Pure Joy

The new Academy of Sciences, which re-opened last September, features a four-story, sustainable rainforest, where visitors can move from below sea level, with large fish swimming over head, up through photic layers inhabited by snakes, exotic frogs, dragons and birds, butterflies, toads, and caterpillars, among other creatures.

Nearby is the "swamp," with a giant tortoise and alligators, plus a penguin habitat, which we visited at feeding time.

One of my own favorite young scientists accompanied me as we visited the new facility for the first time yesterday, and we were mesmerized. He's not always the talkative type but his words came out in long, excited paragraphs about what we were seeing.

I broke my self-imposed spending freeze on non-essentials to buy an annual membership, because this is going to have been only the first of many visits we make.

Overnight, in San Francisco, our drought finally broke with a steady rain that continued most of today. My homeless buddy, Gonzo, has been given a City-run hotel room, where he gets three meals a day and is out of the cold nights that have followed our deceptively warm days. These nights are particularly hazardous for alcoholics, as drinking gives a false sense of warmth even when their bodies are badly chilled.

My contractor buddy, Pete, is wondering why so many of the Congressmen who enthusiastically offered hundreds of billions of dollars to financial institutions are now resisting passing a similar bailout for "little guys" like him. The home improvement business that keeps guys like him busy has slowed to a trickle.

He can no longer afford the team of employees he'd assembled for larger jobs; the increases in the cost of liability insurance alone forced him to downsize back to just himself, so now he can only take on small jobs.

He's exactly the kind of small business operator both political parties blab about on the campaign trail and then promptly ignore once they take office.

The teachers at my kids' school voted for their salaries to be frozen, so they can continue to offer a broad range of classes to the students.

The drug dealers are operating even more boldly nowadays. These guys continue to do a brisk business, as do the liquor stores and the cigarette stands.

Gas prices stay low. Since I no longer commute, this barely affects me. No doubt when and if I find a job to drive to again, gas prices will rise, ensuring that my personal financial fortunes remain inextricably intertwined with those of the oil industry.

There's nothing green about any of this, which is why I'll be headed back into that humid rainforest again soon. And I don't even like saunas...

-30-