chocolate chip pancakes
finn’s maple syrup, little bowls of vitamins, and a good morning hug for fallie
mutual assured destruction or punch buggy dealership
skull girls jungle compound
blooming fist technique or the finnflora chimera
Magnolias are strange old plants that existed before there were bees on the earth to pollinate them. Their blossoms grow large and tough enough to encourage and survive pollination by beetles or children with casts. Their thick wax leaves make good boats for shanghaied insect sailors or small creatures made out of sticks and grass, and their petals frequently adorn the beds of fairies.
(photo via floyd)
girls girls girls
some guy asked fallie for change on the train and it did not turn out well for him but really he is lucky that she did not set fire to him with her mind
eighteen whimsical shape retaining rubber bracelets and a cast
a long walk to the park and a short rest in the shade then a brief episode of glossolalia followed by a shocking violation of the fourth wall and a rude prank
ten
A couple of weeks ago, before she got sick too, Finn and I spent a Saturday together wandering around town while Floyd took care of Fallie at home. She went with me to deal with a crisis at the ice cream factory, but then we went to the icosahedral park, a couple of downtown thrift stores, and finally, on a long walk by the river.
It has been too long since I spent a day alone with Finn. She has grown in a pronounced way over the past few months, and I can see that look of deepening awareness in her eyes. I tried to keep my mouth shut and listen without comments as we walked and she told me some of what she notices. She told me some of her secrets and some of her ideas, and I got to see a little bit of the shape that the world is taking in her mind. It was a good day.
m & finn pancakes
Thursday is pancake day for the girls. As one of her tenth birthday presents, Finn’s grandmother gave her some customized candy covered chocolate treats that featured pictures of Finn and slogans like “Finn Rocks!” This week’s pancakes featured some of those candies, or as Fallie put it, “we are eating Finn’s face for breakfast.”
when the same interval passes again
She was born in the second month of the twenty-first century, and with luck she will see all of it. I enjoy our time together, trying to make moments she will remember fondly, but sometimes I struggle with worry, wondering how it will all turn out. Does the world really get better, or worse? What can I do to prepare her and what do I prepare her for? I am not ready. When the same interval passes again, she will be grown.
gratuitous picture of a disembodied mumblelarm
field trip
I took the skull girls to the ice cream factory yesterday so they can have a good mental picture of where I spend most of my time now. We did all the standard stuff. They sat in my desk chair, drew on the glass walls of my office with dry erase markers, and I arranged for a few portraits via the motion sensitive security cameras. Then they raided the snack cabinet for cheezy puffed corn snacks and candy covered chocolate snacks, and I taught them how to mix a cocanade* from the communal soda fountain.
Once they were appropriately snacked up and jacked up, Finn played Up on the game console machine while Fallie watched and laughed. In general, we made a bunch of noise and mocked the accounting nerds who were actually working on budgets or taxes or some other deadline driven general accounting nerdery.
I was going to make them skull girls identity badges, but the junior identity badge officer must have changed his password from the one I shoulder harvested, and I couldn’t log into the machine. The girls had very few questions, but I am sure that they will have plenty of comments over the coming week. Despite the fact that I was in the office on a Saturday, it was a pretty fun morning.
*cocanade is two-thirds cola product and one-third high fructose lemonade product. It should probably be called crackanade because of its brief effective window and its tooth-grinding moreish qualities, or maybe methanade because it is produced in a slightly creepy communal kitchen, but cocanade is a more natural portmanteau.
the alligator is a conservation success story
…I am large, I contain multitudes.
(image via the skull girls okefenokee liberation council)
