Dear Kid,

The point of the Global Pet Expo was not just to walk new blisters onto my feet (yes, I was wearing sneakers, but still…) and not just to gawk at the concept of dog bikinis (although that was fun, too).

Global was all about finding products to carry in one’s business.

The really cool ones I can’t tell you about and the boring ones are…boring. So I won’t bother telling you about them (you’re welcome).

There were a couple of things that surprised me.

In the aquarium/fish/aqua section there were jellyfish displays with weird lights. You know how I feel about jellyfish, but as art it was pretty cool.

There were also rescue puppies for adoption in a couple of booths (can I get a “way to go” and a couple of “awwwws”?).

Yes, I stopped to hold some of the puppies. No, I did not bring one home.

There were some really good seminars and some fun products.

And the trip home was highly uneventful (yay!), until the Puppy started sniffing around my suitcase (yes, I brought treats for him).

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Did I tell you I went to Orlando for the Global Pet Expo?

There isn’t much related to pets that isn’t at Global (I’m an insider now, so I can use the diminutive).

Stuff for fish? Yep; proceed to the Aqua section. Bunny, ferret, gerbil stuff? Yep; proceed to vendors who offer things for small animals. Cat stuff? By the boatload. Even coops and ramps for chickens (I kid you not).

But mostly Global is about dogs.

At Global, one can find everything a dog might need (the Puppy now has a new collar), and many, many, many things that no dog ever needs.

And some things that made me smile, like Dean Russo art. As a matter of fact, the artist himself was at the show and signed a print for me (yay!).

There are really creative displays hoping to capture your attention. Which is not easy because this thing is huge. Big. Ginormous. Sneakers required. Except by the people who run the thing—they used Segways.

Not only were there about a zillion people at Global, there were a surprising number of dog attendees. Some were acting like dogs.

Others, not so much.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Hummingbirds are Mother Nature’s tiny little helicopter birds. They spend their days zooming around from flowers and hummingbird feeders and avoiding been seen by certain people (not naming names–you know who you are).

Despite their small size, hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive bird species. They will regularly attack jays, crows and hawks that infringe on their territory. Backyard birders often have one dominant hummingbird that guards all the feeders, chasing intruders away.

They are the smallest birds in the world (and in the galaxy as far as I can tell), but for their size they have the largest hearts and brains of all animals. Don’t try to train a hummingbird–they spend all that brain power searching for food (kind of like the Puppy).

Unlike the Puppy, they have no sense of smell, which makes it amazing that they visit between 2,000 to 5,000 flowers a day. But they have to visit that many mini-restaurants because they eat twice their weight each day. They do not suck nectar through their long bills, they lick it with tiny fringed forked tongues. That is a lot of eating. They also eat an occasional insect for protein.

The do all this eating because they work hard. They beat their wings up to 60 times–per second. Per second. This is Olympic rate my friend. And their teeny weeny little hearts beat between 500 and 1,200 times per minute. You’d eat a lot if your body worked that hard.

I’m trying to convince my metabolism to pay attention.

Hummingbirds cannot walk, they can only perch (tiny feet are useful for efficient flying). They are the only birds capable of flying backward. When they fly forward, their average speed is 45 miles per hour.
The ruby-throated hummingbird flies 500 miles nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico during the spring and fall migrations. Personally, I think they should consider a cruise, but none of them asked me.

Many hummingbird species can breed together to create hybrid species. This is one factor that makes identifying hummingbirds very challenging.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I was in Atlanta last week, so I did what people who visit Atlanta do.

For lunch, we ate BBQ while we admired the Twin Smokers and photographed staff TShirts.

Then I went to visit The Shrine of My People.

Yes, I went to The World of Coca-Cola, more informally known (to me) as the Home of Diet Coke.

As a museum, World o’ Coke, um, kinda sucks. They happily leave out pieces of the story and stop narratives right when they’re about to get interesting.

As a marketing machine, The World of Coca-Cola is stupendous.

One gets a free sample drink (there are a couple of options—guess what I picked) before being given an into to Coca-Cola Land.

Then one is ushered into a theater where they show a 6 minute movie. Six tiny little minutes. And I kid you not, Child, when I tell you that I cried. Not sobbing hysterically, but real tears running down my cheeks. I was impressed with their ability to pull heartstrings like that.

Then more meh museum, the opportunity to pose with the Polar Bear (introduced into the C-C marketing mix in the US in 1993; personally, I’m more a fan of teaching the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony, but you probably don’t know what that means). I declined the opportunity to look worse than a bear in a photo.

Coke bottle art (very cool stuff, but I’m a fan of things like that), and then into the tasting room. Angels sing in the tasting room. The world is at peace in the tasting room. (Aside from the 4 billion people—and I was there on a very not-crowded day. And the sticky floor.)

The tasting room boasts dispensers offering beverage that Coca-Cola manufactures in different parts of the world. It was great fun.

And then I saw it. In the North America section. Mixed in with the Diet Cokes and Powerades.

My first Love.

My first real long-term commitment.

The reason I woke up in the morning and went into the garage in the afternoon.

TAB.

The first (in my world) diet soda.

I dispensed some TAB into my cup. I drank. Bubbles fizzed and memories rode in on little carbonation scooters. The angels reached a crescendo. The world stopped turning.

It. Was. Awesome.

Then on to the store where people were rapidly parting with coin in order to have Coca-Cola bottle openers, plates, and luggage tags.

I thought of you when I saw the FANTA! shirts (Fluffy!). I did not buy you one. Even though they were scented. Or possibly because they were scented.

It was freezing in Atlanta (wind chill negative everything) but I walked back to the hotel warm and happy.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Pay Attention!

Today is not the day to go around with your earbuds in and the tunes on High. Today is a day to be vigilant! To Watch One’s Back (and front). To beware of small green people (not the leprechaun type).

That’s right–today is Alien Abduction Day.

We’re not entirely sure why; presumably the people that know why aliens prefer abducting people on March 20th are currently elsewhere, planetarily speaking.

Back in the dim recesses of time (and by “dim recesses of time” I mean 2008), Toronto hosted an Alien Abduction Festival. Some people say that’s where the holiday originated.

If we delve further back in time (and by “further back in time” I mean 1961), Betty and Barney Hill were driving along a dark and deserted road (aren’t they always) in New Hampshire when they saw flashing lights in the sky which turned into a spacecraft. Two bipedal humanoid creatures emerged. Two hours later, Betty and Barney found themselves in the same spot with no memory of what happened.

It was the early 60s, but IT WAS THE 60s! What do you think happened?

Let the research continue…

Way, way back in time (and this time I’m referring to November 1896) Colonel HG Shaw was driving through the countryside (told you it’s always on the dark and deserted byways), when he came across a landed spacecraft.

And I quote:

Shaw described it as having a metallic surface which was completely featureless apart from a rudder and pointed ends. He estimated a diameter of 25 feet and said the vessel was around 150 feet in total length.  

These beings were 7 feet tall and very slender with small hands, fingers without nails, and feet that twice as long as normal and functioned similar to a monkey’s feet, according to Shaw’s description.

All of the beings carried with them a bag of some kind with a hose which they often stuck in their mouths, obviously to breath with. Although there was still some daytime left, the beings also carried with them egg-shaped lamps which glowed.

They approached from the craft while “emitting a strange warbling noise.” The beings reportedly examined Shaw’s buggy and then tried to physically force him to accompany them back to the airship.

The aliens were said to give up after realizing they lacked the physical strength to force Shaw onto the ship.  

They entered the hovering cigar UFO by springing up from the ground and above their craft, and then floated down into the craft through an unseen entry. Soon, the object flew away.

Clearly, this was part of the Martian frat hazing from the days before stricter rules were put in place.

All of these stories are bunk and bologna. We know this because of the detailed notes taken by JJ Neanderthal, one of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Neanderthal’s less idiotic offspring.

It seems that one day, a spaceship landed while Mrs. Joe Neanderthal was cleaning up the cave. The neighbors were coming for dinner and she was trying to straighten up the dirt to make a good impression. The children were not helping and Joe was off hunting something for dinner.

Being that kind of neanderthal, Mrs. Joe ignored the spacecraft until a small purple martian emerged (my story–they can be purple). Mrs. Joe immediately recognized another being to put to work and handed the martian a broom. The martian asked a series of complicated questions including when the wall-to-wall carpet was arriving. Mrs. Joe handled the inquiry the only reasonable way and punched the little dude.

When he came to, the martian was in his spaceship with no idea how he’d gotten there, but a very good idea about not visiting with Mrs. Joe again.

Once this was reported, martian explorers have headed in other directions where they presumably don’t get punched.

Happy Alien Abduction Day.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

If you were crazy enough to be on an airplane at 5:30am this past Saturday to fly to Baltimore only to return that evening on a 10pm flight, you might find yourself tired. You might also find that you didn’t exactly get to see much of Charm City except the Convention Hall, a little bit of the wharf area, and a public transportation rail stop (even though you didn’t get to ride the train because after half an hour of waiting in the cold someone announced that an SUV had sideswiped a LINK car and there wouldn’t be any trains for at least an hour, at which point the Committee reconvened and decided that Lyft was a viable option after all).

Not to worry. I am here to tell you all sorts of interesting things about Baltimore.

You may know that Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem while watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. (Ft. McH is in Baltimore.) Because of this Great Achievement, FSK is honored before every major sporting event, after every gold medal, and on other patriotic occasions. They also named a bridge after him (the cleverly named Francis Scott Key Bridge) which is the third longest continuous truss bridge in the country. (I don’t know what a continuous truss bridge is, but I’m sure Francis’ mom is very proud.)

The first professional sports organization in the United States, The Maryland Jockey Club, was formed in Baltimore in 1743.

Thought: What did people sing at the start of sporting events prior to 1812?

The first US umbrella factory was built in Baltimore in 1828. People who went to sporting events prior to 1828 often got rained on.

The first post office system in the US was in Baltimore in 1774. Postal workers don’t care about rain or snow or umbrellas.

During the 1800s, Baltimore served as the second greatest port of entry for United States immigrants.

In 1844, the first telegraph line in the world was established between WDC and Baltimore. In 1845, parents began complaining that their children were spending too much time on the telegraph and the world was coming to an end.

Lots of famous people were born in, lived in, and/or died in Baltimore. Some of them even knew the words to the Star Spangled Banner.

The first dental school in the world was founded in Baltimore in 1840. Your teeth are grateful.

The first successful manned balloon launch in the United States was in Baltimore in 1784. It was operated by 13-year-old Edward Warren who was really just trying to escape his parents’ complaints about his teeth.

Love, Mom