At least once a day I show Leonard my collection of animal salt-and-pepper shakers. He loves looking at them and seems to find them even more hilariously amusing than all the other things in the house that are funny. I call them the Little Friends. Look at the little friends, bubbie, look at those crazy little baby friends!
It's not clear to me whose friends they are, exactly. Are they his? Mine? Ours together? Each others'? Lenny loves his life but he hasn't really got any friends. I feel sad for him when I think about that. He'll get some when he's a bit older, though. I hope.
The friends are sitting on a shelf set into the fireplace stone surrounds about a metre off the floor. He used to just stare at them delightedly but lately he reaches out for them with the same urgent gesture that he reaches for everything that interests him; coffee cups, milk cartons, mobiles, lamps, and above all, iphones. But alas, Leonard's hands and these little porcelain figures can never ever meet. So I don't know why I keep showing him them. I guess it's probably going to end badly, like Hamlet.
