Tiny objects and talented hands.

Excuse the bad camera work — I’m the world’s worst photographer — but you get the idea.  These are the hands of my father’s best friend Phil Siegelman, a former professor and one of the most brilliant men I know — showing me a tiny pop-up box he made for his wife Ellen’s birthday.  I’ve interacted with Phil since I was a little girl and never had a clue about his secret skills until he invited me into his inner sanctum.

He and I share another hand-related love:  Phil, too, is a typist.  Like me, he has two typewriters  — one ‘as back-up’ if the first goes down.

Unlike me, he’s stayed fiercely analog — no computer.  I admire that.  As I look around, I can see why.  He loves literature, history, poetry, cookbooks.

He has more tomes — 20,000 – than most people have ever touched, and he’s not only read them but references them regularly.

I tell him, “You don’t need a computer — you’re a human Wikipedia.”  I joke, “If you took in any more information, your brain might explode.”

He cranks out 25 letters a week, single-spaced on white paper.  He cooks spring pea soup and quail when my father’s sick — no take-out for him, and sings opera while he cleans.

His are talented hands.  I hope mine may have one digit’s worth of his powers. but I suspect they never will.