I took Mack to the aquarium today, which means I got lots of pictures of the back of his head. If you're visiting Atlanta, the Georgia Aquarium is worth a visit, even though it costs thirty-three squijillion dollars to get in and if your kids are prone to fits of sulky boredom and want to leave after forty-five minutes (as Cal did one time) it will be very hard not to calculate the dollars-per-minute ratio of your visit and start getting chest pain. I just ended up getting a membership--the membership fee costs less than the price of two adult tickets, so if you're planning on going more than once in the next 12 months it's probably worth it. Also, I think kids 3 and under are free, so bring as many babies as you want, or else cram your five year old into a onesie and try to sneak him in. (Not that I am condoning ticket fraud, but let's just say I was very small for my age and I think my parents were able to get me in at the movies at the kid's price well past my fourteenth birthday.)
Mack, looking delicious. Apparently, this shark concurs.
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Sorry to be doing so much self-promotion, I am vaguely sheepish about it, and though I realize that it needs to be done (I always think of that scene in "The West Wing" where Josh Lyman insists that the president's staff does not take curtain calls--I think this goes double in medicine, since most of the good outcomes that we get credit for are entirely due to the patient's own physiology or strength of will), as I have discussed before, self-promotion makes me feel weird.
But! Yesterday I got an e-mail from a reader with info that I thought I should pass along to the international readers at large. Apparently "This Won't Hurt a Bit (and Other White Lies)" is available for pre-order at a site called The Book Depository, which offers free worldwide shipping. Yes, even Vatican City, I checked! (Hi, Your Holiness.) So if you don't live in the U.S., it could be worth checking out. Big thanks to Lurkette in Israel for the nice e-mail and the heads up!