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The present
is the only moment that is truly ours,
and we ought to make use of it.

-Blaise Pascal

Every so often I get to really see the sunset, in all its surreal fire and glory, and I am struck by the fact that I have access to the greatest show on earth, every night, for free; and yet most nights I miss it.

I mean, not to be morbid or anything, but we don’t know what tomorrow brings; I have only a limited number of sunsets left, whatever that number may be.

I think I owe it to myself to catch as many of those sunsets as possible; the fact that it is free of charge makes it no less astonishing, miraculous, or beautiful.

I saw this headline in my Google Desktop ticker:

Man sentenced to 1 year in jail for trying to smuggle rare animals from Madagascar in clothing

and I got all excited and hurriedly clicked through, hoping for hilarious pictures of monkeys in trousers. Did he fashion the clothing ahead of time or cobble it together after he had ammassed his rare animals?

What other rare animals in clothing would there be? (Did you know that nearly 75% of animals native to Madagascar are found nowhere else on the planet?)

Would he try to pass off a wild cat as a pampered housecat, by dressing it in a tutu and wig? Wild birds in bonnets? Was he pretending to be heading a traveling circus? In that case, would there be lemurs in leotards?

Alas, no.

“Jo van Niekerk, a 29-year-old zoology student, was arrested in November after the chameleons, snakes, lizards and frogs were found in his baggage and clothing at the airport.”

Oh. They were in his clothes. I guess that makes more sense.

Now I am thinking about lizards in overcoats and frogs wearing spectacles.

No, wait. They were in his clothes? Chameleons, snakes (plural!), lizards and frogs were in his clothes?

I know, I know, I have mental problems but I need more information.
I can only hope that somewhere, there are pictures.

You need chaos in your soul
to give birth to a dancing star.

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It appears that I have a chaotic soul.

Yesterday Cass and I were in Philadelphia for Baby Loves Disco.

Baby Loves Disco is an afternoon dance party for kids and parents, and it is serious fun. I am not going to lie, I kinda miss the whole clubbing scene, and I just don’t get enough opportunities to dance to my heart’s content anymore.

I would venture to say that the music yesterday was better than it ever was when I frequented clubs.

Some Abba, some Madonna, some Young MC, some Jackson 5–it doesn’t get better than that.

When you need to take a break, there’s all kinds of other things to do- Cass got her face painted, ate some snacks, got a temporary tattoo, played with cool toys.

Then we flopped for a while and read through the books that were provided in one of several “chill out” areas.

Then, back to dancing.

Until, finally:
collapse.

It was a good time. Frankly, I can’t wait to do it again. Who else wants to go?