Hey kids,

We haven't done a Thursday 13 in a while. Since it's been about 13 days since I've seen my Jakey, I think I'll do a "13 things about Jake that I miss," in no particular order:

1) I went and saw a late showing of the newest Pixar movie tonight, "Wall-E." What can I say... it's super-hot and smoky tonight, and the theater has air conditioning. It was a cute movie. Possibly the best Pixar movie so far, except for The Incredibles.

Anyway. When I walked into the theater, there were only two other people sitting there, a man with a little boy about your age -- maybe a little younger -- who I assume was his son. I whiled away the pre-movie minutes by making up all sorts of stories in my head about why the two of them would be sitting there at a 10 p.m. showing of a kids movie (daddy walked in on mommy and another man, so he took their son to the movies so he could clear his head and think about what he was going to do with the rest of his life; mommy occasionally prostitutes herself to make ends meet, tonight she needed the trailer to "entertain" a client; father and son started living in their car after their house foreclosed, and it was so feckin' hot outside tonight that they decided to catch a late movie -- afterwards they would probably spend a couple hours at Denny's, maybe wander the aisles at the all-night Wal-Mart. And so on...)

Anyway. After the movie started, the boy started saying things like, "I like movies!" and "I like robots!" and "I like it loud!" Which is something you do, Jake. It made me think of you and how you "like" everything nowadays, whether it's maxi-pads in a tv commercial, or stop signs on the street. I think it's just your way of acknowledging things around you and the fact that you now have the skills to verbally identify them. "Momma! I like hemorrhoid cream!" you'll exclaim proudly.

2) I'm not so sure grandma takes good care of you. You always come back super-skinny and covered with rashes, open sores and eczema. I'm not saying that she neglects you, I'm just saying that rather than acknowledge that you are a picky eater that sometimes needs to be forced to eat, or that you are allergic to things in her house (like that frickin' dog of hers), she just pretends that there's nothing wrong. Because if she DID admit to any such knowledge, I might not let you come to stay again. So she's in denial, basically.

3) I think you may be kinder than Wavy. When you were a bad boy at her age, you couldn't help it. It was just something that you couldn't control. But Wavy is sometimes evil personified in a way that you weren't. She will do something bad, and stare at you and smirk while she does it. All the better if the bad thing that she's doing makes your daddy or me yelp with pain, which elicits gales of laughter from her.

I'm going to have to continue this Thirteen later, son. It's late, and I'm actually sleepy, so I should take advantage and see if I can actually lay down and go to sleep.

Love you, and miss you, and Wavy, I was just kidding; you are *not* evil personified. You're just... spirited. Yes.