എന്ട്ലെസ്സ് wonder

The internet is a source of endless wonder. A random search (of Calvin and Hobbes) just now led me to the new found knowledge that a widget is available to tell you the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the New York Mets last put someone on the disabled list. I assume this is some wicked inside joke among Mets fans? Or less likely, a team trainer or opposition-team Voodoo specialist? Who came up with such a marvelous, random thing, and who maintains it???

The only thing that is a source of more endless wonder is our little Elena, currently crawling all over the case of her daddy's dead-mint condition FGB Ibanez Prestige guitar. She wants desperately for me to pick her up so that she can see the shelf where her favorite toy, a Made in China remote controlled dog, resides. He lives on that high shelf because he's dangerous! A super mega strangulation hazard, with his garrote-like, 18-something inch cord connecting pup with his yellow, bone-shaped plastic remote control. Eighteen inches is not terribly remote, but it was enough to absolutely MYSTIFY Elena the first time she and that pup met. At first, she would hold the dog lovingly... snuggle him enthusiastically while saying (I assume) "dog" over and over - something like "dugk dugk dugk!" But when you pressed the buttons that made the dog walk or bark, she would be shocked and suddenly push it straight out of her hands - pow! - and then stand over it, watching it writhe on the floor. It was like the scene in Dances with Wolves where the Indians taste sugar for the first time, or use Lt. Dunbar's telescope. No fear, necessarily - just the sudden abrupt "WTF" sort of response to something you'd never expect.

Luckily (or unfortunately?) poor Dog was rendered a quadriplegic during the journey back from Grand Haven; being stuffed into a suitcase with a week's worth of sandy clothes and underutilized bathing suits caused some wire to come lose somewhere, and now he only barks. All of the fear has gone out of Elena and his relationship, and she now barks back "brp brp brrrp!" whenever she sees him, or remembers that he is up on that shelf.