October 26

Now we remember why we live in the desert. The weather is gorgeous this week. Quick, take note – we are not complaining about the weather. This only happens for a week. Never fear, we’ll be unhappy next week. There is really only a three or four degree variance before we’re uncomfortable again. Oh, and if there’s wind, forget it. We hate wind. Here are five more things we do love.

1. 1. Super nifty pictures. Every year, the Nikon Corporation has a contest for photomicrography – which is tech speak for pictures of super small stuff. This year, we fell in love with this picture. It shows black mastiff bat embryos in progressive stages of development. They look like little aliens, don’t they? Or little wax creatures for Halloween. Ava thinks they’re Yoda babies.  What an awesome picture.
2. Talking whales.We’ve long known that humpback whales make those cool whale
   

   just like the Sisters chatting it up.

   sounds. Now they’re studying how a beluga whale is mimicking human voices. When the scientists first heard the noise, they thought it was kids talking. Apparently, they’ve long known that whales, like many other animals, mimic human speech patterns, but they’ve never experienced a whale doing it spontaneously. The Sisters have questions for these whales. Lots of questions. Maybe they can tell us how sand gets inside your underwear even when you don’t go anywhere near the beach.

3. Dental floss. Prisoners in Texas are suing to get access to dental floss. I guess we should be happy they’re pretending to floss. Apparently, the prison system has deemed that floss
   

   Wonder if the waxed one is more dangerous?

   and the plastic box it comes in are a major security risk. Still there are conscientious inmates who just want to get that gruel out of their teeth so they’re suing. Their jailors say floss can be used to strangle people, pick handcuffs, and hoist contraband. The thing we’re specifically interested in was using the floss to saw through bars. We’re always looking for a way to break out of Bank of No Forks and apparently it’s plausible. We’re now accepting donations for floss.

4. The 1^st children. There is a fabulous story today about how the President of the USA can’t get his kids to pay attention to him either. We hear he’s said, “Just act like you’re listening to me.” OMG. If the Commander in Chief can’t get them to listen, I don’t know what hope we normal parents have.
   

   Jeez, they’re even holding committee meetings.

   Like how many times do we have to gather the children into the bathroom and give them instruction on flushing the toilet? Sweet Jesus, we’re all doomed.

5. Sharks. One of the things we want to ask the whales is why the sharks are so pesky. There were golfers in San Juan Capistrano who were a bit shocked when a two pound leopard shark fell out of the sky onto the 12^th tee. They say he was scooped up by a bird and then dropped. They implied it was an accident. Riiiiiight. We think the sharks are in collusion with the birds. We posit the sharks aren’t happy just terrorizing us in the ocean. Perhaps the whales can work as intermediaries and we can all have some version of couples therapy.