out of the mouth of babes ...

" I know what skin your friend is in " , this says my 5 year old after I told him one of my teammates he didn't know had supported me at a triathlon , "which ?" " Brown " , he said feeling immensely proud he had deciphered a sight unseen puzzle . Lessons are caught rather than taught ?

By the way I do black , yellow and white as well .

highly recommend

This past Saturday , the entire family went out to Philly to see the Morris Arboretum . My teenage son wanted to know why two and a half hours to see gardens? I'll tell you what I told him , it's good info
for you as well -

1. Quality time
2. an excuse for a daytrip out of town
3. maybe one of the last nice weekends in summer before the chill
4. very creatively designed and laid out gardens including a tree exhibit , garden railroading ( extensive )
5. and an opportunity to do some family photos ( although we didn't know that till after )

So saying it's not cheap , cost us close to $50 for the two hours we were there and we saw about 75% of the gardens .
But then again not everything can be measured in dollars and cents ...

The many faces of english

As a person who is interested and fascinated by languages , I have always lamented my immigrant parents choosing toronto over montreal as their landing point . By this time I would have been hopefully trilingual . As english is the universal language of commerce and diplomacy , english could well have been my second or third rather than mother tongue .

But honestly how many would trade the complexities and subtleties of english for any other language . It takes a lifetime of immersion to understand American vs Caribbean vs African english for example . So many different contexts.

Here's one that made me smile recently found in an ethnic paper - "Blab it and Grab it". Definately an international play on the spiritual american version , - "Just name it and Claim it".