Conversations with an 11 year old.

Deanna: So, does Israel even know what they're fighting about?

She'd just finished telling me the story of her harrowing day, which involved NOT swimming at the local pool and that her aunt's cat has fleas and has pulled out most of its own fur and that she dropped a popiscle down her shorts today. So you'll understand that the Israel question caught me off guard.

Thinking that she was asking an insightful question because she had serious concerns, I launched into what I thought was a kid-friendly explanation of the whole Hezbollah-Israeli soldiers quagmire and her eyes glazed over. So I stopped. I assumed that she'd heard adults talking about the conflict.

Deanna: No, I was just watching the news this morning, but I sure asked a lot of people and no one would tell me the answer.

Beat of silence.

Deanna: But they were all my age.

Then she giggled.

Wow, the bananaheads you hang around with and call cousins didn't know the answer to that question? It's just funny, because I got into a tiny discussion with my grandfather about the relative moral standpoints of Israel and Palestine today. Yeah, we got a little sidetracked from the Israel-Lebanon thing. His argument tends to be that Palestine needs to accept their lot and shut up about it. I tend to think of the situation as a bit more complex. A moral quagmire if you will. Quagmire is my word of the day. So talking to Deanna about why this conflict arose really seemed like a futile exercise as Israel and Lebanon are embroiled in another moral quagmire.

I was really struck by the absurdity of my life today. Conversations with Deanna lasting more than 10 minutes and spending time with my grandparents seems to do that to me.

The picture is of a Palestinian man and an Israeli soldier that I saved to my computer a gagillion years ago, by the by.