A Long Shaft of Light

A couple of nights ago A-Joz and I went to one of the local lakes, rented a pedal boat, and pedaled furiously from boat to boat in the lake, collecting parts for a sundae: bowl, brownie, ice cream, chocolate sauce, and finally whipped cream! Then we just drifted as we enjoyed our sundaes, and then we pedaled around the lake at a much more leisurely rate. We just had a basic pedal boat, but the place that rents them has an “annex” down by the zoo, and there they have two swan pedal boats and a tricycle one. I am hoping to try the tricycle boat sometime soon, and maybe even get some awesome footage of it biking (triking?) across the top of the water.

ePlush has a new line of Zodiac pets, starting back in May with the Taurus Bull, and for Gemini they had a butterfly. I thought that was cute: Gemini Butterfly kind of rhymes, and Geminis can be flighty. But what, I wondered, would they do for Virgo? Yesterday I saw an ad for the Virgo… horse?? All I can say is, they better have a Libra Zebra. When I asked Richard Bonomo if he were curious what they would have for his Zodiac pet (Aquarius), can you believe that he was not??

Last night Hardingfele came over and swam in my pool, then we trimmed the rabbits’ claws. Charlie just sighs and goes to his “Happy Place” until we are done and he gets his treat, but Cashmere was a total drama queen, making a sad little sobbing sound the entire time and jerking her paw away with each clip, as if I had cut off her toe. Oddly, we did her second, so she knew it was coming, but she made only a token attempt to escape. I suspect she enjoys her chance to overreact, along with the treat afterwards.

Then I went to Rich’s house so we could drive to a park in the middle of nowhere to watch the meteor shower, which was not a disappointment. We saw tons of meteors, many of them with amazing trails behind them. However, the trip there was eventful, starting with Rich leaving his car door open as he was about to pull out of the driveway. I said, “Rich, the back door is open!” and he got out of the car, walked around the open door, looked at the hatchback, and said, “No, it’s not.” Then he wondered where we could grab a quick bite to eat; I pointed out that there were two fast food places at the end of his street, and he professed not to have ever noticed this. We did successfully arrive at the park, where there was an excellent view of the Milky Way, prompting the following exchange:

Rich: As a child, I wondered how galaxies retained their shape.
Me: By working out a lot.
Rich: And then I learned they have a black hole- oh! Ha ha! That’s funny!

There was a guy nearby using a laser pointer to show a woman different stars, and in the mist it had quite an impressive shaft… of light. I started laughing and said I wished Toque McToque were there, I had just thought of something she would think was funny. Rich wanted to know what, and I said, “You wouldn’t like it,” which intrigued him, and when I said it had to do with women laughing at men, that only piqued his interest more. So I said, “You know how some men buy big cars or houses or whatever to compensate for being small in other areas?” and he said, “Sure,” so I said, “That guy seems very enamored of his laser pointer, and it is very long.” I thought Rich would be offended, but to my surprise he just laughed. However, when I later commented, “There goes Mr. Extension again,” he said, “Famous Hat! Stop it!” So I must have surpassed his Naughty Joke Tolerance Level at that point.

Famous Hat