Close to as cute as kittens

1) The voice of the girl down the way (who, after replying in the negative twice, abandoned the swings on the playground yesterday and ran toward her father with this less-than-obliging response "You always have to ruin my day!") crept into my conciousness again today because the roommate had opened the door to the "fishbowl" patio. "Aren't you afraid to do that?" She was standing next to her bike. Two skinny legs dangled from an overhanding balcony. "Yes," the boy said as he eased himself carefully onto a not overly-wide brick wall enclosing the "fishbowl." "Then why are you doing it," she said.

2) I pulled up alongside a red convertible car. The man and woman in the frontseat were looking over to the right of me. I followed their eyes and saw six or seven girls, ranging in the ages of perhaps, four to ten, standing behind a white picket fence. I imagined that they were all the daughters of a diplomat who was staying in the large brick house. Their eyes focused on the shiny red dog in the backseat, and they talked amongst themselves and gestured toward it. The smallest one very quickly waved goodbye to the dog when the light changed.