Dear Wyatt,
It is still very hot here—day 4 of the heat advisory. Or five. We just got your 2nd letter (or first letter after the postcard). Louisa and her boyfriend were here dropping off keys for a car they were parking near us, so we read your letter aloud and we all agreed that it was one of your best. I was expecting a “Send me Uber Package of Magic Cards ASAP” but it was not that at all. And I agree totally with you: Long hair is a pain in the butt but you should definitely not cut yours.

So Operation Neighbor is going well. A the cat sitter and I had a great time, and then I had coffee with a truly astounding woman named N who is certified as a tree trimmer of NYC. She came over the next day and taught Daddy how to trim trees so the canopy doesn’t hit cars or people walking.

What was so wild to me was when we all hung out under the our River Birch tree and she and daddy trimmed off the dead branches. Our tree is kind of two dimensional. All the branches on the other side of the tree that extend over the house have been cut so they don’t hit cars so the tree is actually kind of flat and tall and wide. I had never noticed that. It’s like an optical illusion. It is a great tree.

THEN I met the neighbors on the other side of Maggie who are selling their house. Or one of them. Really nice woman who hates Maggie and they cannot sell that house because the market has just fallen into hell. Super nice. We’re going to chat.

Daisy came home from work vowing to quit. She has 3 weeks left and her boss is a petty dictator. But she is really standing up for herself and I am impressed with her.

What else–I talked to your grandma yesterday and she was in a true tizzy. Basically one of the members of her euthanasia group died and mom did not like how the death went down and as she is planning her own death (which she will not let happen, but that’s an entirely different soliloquy) this really, really rattled her. She also did not approve of the wake and how it was run. So we had to painfully talk over how her funeral should go, and then we got to her asking J (the silent guy with a beard who builds all my parents’ houses) to make her a coffin. And then I got off the phone, totally exhausted. She was all ready to keep on talking for another 20 minutes.

That was 3000 years ago.

We miss you a LOT. Your room is now very clean but I’ve left your skateboards on the ground floor because it would be too awful not to see them and think about you.

ONE MORE WEEK UNTIL KITTEN pre-SHOPPING. Next letter please state preferences for fur color. Should we risk another orange? Here are my current names: Striker and Avilah. Daddy hates both.

Love
mom