"Remember when I took that wine tasting lesson and I forgot how to drive?" - Homer, The Simpsons

The bubbles . . . they terrify me . . . every since one of them ate my cousin.

Since our friends were out working and going to school and such, we went to the local museum district in Albuquerque. My favorite museum in the area is the National Atomic Museum – and when they say “atomic” they mean “boom.” In my mind, there’s not much that can be more fun than hanging out with atomic weapons.

Deferring to the ankle biter set, we headed instead to ¡Explora!, which is a hands-on kid’s science museum, and really (really) inexpensive. Sure, I’m all for the edumacation of my childrens, but I do have a budjet.

We went into the museum, and The Boy immediately went into a frenzy of scientific inquiry, formulating independent and mathematically correct theorems of everything from erosion rates in post-cretaceous sedimentary rock formations to a theory that if he connected a bunch of wires up to a power supply some stuff would happen, to a theory that if he jumped an laughed maniacally while making bubbles, that would somehow make him happier.

As we were in the midst of examining what my body looks like through the lens of an infrared camera (don’t ask), my long time friend and partner in crime, (I’ll call him “John”, since, well, that’s his name, too) sat down beside me and began talking to The Boy. I was somewhat startled that a random person would sit down and began talking to The Boy, and, as I was about to blow my emergency whistle and scream, “Stranger, stranger, I don’t know you!” I looked and saw it was my friend. Whew. That would have been an embarrassing explanation. I think what threw me off was the khakis.


The fountain at ¡Explora! almost looks alive, especially when it rubs against your leg and purrs.

Anyhow, we explored the rest of ¡Explora!, looking at sound waves, blowing bubbles, and, in general, wondering why some people think that science is difficult. We finally finished, and went back to our cars. John took The Boy with him, and we went back toward his place.

As The Mrs., Pugsley and I drove down I-40 my cell phone rang. It was John. (Not John-Me, but my friend John). Anyhow, John warned me that the traffic was horrid on I-40, and proposed a circuitous route that would take me through six counties and two alternate dimensions to get to his house.

I stayed on I-40. Sure, traffic got a smidge slow, but it was better than traffic in Houston during the non-rush hours. We got to his house about 10 minutes before he did, and didn’t have to worry about bringing soul-sucking creatures from another dimension back with us.

We went to his backyard and watched as our boys played. The nice thing about having friends like our hosts is that the conversation seems to pick up right where it left off, be it a hour ago, or three years ago.

We laughed, we talked, we went out for dinner.

Our respective Mrs. finally went off to bed, and John and I talked through several bottles of very good Pinot Noir.

The next morning, we packed up, again time to move down the road, and meet up with Pop Wilder in the bunker he keeps high in and undisclosed location in the Rockies.

Would I remember the password, or would his trained squad of attack deer rip us to shreds?