We went to a birthday party on Saturday in Los Feliz, a neighborhood where every store is either a children's boutique or a yoga studio. This particular birthday party took place at a children's boutique. It was a very nice party. The mom and dad provided beer and wine for the grownups, and juice boxes for the kids. As required by federal law, they also provided a jumpy castle. A man who called himself a "bubbleologist" provided the entertainment.

He had big tubs of bubble water and implements of various sizes, which allowed him to create all sorts of bubble exotica, such as bubble cubes and bubble tetrahedrons. He knew how to make bubbles inside of other bubbles. The kids went crazy. Some of them, like Elijah, went especially crazy and parents had to sit by their sides so they wouldn't pop the bubbles before they reached bubble fruition.

In addition, the bubbleologist was French.

"My name is Gilbert," he told the children, pronouncing his name in the French manner.

"ZEEL-BEAR?" Elijah shouted. "That's not a name!"

"Yes it is," the bubbleologist said. "It is my name."

"That's a silly name," said another kid.

"No it's not," he said. "I'm from another country, and a city called Paris."

At once, several kids started shouting, "Ooooh! I've been to Paris!" One kid even said, "We just got back from Paris last week!"

My bowels churned with class anxiety. I was raising my son in an environment where four-year-olds considered a trip to Paris de rigeur. Also, an element of envy floated in the churn. While it's quite possible that I, too, will take my son to Paris someday, at the moment we live in a neighborhood where children are continually bitten by a pink-sweater-wearing chihuahua that escapes through my neighbor's fence. Pickup trucks do donuts in the middles of intersections. We're caught in a netherworld between Clueless and Mean Streets, with a touch of Repo Man. My son is continually asking me when we're going to move to a "peaceful" neighborhood, meaning one where we're not awakened by police choppers sweeping our streets at 4 AM. The Paris-familiar kids don't ask their parents those kinds of questions.

The bubbleologist whipped out his ultimate trick. He attempted to encase the birthday girl in a bubble. This would have worked, too, if Elijah hadn't continually jumped up, shrieking with glee, to pop the bubble. Finally, Regina held down Elijah's shoulders, and the trick went down. Then the other kids got their bubbles. Elijah made it into the ring about seven down the line.

The idea was to blow a bubble inside the bubble, and then it would pop. Elijah blew enthusiastically about a half-dozen times, and then he finally blew a good one. He stood in the circle flapping his arms for a few seconds, until Gilbert ushered him off the stage.

Later, we drove home down York Boulevard, the nearest major street to our house. There, in front of a 99-cent store, a couple of ten-year-olds went at it, fists and knees flailing. Adults stood around them, laughing, but this was no joke fight.

"Daddy," Elijah asked. "Why are those kids hitting each other?"

"I don't know," I said. "They just are."

"Hitting is wrong, Elijah," Regina said.

"I know that," he said.

We'd definitely left the bubble.

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