First of all, our nearly ignored cat, Carma, continues to bring us gifts from the wild. Ben said he found a dismembered rat in the yard yesterday and today I found, with both children present, a headless baby bunny… and an ear. Ew. I know! EW! Art seemed unphased that the baby bunny had no head. Or that a bunny ear was just laying there inches away. I explained that Carma had probably hunted and captured that bunny. Now we would bury it in the ground so its body to turn into dirt and make new things. We've been watching a lot of nature shows. Hunting and killing seems pretty well accepted at this point. Maybe not completly understood, but accepted.

On the subject of nature shows, we were watching Planet Earth, Deep Ocean and Art asked, "Why do fish need to be in the water and why do they die if they're not in the water and why does the water need fish?" I explained that all things that are alive need something called oxygen and fish get their oxygen from the water. People get their oxygen from the air.

"Why can't fish be out of the water?" he asked again.

"Because they can only breathe the oxygen in the water. We breathe the oxygen in the air."

"How does a tiger breathe?"

"He breathes the air."

I don't know. I just loved that he randomly wanted to know about a tiger after all that fish talk.

Don’t tell Art.

Lewis is taking a nap in his bed today… –Sent from my handheld device.–

Much easier on Lewis’s neck.

The last day or so Lewis has been saying, “Uh huh” while he nods his head for yes. Today he’s nodding less and “uh-huh”-ing more. Altogether a lot easier on his neck.

Date night!?!?

Last night I went to opening night of the Minnesota Opera with my friend Amy. Black tie! The opera was good, but not a great one (Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers). It was kind of predictable for a an opera – love triangle, broken vows of chastity, death sentence, last minute remorse and the final death of somebody. Great people watching in all the fancy clothes and great conversations afterwards about the strange costume and set choices. All together a nice night out!

Me and my friend Norton.

Today I stopped by the trade show of the Midwest Booksellers Association in St. Paul to see Norton Stillman at Nodin Press. He publishes lots of great books, including one I put together from the columns I did at the Pioneer Press called Ant Farm. I’m honored that he liked the work enough to publish it, and it’s even better to have made a good friend along the way.

ECFE class this morning.

Edinborough Park.

Today we had planned a trip to the apple orchard but rain diverted us to the huge indoor play park in Edina. It’s excessive and huge and quite fun. Some 6 or 7 stories of slides and bridges and balls. Lewis was much braver than Art, zipping down slides and climbing up things before Art. In some ways Lewis helps Art do things he wouldn’t normally, or at least as quickly.

Here’s a short slidshow of poor Lewis. He recovered quickly to slide again.

This is a photo of their website that gives a better overall sense of the thing.

Art practiced shooting for a quite a while and become quite good (although Jess and I were both quite a bit better). He made the shot photographed here.