Once again reporting from Seattle

That's not accurate, of course. Seattle doesn't get tornadoes like Alabama does. We are getting Seattle-level rainfall, though, with a likelihood of some heap bad weather this afternoon. Other areas of the state have already gotten it. What's that you say? Hurricane season starts June 1? Yay. I think we need to move.

I'm joking, of course. Every spot on Earth has its positives and negatives. If it's not rain and tornadoes, it's ginormous moths.

I'm not particularly an insectophobe, but I'll admit that such a creature alighting on my shoulder would probably make me spasm like a particularly girly five-year-old girl.

One insect thing that does always get me is walking into a spider web. It doesn't matter how much of my brain knows that there's a zillionth of a percent chance of such an encounter resulting in a serious spider bite, there are still a few neurons that didn't get the "Don't panic!" memo. Then, the rest of my brain gives in to peer pressure (evidently, the scared neurons are the cool kids, and the rest just want to be like them; if they jumped off a bridge...), and it's instant DefCon 1. Stand Operating Procedure for DefCon 1 is flailing around like a nuclear-powered gyroscope in an always futile attempt to free myself from the web strands. Such episodes don't last long, but they're still supremely embarrassing.

Moving on, here's what I heard in the thrift store last night from a young girl and her mother on the other side of a shelf from me.

"Those are albums."
"What are albums?"
"They're the way we used to listen to music."

And I aged a few more decades.

Technically, the woman should have explained that music is still packaged in albums, since an album is a collection of music. It's LPs that died, except for audiophiles who recognize that they're still the best option for rich, full sound. At least, that's what they've read in Condescending Music Geek Monthly. Personally, I think that the number of ear pairs capable of discerning a farthing's worth of difference between a CD and an LP is the same as the number of tongues capable of discerning the difference between a decent grocery store blend coffee and Sumatran-Algonquin Morning Glory coffee. But that's just me.

I will lament the demise of really good LP cover art, though. It's just not the same when you buy a CD or MP3. You need all those square inches to get the full effect of, say, ELO's "Out of the Blue." Why'd I ever throw away that LP? (Side note/warning: Disparage ELO within earshot of me at your peril. The later stuff reeked, but in their prime, they were excellent.)

Moving on, Jacob is this close to walking. He's at the jump door, and he's been prepped how to react once he's in the airstream, he just can't bring himself to leave the airplane. But he'll make the jump one day. In preparation of that day, he's fortifying himself with hearty meals and fruits, which he absorbs by osmosis after they're smeared all over his face and hair. We're raising an amoeba.

The amoeba is almost one year old. May 26, he'll clock the big 1. I understand it's customary to jump-start the national economy by inviting several thousand people (a good rule of thumb is everybody in every state that abuts your home state, plus Texas) to a birthday party that'll overwhelm him so much that he's crankier than Andy Rooney before the first slice of cake is passed around, but we're such iconoclasts that we're keeping the party list down in the single digits. I'm looking forward to spoiling the little good later, when he can understand what's going on, but when he's perfectly content to pass time by gnawing on his toes or planting his face in the bathwater, I see no reason to take out a second mortgage to fund the frolic.

I'm also looking forward to taking him fishing. I don't know why that activity, of all the ones he'll get to do, has me salivating, but the thought of snagging a bluegill or catfish with him has me all agog with anticipation. A few more birthdays, and I'll get to do it. Yay for me.