Last night, Dan’s parents hosted a sort of welcome-to-Arizona and meet-and-greet barbecue at the boarding school in Sedona where they live and work. They invited some of the school’s younger faculty and staff, a group of six or seven people scattered somewhere around the age of 30, perhaps in the hopes that Dan and I might make some friends. I really felt my New York City delayed adulthood when I realized that two of the couples present each had two kids of their own. One of those kids was the charming, blond Lyle, pictured above with his brother, the equally charming and slightly precocious Frank. Lyle is probably about five years old, and enjoyed brushing Dan’s parents’ dogs, collecting their fur in a plastic baggie for use in a pillow he said he was planning to make. I talked to Lyle a little bit about his pillow plans, dogs, and his pink flowered box of Kleenex—he had a cold—before he had to head home to bed. See? Making friends.

This afternoon, I learned that Lyle had asked his mother why Dan’s parents didn’t have any children. Lyle’s mom explained that they did, and asked if he remembered Dan, and Dan’s sister, Jamie, both of whom were at the party. “Yes,” Lyle replied, “But don’t they have any human children?”