bone). Trust me, it would have been amusing.

But then this: The Poet Craig Arnold is Missing in Japan. Which sounds like, sort of, Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego? but it's not, because the poet Craig Arnold really is missing. In Japan.

Add to that that my day was bracketed by conversations with people in Singapore--running son and then his mission president--about a small, probably not-such-a-big-deal surgery that he needs to have. Except: general anesthesia. And: half a world away.

Point 1: when I whine, it's just theater, everyone knows that, right? Just a little theater to amuse the people. And myself.

Point 2: half a world away. Waiting and praying.