Sparks fly

Happy 2009 to my faithful readers (you two know who you are).

Stop number one in this new year: Milwaukee's lakefront. For the annual polar bear plunge, you may ask? It's at a beach; I will give you that. But you should know that my dislike of the cold trumps my love of the beach. My bare toes do not visit sand and fresh water outside of the happy months (June through September). They may visit salt water during the other months.

No, we watched kites and their humans participate in the kite festival at Veteran's Park... from the comfort of the car for the most part.

The day's other stop: Discovery World, to see sparks fly at Tesla Lives, a live theater show that gave us an enlightening refresher course on the development of electric power. Nikola Tesla's A/C power rocks because Edison's D/C power wouldn't roll far enough (sorry, couldn't resist). Oh, man. Moving on.

At home, due to a lack of water in the air (despite the sump pump staying out of hibernation), we've unwittingly been conducting our own demonstrations of static electricity. Fleece blanket plus fleece jacket plus laptop equals, um, let's be careful out there. Then the child discovered that flannel sheets plus fuzzy pajamas equals a lightning show of her very own, using mom as the ground for a shocking grand finale.

As we start the new year, I raise my mug of hot chocolate to warm memories of beach vacations taken during 2008, with many more to come (both warm memories and beach vacations, that is). Cheers.