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How it Happened


Jao's father needed some sleep
because the days are long, 
and sometime the nights are even longer.
So, today, we had the little Energizer Bunny
over for a few hours.

"I need to go to the hardware store,"
I told Mari, 
(because Mari dearly wants an owl nest
in our backyard--something, you know,
to keep us all awake while the rest of the world sleeps).

"Let's take Jao!", she said.
"It is about time the little tad
was introduced to a Big Box Hardware and Lumber store!
He should know something about family traditions."

And there he is, 
all but in an orange bucket,
off to see the mid-winter plants,
not so much because we need mid-winter plants,
but because he thinks that nothing
is more fun than a stroll through a new world.

Mari took him to the plants
because we know from our own yard experience
that he loves the smell, look, and feel of new things,
and that the world outside
is an absolutely endless array
of things he has not yet smelled or seen or heard.

"Would you like me to take a picture of both of you?"
another Home Depot pilgrim asked Mari.  
"The woman who is now my wife told me
that I should take the baby with me when I went to the store
because it would inevitably result
in a conversation with young women.
And now I am just trying to show my appreciation, 
and I have a camera like that, anyway."

click!

And that is how it happened.


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