I could rant about the couple hours I spent in Internet Explore Explorer* CSS hell today but I won’t. I climbed outta that pit. I didn’t manage it as elegantly as those Chilean miners are doing but I did it. (Is anyone else wondering where the heck those guys went to the bathroom down there?)

Chloe Belle has ordered me to go on a little photooo dredging expotition from the deep, dark reaches of the Jurassic Age. (By the way, Chloe Belle, where the heck are you?) And look what I found along the way. It is an uuuuuugly of yer favo-rite blahgger, that would be meeeeeee. With my mouth open, apparently talking someone’s ear off. As usual. I am in the cafeteria of the old airplane museum at Wright Patterson AFB because, don’tcha know, if y’all are in the vicinity of Wright-Patt, you have to go look at all the old airplanes and things (ho-hum). And we were *in* the vicinity of Wright-Patt because we were on our way home from the beeyootyful state of Floriduh. “We” being meeeee, the GG, the toddler Elizardbreath, and the Beautiful Aunt Suzie.

We had followed the grandparents (Gumper and The Beautiful Sally) down there after they sold their house in Royal Joke and moved permanently to their Florida condo. We stayed in a motel the first night of the trip and, in the morning, when we were packing our Jetta, the toddler Elizardbreath made absolutely certain that she was outside the motel room right next to the car so that she would not be forgotten and left behind in the motel room. My heart goes into my throat even now, thinking about what thoughts and fears must have been in her little head.

The toddler Elizardbreath had a wonderful time on that trip. She watched seagulls and ducks and the tame great blue heron that lived by the Gumper’s pool. She collected shells on the beach, picking out only those that were perfect. Some doting older women encountered her on the beach one day and said, “You are just like a doll and you deserve a shell,” and gave her one. She (with a little help from the GG) went to KMart and bought a rubber ducky for the Gumper’s pool. She learned to say “erderator” (alligator) with a little help from The Beautiful Aunt Suzie and we saw erderators at Myakka State Park and the Sarasota Jungle Gardens and probably a few other places.

Our morning routine for much of that trip was notable because of Halley’s Comet. The GG would get up every morning at something like 4:00 AM and drive way out into the middle of nowhere to set up his telescope and look at the comet. I wasn’t *quite* as early a riser then as I am now but, when he returned at around six or so, we would take our baby and go out to breakfast somewhere before we began our day.

I have put a photoset of rather crappy scans out on Flickr. Click here.

* Roight. Explore the Internet with Internet Explore. Duh.

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