Remember my new grandchildren? The creepy little ones with pinchers?

My grandkids

They are far, far creepier than I could have even imagined. I had just about come to grips with the idea that I would now have two grandchildren, when that wayward son of mine brought home three.

This past weekend I was visiting my new niece in Minneapolis. (More on this tomorrow). When I got back, my son told me that while I was away, one of the hermit crabs had murdered the other one in the middle of the night. He had heard chirruping and had thought his new charges were playing with each other. When daylight broke, he awoke to the stink of dead fish and the sight of the hermit crab’s lifeless, dismembered body.

We have buried Abel and have painted the murderer’s shell with the mark of Cain. And now it’s just Cain and my namesake, Adrienne.

The next day we left on our family vacation. We are trying to regroup after the tragedy in a glamorous, exotic locale whose charms may help us forget, if only for a little while…We are in Pittsburgh.