Be My Yoko Ono

I've been off the mainland!

The Mamas and I took a trip to Nantucket just last weekend, and
I had a great time. Here I am riding the ferry in heavy seas:


Here's Mama Sandy carrying me around the island:


Here's Mama Cyndi enjoying some sunshine and
orange juice just outside of our cottage:



On the homefront, I've been getting to try many new foods lately.
I've had peas, and sweet potatoes, and bananas, and carrots,
and just last night I had some prunes.


The only thing that I've had and didn't like at all was avocado.
I mean, good for me or not, I really did not like the avocado. At all.

My Manny is still making me listen to different and interesting music, but these days he's starting to seem a little more paranoid about it. Just the other day he got very excited about a small tag on one of my jumpers, which he said resembles a logo used on the cover of the album Gordon, by a group of nerdy Canadian musicians called the Barenaked Ladies. Looking at them both together I think he does have a point, and the company website does seem a mite suspicious. Perhaps, like the ubiquitous post horn of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, the symbol is pervasive but overlooked, visible only to those who have learned to see it. Are nerdy Canadian musicians really scheming to put clothes on America's babies? Is the Yukon planning to infiltrate UConn? I won't hold my breath waiting for the mainstream media to cover the story. Everyone knows all the network
news outlets are already deep in the pocket of Big Canadian Bacon.



My Manny had me listen to a couple of tracks from the album in question. Here's a video of me listening to the song I liked the best, Be My Yoko Ono. If I seem a little restless it's because this was probably the fifth time he'd played the song for me, and I was definitely getting bored with it by then. He says when he was in school he used to get together with friends and they would all sing along to the album. Now it seems he wants to sing it with me. Repeatedly. The video is worth watching if only for
the last few seconds. And it is a catchy song, so enjoy.

Redolence

For weeks now it's been perfect springtime day after perfect springtime
day, and my Manny and I have spent many hours out touching new leaves,
listening to all the treetop mockingbirds singing for their sweethearts,
looking at all the different colors of dogwoods and tulips in bloom,
and smelling the lilacs buds as they begin to open. He says that they're
his favorite flowers, and after smelling them I can understand why.

Buoyancy

Carley and Mama Cyndi had a birthday party. They may have gotten
presents, but I've claimed their balloons for my own, and I used
them to illustrate to my Manny the principle of buoyancy. I explained
that the balloon's ability to "float" is evidence of the lower atomic
weight of helium (which fills the balloon) relative to the higher atomic
weights of nitrogen and oxygen, which surround the balloon and are the
primary components of our atmosphere. Then I spent a good hour or so just
yanking on the ribbons, and making the balloons jump up and down.




Today was beautiful day to hang out on the porch with a balloon or two,
just enjoying the sunshine and the breeze. In truth, it's been magnificent
lately, with broad green leaves suddenly draping the trees, and sweet
blossoms blooming everywhere you look. My Manny says that this is
about as fine a season as a person has a right to expect, and that
I'm fortunate to have it for my first Spring. He says that sometimes
Winter hangs on forever, and then it suddenly snaps into the heat of
Summer, and that leaves a body feeling cheated. But not this year.
This year it's perfect balloon weather.