Cerebrate Good Times

Do you ever find yourself automatically saying, "Ow!" when you bump into something, even when it doesn't hurt? I've been noticing lately that I do*, and it bugs me. (something about whales) *Actually, I've been saying "Owie!" which is even worse.

I often drive past a Mexican seafood restaurant, which I suppose is a fun idea. What puzzles me, however, is why they chose to paint a giant whale on the side of the building. Am I the only one who thinks that's not the ideal image of seafood? I'm pretty sure eating whale is illegal in this country. What do you think of when you think of seafood? Should they have painted a giant crab or lobster on the building?

Apparently, I need more realistic goals in life. Theoretically, you could eat a whale "one bite at a time," right? Well, it looks like your entire food consumption throughout your life only be (at most) a quarter of a blue whale's mass. You could probably make it through a humpback whale, but it just wouldn't be the same. Go big or go home.

Sorry for two family-related posts in a row, but I need to record something Sam said last night. We were at Costco and decided to get some ice cream on the way out. With the smell of various foods in the air at the counter, Sam said, "It smells like barbecue in the garbage." Fortunately, I don't think any of the employees heard.

Any questions? Yes, you in the back. Not yet old enough to fight I'm coming for you!

Remember last year's ranting about the pine cones? Well, I decided to count them this time. It has been 13 days since I mowed the lawn, and I just picked up 504 pine cones. And that's just the grass, not the landscaped area directly under the tree.

This morning it occurred to me that the world is like a pineapple. When getting a pineapple ready to eat, you obviously cut off the skin (peel?). But you usually end up with little bits of the skin left. If you cut enough of the skin off to remove all those last little bits, your pineapple is a lot smaller that it would be otherwise. Similarly, you can avoid a lot of the terrible things in the world, but you can only do so much without shutting yourself away completely, in which case you also miss a lot of valuable experiences. And those unpleasant things you have to deal with just make the rest of the life-pineapple that much better.