We went to Indiana a few weeks ago. My grandpa, Bob, has lived on a small farm, on 8 acres, near Auburn in northern Indiana, since around the time I was born. Grandma lived there too, of course, but she passed away a few months before Milo was born. Milo and grandpa (great-grandpa!) are buddies. When I was little I spent a lot of time at the farm, and since we moved around a fair bit while I was growing up if I had to call one place my childhood home, it'd be there. Even though I never lived there. I was there during the blizzard of '78, when the snow drifted so high it covered the barns, and grandma and grandpa and my uncles had to dig undersnow tunnels all the way out to the barn to feed and water the animals. I was there when I had chickenpox. I was there when I learned how to play chess, how to drive (how NOT to drive, too. I was driving a little lawn tractor once and crashed into the corncrib), how to gather eggs, how to weed and hoe. How to eat bread and jelly and serve sliced tomatoes at every meal. Grandpa recently leased a few hundred square feet of his property, out behind the bigger of the two barns, to AT&T to build a cell tower. It's really interesting. You have this sort-of decrepit but charming little spread, witha farmhouse, corncrib, chicken-coop and a few old barns and then this huge, 250 foot tall, gleaming metal tower. Grandpa gets a check for $600 a month from AT&T for the lease. Probably more than he gets from Social Security or his pension. Cell service at his house, incidentally, was terrific. The reason we were in Indiana was that my little (heh) cousin Molly was getting married. Man, I remember when Molly was BORN. I remember her when she was basically an infant. Now she is this super-cool, funny, grown-up person, with a husband and a career. Crazy. It was really interesting, actually, to think about how I've know Molly and Allison (her older sister) all their lives. They both were, essentially, who they are now when I first met them. I mean, obviously they have grown and changed and matured and developed and all that, but somehow the the they that they were when they were little is still very much in play now, so many years later. Milo, he is a little kernel of a person like that right now. It's amazing to me that the person he is will remain distinct throughout his life. That there is some core Milo that everything else in his life and personality will be built upon or placed against. It's something else. Speaking of Milo, that little dude is so cool. He's walking. He actually decided, while we were on our layover in Chicago on our way to Indiana, that he could walk. Before we left Austin he could take a step or two here or there, by the time we got off the plane in Ft. Wayne he could walk where and when he wanted to, more or less effortlessly. Crazy. He is talking quite a bit now, too. He can say maybe 20 or 30 words, but his favorites are "no", "yeah", "uh-oh", "airplane", "bubble" (which he says when he means bubble OR belly-button), and "listen". His most favorite word of all though, is "up". Sometimes it actually means up, but mostly it means "I desire a change of perspective" - could be up, could be down, could be more, could be 'all done!'.