An outing with my parents is always a highlight. In some ways the family dynamic has remained consistent for many years. We went to a place we've been to countless times before; a neighborhood diner. I got a sandwich. Not an adventurous eater, I. It's often a sandwich of some sort. But I know what I like. I don't want eating to be an adventure, like battling all odds to trek across the Sahara in the blazing heat (though I do enjoy a good dessert now and then). Eating is about comfort where I'm concerned and above all comfort is about the familiar. I had a root beer too. Kuwait was where I discovered soda as well as other aspects of American consumer culture. Late 1990s Cartoon Network, with its mostly Hanna-Barbara entourage, was big over there. You learn something new every day though rarely something worth knowing. This is more like the post-information age.

I recently find myself fixating, as I so often do, on a particular problem or phenomenon. Now it's the Tintin comic book adventure "Flight 714". It's depiction of air travel captivated me long before I experienced the real thing and it's "ancient astronauts" theme was something that caught my fancy. I developed quite a fixation on the paranormal as a child. Some of it's still left. I like studying each comic panel and appreciating the touches that make it a work of art. I like trying out the human expressions and poses that the different characters demonstrate. And I simply adore Herge's written dialogue. When I come across a line I like I play it again and again in my head to discover what essence of it I appreciate.