We seek to connect with our childhoods

This is a video of Grace talking and babbling. She's unusually adorable, I said to my son Dan.

While I was in Cleveland, pondering how Ruth Zali Grreenwold Deming turned into the 64.5-yr-old woman I am today, my boyfriend Scott Aaron Sherman, 51, hooked up with his friend Paul who he hadn't seen since they were 19 and Scott was a curly-haired boy.

"I felt like Rip Van Winkle," Scott said. They met at Paul's house in Northeast Philadelphia where he lives with his dad. Paul went thru a divorce many years ago but is in touch with all four of his children.

What is this mysterious urge to connect? Does it have anything to do with a world that seems to be falling apart around us? The haggling and lies of our politians, denial of global warming and evolution, failure of American education, foreclosures on every street?

The return to our innocent trusting childhoods, when we lived in the bosom of our loving families, seems a good antidote to the confusion and uncertainty of the world of pre-election 2010, o much-beleaguered Obama.

Facebook has certainly made it easy. Scott found two childhood friends - Paul and Rich - and anticipates meeting many more from Creighton Elementary School in the Olney section of Philly, where as a kid, he often had to fight his way up as the only Jew in the neighborhood. He was mocked and belittled and won many street fights over antisemitic opponents who were egged on by their parents.

He and his friends had a blast, playing sports and fishing in a crick that ran in back of his house.

"We were such great friends," says Scott. "Why did I ever stop hanging around with them?"

Main reason: in his late 20s, Scott went on the night shift at SEPTA, our transportation system.

Thirty-one years went by before Scott felt the irresistible urge to find his friends. The search commenced.

Scott always wanted to get married and have a family but he never found a good woman until he met me. Hard to believe. He would've been a great dad. We tried to have kids but nothing has grown.

Finally, on Saturday while I was reconnecting with my childhood in Cleveland, Scott reconnected with Paul, who works as a mailman. For their visit together they went food shopping.

"Pick out any snack items you like," said Paul.

Scott laffed and said he doesn't eat junk food. And that all he drinks is water. Paul keeps a stock of Arizona Tea at home and ....ewwww...Mountain Dew.

Omigod, I have such a craving now for...yellow grapes. Easy girl, easy.

Scott asked me, "Think I should take him under my wing and teach him how to eat right?"

Of course, you darling man, of course!

Here's the life of the sciatic woman.

Scott and I are both lying on his bed now, width-wise. It's time for his afternoon siesta. I've been in bed all day on the computer, on the phone, eating on a towel.

My mom sent over delicious stir fry which sister Ellen kindly delivered. Then Ellen picked up my dilaudid at the drugstore. I took the first pill at 3:30 pm and the pain has actually lessened. No side effx whatsoever from the drug including a feeling of being high.

What does it take for me to feel high? my sister Donna asked me.

Ah, mescaline. When I was in my early 20s, I licked white mescaline powder off something at Goddard College in Vermont. I told this to sister Donna while we were speeding down the Ohio Turnpike the other day.

Told her I'd written in my red diary about the drug trip for 42 pages. I told the kids to get rid of the diaries after my untimely death, but they'll do what they want which is fine.

Time to check Facebook and see what Grace Catherine is up to. Dan and Nicole made a video of her babbling and smiling. It almost cured my sciatica.