Inspirational For A Friday

Anyone who knows me even slightly probably knows of my affection for bats. I'm not really sure *why* I have said affection (perhaps it is an affliction, who knows), but there it is. It might be their combination rodent-bitey thing, it might be that they hang upside down to sleep. Perhaps I am just a wannabe vampire. I really have no idea. I do know that the name for their excrement caused me to fall in a heap laughing for probably way more months than is healthy.

I found this picture on Cute Overload, and it just made me think---haven't we all had those days? And yet, you keep on slogging up those steps, and much of the time, there is something positive at the top. Admittedly, sometimes there is just a pile of guano.

Bat pic

Magicks!

Peabo discovered this afternoon the "sun flap" on her playmat. You lift, a smiley sun smiles smileishly at you. It was utterly fascinating to her, and watching her go "whoaaaaa..." was utterly fascinating to me. Not to mention the cute little looks she'd shoot my way as though to say, "looklooklookMommymagic! Magicsun!Magicsun!"

Her deftness is growing in huge chunks from day to day, as she starts exploring finer and finer details on toys or the phone or if I let her, the computer. We like the glowing box. I do realize this is perfectly normal, but you have to trust me that for us, it's like...well, it's a bit like magicks.

The Time, She Flies

Peabo is 6 months old today, which is just beyond my comprehension. I may have been around for every minute of it, but boy hidey did it fly by. It's a bit shocking to realize another 6 months and she may well be ambulatory and possibly even attempting a word here and there.

The t-shirt was bought on request by my mom, as we have far too much Carolina gear around this house, and not enough from the actual degree granting university. It is being worn in homage to the fact that my 10 year reunion is coming up in a few weeks---which I will obviously not be attending---but I hope all my U of T friends see this and realize I will be there in spirit if not in flesh. Drink some sherry or Rickard's Red for me and Peabo, y'all. Get on with your bad Trintron/Snildian selves

I leave you with the cheers of Trinity College, University of Toronto:

Oh really, oh rally,
How beastly, how jolly
Trinity, Trinity, RAH

Who are we?
We are the Salt of the Earth,
So give ear to us,
No new ideas shall ever come near to us!
Orthodox! Catholic!
Crammed with Divinity!
Damn the dissenters,
Hurrah for old Trinity!

Taking All Comments And Suggestions

I'm in a bit of a swithers at the moment, but it's a good swithers. I had decided more than a year ago that I wanted to get a tattoo, something that I suppose lots of people do at the impulsive age of 18 or so, but much like the nose ring, something that I simply didn't have the moxie to pull off at that age. In my ever-increasing dotage, though, I'm trying to work the whole "why the *?$?% not?" thing. The actual tattooing will need to wait for at least another half year while I finish nursing Peebs, but that will give me plenty of time to sort out what exactly it is that I want done. Initially I had decided upon a rendition of Scathach's Axe, which has a lot of personal meaning that I'm not going to go into here (I know at least one person who reads this blog knows the impetus behind said choice; that will suffice). Recently, though, I started thinking I'd rather be able to go to a real tattoo *artist* and say, please do something with this basic concept. Trouble is, not sure how much you can wring out of a simple Celtic axe design. At the same time, I started thinking about something else that might have personal meaning and I admit it was a bit of a "duh" moment when I hit upon the
red dragon of Wales. Y'all have seen this, I'm sure, it's on the national flag, and let's face it. Dragons are bad ass. I would like to think that I am, at times, bad ass. I know I'm not, but you know...moxie. This dragon is also Welsh, and I can at least say that Wales is my closest non-North American ancestry. At any rate, I really don't want a HUGE tattoo by any stretch of the imagination, but on the other hand, I recognize that going too small is kind of pointless because you lose a lot of detail and impact.

What I think I'd really like is some sort of combining of the two, and I suppose the best option is to take both images to a tattooist and say work your mojo. However, since I have at least six months if not longer, let it be known that I eagerly await any comments or suggestions you gentle readers may have. Except "don't do it" because sorry, I'm doing it. And it's not going in the tramp stamp position. At all.

Beyond that, though, knock yourselves out!

2007

Not the pithiest of titles, but bear with me here. Peabo is gaining skills in huge big gulps, and it's a lot like watching the whole primate tool discovery moments. For instance, the other day she was chilling in the Exersaucer with a small rattle, which she then took and sort of halfheartedly banged on one of the spinny toys to see what it would do. Not so exciting, so she tossed it away and commenced to spinning with her hands, which was far whizzier. I was on the floor though, with the look on her face when she had the rattle out, because it was *exactly* like the opening scenes of "2001". One of our friends commented that we just needed a portable monolith to set up. Whack, whack, whack.

Our other little primate also suddenly decided to figure out eating with a fork.

??????

She does this, and it is crazy-making---lag, lag, lag, Mommy worriesworriesworries, and then boom, oh, why don't we try THIS? Still, I'll take the forward progress.

And now the smallest simian has awoken, probably because she's decided to sleep on her stomach, but inchworms into the crib bumpers and gets M-A-D.

Godspeed, CP

Gene is in Portland at present, headed home tomorrow from the northern run of our...well, it's not our boat anymore. Our former boat. I went to look at pictures we had of various trips and it's startling to realize how much of our family history has been written onboard Carolina Pacific. I freely admit I started bawling and couldn't look through more than a handful, but I leave y'all with a final, beautiful image, ironically from a trip in the Puget Sound: