Twice makes it a tradition.

Aurora and I, with a pretty boy each, hit the Fair on the 4th.  It’s hard not to have fun anyplace that has bright lights, beer and baby animals, but Aurora is without a doubt my favorite fair buddy.

To add to our collection of one, we had a picture taken in the photo booth.

Then we waited inside to see how long before the attendant got suspiciouis and came looking for us, but our dates beat her too it.

Then it was off to the rides!

If they made stuffed animals of her, I’d play ’til I won one, even if I had to buy a thousand balloon darts.

In the midst of a conversation ….

… about how important honesty is, my date called me “Valancy” and I realized I’d totally neglected to mention that that’s not really my name.

It’s hard to take a bad picture of a pretty girl.

But I like it best when she’s not posing.  In those little unguarded moments, you see her warmth, and how easily she laughs.

Depending on the source ….

…. “pretentious” can be a compliment.

So thank you.

Eight years, slightly fewer lives.

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned his real age ....

You see the size of his head here?  At eight weeks, it was already almost this big.  His rest of his body was also the size of his head here.  He looked like a cartoon of a kitten.

A coworker’s cat had had kittens and she begged me to stop by and take a look, not mentioning that she’d already given away all but one.  She still had the tiniest and the oneriest.  I agreed to come by and when I did, she looked delighted.  “OH!  We’ll pull him out from behind the couch.  He doesn’t really like us.”

Awesome, I thought to myself, preparing excuses to get out of there.  He sounds greaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.  But the darndest thing happened when my coworker’s son finally fished him out.  I ignored the blood oozing from scratches on the kid’s arms, I just saw those two huge green eyes, and long white whiskers that erupted out his little tuxedo markings.  I reached out with both hands and just said “Yes.”

And that forceful, formal, fuzzy punk has been looking after me ever since.

Practical application

Yesterday in the course of conversation, someone asked if I was familiar with Schroedinger’s cat.  I related what I understood of the principle, which is the idea that a cat placed in a box with a vial of poison has a 50/50% chance of being alive or dead, but that since the cat could not be 50% dead (unless it was hungover presumably, but that’s another experiment) you must proceed with the assumption that the cat is both 100% alive and 100% dead, at the same time.

I admitted that despite my familiarity with the concept, I don’t really understand where he was going with the idea.  But then later in the day someone reminded me of what it’s like to take a pregnancy test.

So then I said ….

…. “It’s hard to go wrong with flowers. Oddly enough, be careful with the vase. The wrong vase will convince her in an instant that you don’t know her at all and never will.”

They just get cooler and cooler and I love them harder and harder.

My precious little kidlets are practically grown now.

Seems like just yesterday they were seventh graders and I was teaching them to drive stick shift at 1:30 in the morning in the mall parking lot.

Fish are friends, not food.

There are fish in this picture, really.  They’re just really, really fast.

My little long finned danio Siren has outlived all of her tank mates, and since danios are a schooling fish, I knew she’d appreciate some buddies.  Yesterday I picked up a regular and a long finned danio, and today I got two long finned leopard danios.

Whenever I get a new fish, the tired old joke of  “name this one sushi and that one fish stick” gets revived, so as a subtle joke prolly only I would get, I’ve named them all after famous vegetarians.

So internet, welcome Pythagoras, Emily Dickinson, Albert Schweitzer and Victoria Beckham.

Then she started taking pictures of herself.

Adam – “At school when they all drew pictures of what they wanted to be when they grew up, she said she wanted to be a teenager.”

Valancy Jane – “Are ……. are you sure she’s not mine?”

I taught her how to do "myspace-face."