What made you smile today?

Awwwwwww!

And good day yourself!

Oh, I can warm up to pretty much any dog, especially if it's still a baby. (Even chihuahuas, though I haven't met a Chinese crested in person, yet.) E.G.'s still the issue, and he's not quite there yet though the distance from here to there is shorter than it's ever been.

A typo today: Fugitive Salve Law.

I think I've read that some goodly part of the allergies to dogs or cats have to do with their saliva, and their licking their coats. - but I haven't looked that up lately. If so, the hairless crested might not be such a solution. (I could look it up, wonder if they are better.)

WARNING TO "THE HAMPTON'S": WHITE TRASH ALERT!
Andy, one of my main employees, asked to have a long weekend off. He and his lady were invited to join her folks in "the Hampton's" courtesy of Katie's dad's boss.
Andy is a redneck. He buys his clothes at the Salvation Army store. His hair, today, was red and blue. Not totally spiked; more of a wilted spiking. He has tattoos.
He is going to the Hampton's and yall and I are not. He is, I submit, the only Republican Goth in America, but that is another story.
Andy is a fitness freak: gym 3-4 times a week followed by a 3-mile run. I suggested that that might not be such a good idea this weekend. He agreed.
He had never heard of "the Hampton's." He looks forward to seeing some celebs wearing big, floppy hats and huge sunglasses pretending to wanting to look anonymous but hoping to appear on the cover of a tabloid.

What made me smile today?

A return to A2K!

A saturday afternoon moment, realization that my family is fed and no one really has to be anywhere or do anything. In that moment time slowed ,I felt so rich and so lucky.

You are making that up, aren't you?
No? I had never heard that before.
When I was a lad I hitch-hiked around the UK, Europe, Asia and Africa.
I was told that, in the UK, there was a different connotation between "getting a lift" and "getting a ride." The latter is American.
True? Or were they pulling my hampton?

That's good, give the lad trouble, he needs it, RJB.

Pushing a grocery cart, all but alone in the aisle, I stopped to label read. There’s, oh, say, about a foot between me and the shelves. Out of the blue, some guy, maybe 70ish, storms between me and the shelf, and fake shoulders me out of the way. Once he was by, he turned around with a big **** eating grin, looked me in the eye and told me he thought I was his grocery partner

Google "hampton slang".

I don't make things up. I'm a scientist.

That seems an extraordinarily silly thing to do.

Feeding little Sparta .

an email from the salesperson I just bought a car from - she closes by telling me I'm a great customer and she loves me

Skip over this post if you are looking for a smile.
I did college. I was not the brightest student. I made it. I survived.
And that was followed by Vietnam. I made it. I survived.
I got a job in corporate America, and I made it, with a good salary.
But then I did an extraordinarily silly thing. I went hitch-hiking for 5 years.
I saw stuff. I made it. I survived. I lived.
I lived in London for another year, hitchhiking still. I got a lift from a nice young couple, down towards Cornwall. I did my usual hitchhiker's thing: telling stories. Most folks who pick up hitchhikers want to be entertained.
I could do that while being only half-awake.
So, I was talking to this young couple, whipping out stories, when I made eye contact with each of them: she a clerk at a shipping company, he a teller at a bank. Sad eyes looking at me.
35 years on, I hope they are smiling.

Spendius, of course scientists make things up. Their principal function, I think, is to concoct testable hypotheses.

realjohnboy, you are now officially my hero.

What makes me smile today in retrospect was walking through the Harvard Arboretum with Jespah, Region Philbis, and Monterrey Jack, and noticing I'm almost completely blank on English tree names. I must have missed that day in school. As soon as I'm back in New Jersey, I need to work on my vocabulary.

May I ask who little Sparta is?

Well, I don't know, Thomas. I agree with you that Blutbuche is much more descriptive than European Beech (by the way, how do you get those italics in your post?)