Hints and Guesses

You’ve been dying to know more about the products that fill (and fulfill) my life. To meet the demand, I’ve created The Be Like Ducky Store (also seen in the sidebar). Yes, you too can be like Ducky! You’ll (eventually) find it to be a handy guide to what to get yourself for your birthday (especially) or Christmas (when necessary). All proceeds go straight to the Ducky Plastic Surgery Fund.

We’ve had a great time already in the day and a half I’ve been here in Arizona. Yesterday there was some juggling and balloon-animal making (I am clearly better at making balloon swords) and two episodes of Series 1 of Doctor Who. Today, a holiday, there was more Doctor Who, The Princess Bride (new for both The Girl and The Boy, and it was a hit), and later a late afternoon visit to the Desert Botanical Garden, where the sun set and the moon rose before we left the owls and jackrabbits behind.

However, as exciting and fun as all of this was, nothing can top something The Boy casually tossed off. Farts are funny, you know, to children, and after The Girl let one off in the car, I (for no good reason) suggested that they learn how to say “fart” in several other languages.

“How do you say “fart” in Spanish?” I asked her. She began to tell me how she didn’t know, but then a small voice piped up from the back seat.

“Fartita,” The Boy said, thereby creating an instant classic.

For a more uplifting take on the day’s events, visit Thursday Drive, where she is too hoity-toity to talk about fartitas.

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…