I brought Colin with me to Park Slope while I am here over the next few days. We are staying with my dad and his team of home health aides. The aides he has are, by and large, wonderful women. And my dad is, most of the time, polite and pleasant. Whatever the toll of this set of diseases, he hasn't yet lost his quick wit.

Colin and I walk the streets of million dollar homes, hip restaurants and amazingly skinny women. I don't like it when my clothes get tight, I confess. But I would never have the discipline, could never care enough to be that slender. As I walk towards the grocery store that has not changed much since I was a child, I look at all of those tempting shelves of cookies and speculate: how do they stay so skinny? What social pressures make them care about being tiny so much? Or is there some kind of Darwinian survival of the thinnest ocurring among Wall Street lawyers, actresses, and stay at home moms? And, a horrible thought-maybe they don't work at being that thin. Perhaps it doesn't take sacrifice, discipline or neurosis. Aw, nuts to that, I comment to myself- as I pick up a box of Vienna Fingers to go home with the broccoli and apples.

Walking on Seventh Ave. a few weeks ago, I overhead a woman selling bags on the sidewalk say something like: "You can get it for $275.00 here-in other places, you'd pay $350". I actually still don't really believe I heard her aright. Let's take off a zero, shall we?

Fortunately, the third-grader who walking beside me keeps me pretty grounded. As we check out the Community Bookstore, people, especially men, telegraph me amused smiles. Glancing at the exuberant freckled face beside me, I tell my son that it's because he never stops talking. For some reason, he doesn't respond to this, but keeps on chattering about an online game he is playing. He and his sister share a virtual Penguin-and they both get to choose clothing for it. With my son at my side, I am safe from the siren song of envy for the riches I see around me. I'm not going for that handbag...no matter how large the discount!