DASHED DREAMS

             This is the season when we see the most butterflies, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.  I’ve always loved them and even bought a butterfly hatching kit so I could contribute to Monarch numbers. Okay, that didn't work out as no Monarchs came to lay eggs there, but I’ve also planted native milkweed, a purple Butterfly Bush, and tons of flowers butterflies love.

            So, it was no surprise when St. Bob—wait, just Bob this time—pointed to one of them as it dipped and fluttered through the yard. Up and down, as if riding on bubble of air, it would swerve one way and then another.

            “Butterflies always fly like they’re drunk,” he said.

            And I watched as it staggered through the air, exactly as if it had been drinking.

            Is this what nectar does to them?  Has anyone even checked? Maybe this is why they’re so crazy about my zinnias. Maybe there’s even a secret group called Caterpillars Against Drunk Flying.  We don’t know, do we?

            I thought about my childhood, chasing butterflies and laughing into the wind. They were probably drunk, too. I mean, they flew like it.

            I just never realized it until Bob decided to spoil my butterfly watching for the rest of my life. Now I’ll see them bobbing about and worry that they’re going to hit a tree.

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What If There Was No Zero?

          Did you know that there is no Roman numeral for zero?  Zero wasn’t even considered until it was put forward by Western mathematics.

          Well, I, for one, was aghast. How could they not have zero? What did they call it when they ran out of cookies? Or money?  Did they just stop speaking and writing?

          So, I looked it up, and I must tell you, the answer was not very satisfying. Experts say their additive system was for the business of pricing and trading goods. What—are you telling me no one ever got cheated and was down to zero? Or had zero goods left to sell?

How could you even have a decimal system, algebra, or calculus? How could scientists measure anything? How could computer science even have been invented?

          Guess when else you get zero answers? When you search “common uses of zero.”  You get a list of grammar sites that describe the Zero Article in English. These are times when we don’t use A, An, or The.  And they are super obvious, not worth having a huge explanation. (We don’t use them when we say college, winter, today, midnight, and probably hundreds of other times we omit articles.)

          So, not only was the poor little zero ignored by the Romans, but by today’s entire computer system as well.     

          And, for this, I give both of them a big, fat ZERO.

However, I will give you 100% if you join 10K of my subscribers, on my Youtube Mom Channel, filled with fabulous, short life hacks.