Ann at Five

Five times around the Sun for little Ann, who's not quite as little as she once was, nor as big as she will be.

Her chocolate birthday cake came from the industrial bakeries of a warehouse retailer: very dark and very round, heavy as a manhole, rich as Bill Gates. Among chocolate cakes, it's a Union Pacific steam locomotive. Gourmets would probably sneer at the chocolate overkill, but us gourmands cut our pieces, take forks in hand, and enjoy.

My plan for her presents was inspired. I told her that she could go to the dollar store and pick five items. Five! She was bouncing all over the place at the prospect of it, and in the end acquired a pink heart-shape pillow, one of those paddles with a ball attached by a string (is that called a paddle ball?), a keychain calculator, and a couple of other bits of the trade deficit with China.

My thought when I walk into such a place: Look at all this. Man, are they busy in China.