Meet Gaven.

This is my landlord, Russell's grandson Gaven. I set out to write a particular story for my Lance this morning, but as I was sitting on the balcony with the laptop, Kid popped out of the house and started shooting the bull.

(Joe and I live in an above-garage apartment. Our balcony faces the landlord's balcony.)

I decided to scrap the post and started typing this word-for-word instead:

Kid: "Is your dog one or two?" (Holds up two fingers.)

Me: "He's three." (Holds up three fingers.)

Kid: "My dog Onyx is five. I'm five too. He'll die when I'm 16. He's blacker than your dog's ears. Yours is a little bit blacker there on his back and he's a puffy dog. He looks puffy in his face."

Me: "Thanks."

Kid: "He has cuter eyes too. Does he have three teeth?"

Me: "He has many teeth."

Kid: "Does he have eight teeth?"

Me: "He has many more than eight."

Kid: "My dog has vampire teeth. He has vampire teeth because he has a little teeth then a big teeth, then a little teeth, then a big teeth."

Me: "It looks like you're missing teeth."

Kid: "I didn't miss two teeth. I was just missing one teeth because that one was my baby teeth."

(I take a sip of Timmy Ho's and nod.)

Kid: "I have a plant here."

Me: "Do you see all my plants? How well-watered they are?"

Kid: "Yeah. We have a tree between us. We share it you know. One half is for you and one half is for me."

Me: "I'm OK with that."

Kid: "But we get the top of the tree because we have a bigger house."

Me: "Agreed."

Kid: "Do you have a baby?"

Me: "No baby. Only the dog."

Kid: "Where's the husband?"

Me: "He's in the house. And he's a boyfriend not a husband."

Kid: "In my house we have me, my puppy, Nana, Grandma and Zenie and the dog. That makes six of us in this house ... only six of us in here including the dog and the baby. That makes seven. Zenie has a baby ... sometimes when she's mean I call her Meanie Zeanie. Do you have plans for tomorrow?"

Me: "I'm taking a fire arms training pistol course in Sarasota."

Kid: "Do you have some plans for today?"

Me: "I might do the beach."

Kid: "We're going to the beach. I got a lot of digging stuff so I can build a castly by the sea or a starfish. I don't really have a starfish but i have an octopus. But I don't really have an octopus. I have a sea turtle."

(Zenie's husband walks below the balconies pushing a baby stroller and drinking a glass of orange juice.)

Kid: "His name is Jacob and he's my uncle."

(Russell walks out onto the balcony. I say, "Hey Russ. How goes it? We're shooting the bull out here." Russell smiles. Messes the kid's mohawk then asks the kid if he's ready for the beach. Kid says, yes of course. Russell says it's a little overcast for the beach. Kid says he'd like to go regardless. Russell smiles and says, go grab your towel. They enter the house.)

End of scene.