The star of this blog is undoubtedly Manzi a.k.a. Melvin, my landlord’s 7-year-old son. Readers should have one more dose of him before I finish this chapter of my life. Manzi is full of adventure. The other day I was ironing two pairs of pants and he said that he wanted to try ironing them. I hesitated, but then gave him a shot at it. Darn it, he was good at it! Manzi loves mangoes, and he often helps himself to any that I buy at the market. He also helps himself to the dishwashing soap to fill his new bubble blowing toy. I challenged him to balance the mango on his head as he blew bubbles. No problem for Melvin! The final bit of boyhood craziness involves bees. There was a swarm of them today on the construction site in our shared courtyard. He said, “Tim, watch this!” and swiped at them causing them to fly every which way. I told him that it wasn’t a good idea, but he persisted. He got stung and tried to capture a bee to bring it into me in my house. What a character!