When we picked up Leta on Saturday evening she was as excited to see us as a slug on painkillers. Her death stare assured us that if we had any plans on taking her back to the place where there is no Barbie Corvette that we’d better set down the crack pipe.

While in the care of Jon’s younger sister Leta learned to climb stairs. His sister would make her crawl after the Barbie Corvette up a full flight of stairs from the basement at least four times every morning before her first bottle. So now she can move herself from one floor of a building to another. Great. Why not hand her a loaded gun and teach her how to aim it MY LIFE WOULD BE JUST AS MISERABLE. The chain of parenthood just got tighter around my neck as now I actually have to pay attention more than half of the time.

Jon’s mother asked if we had any other vacation plans for the rest of the summer. We do, but neither of us will be gone at the same time: Jon is going on a road trip with his high school buddies to celebrate their 40th birthdays, collective loss of hair and accumulation of waistline. I told his mother that I’d be attending a conference at the end of July, a conference given by and attended by women, and that because of the estrogen factor Jon wouldn’t be tagging along. And then when I mentioned that I’d be going to that conference via San Francisco Jon’s sister looked as if the gun that she had handed to my baby had been fired into her head.

“SAN FRANCISCO?”

“Yes, San Francisco. More specifically, Santa Clara.”

“Is this some sort of lesbian conference?”

“What?” I had no idea that she could even utter that word without wanting to wash her mouth out.

“All women. In San Francisco. It’s a valid question.”

And although I assured her that no, alas, I would not be attending a L E S B I A N conference, I SO wanted to add, “BUT IF IT WERE? Jon would totally be coming along. You know, to watch.”