Long Beach Aquarium

Yesterday, my mother, Marie-France, and I took Little Charles to the Long Beach Aquarium. It's officially called The Aquarium of the Pacific, but everyone seems to call it The Long Beach Aquarium, which sounds (to me, anyway)more descriptive and less pretentious.

It was really nice! I was surprised by how many exhibits they were able to have in a relatively small space. There was even a nice exhibit with shorebirds, that I particularly enjoyed. Little Charles liked seeing all the colorful fish, and was entranced by a scuba diver who was literally swimming with the sharks while cleaning their tank (apparently, all these tanks require A LOT of maintenance)! We adults delighted in watching Little Charles experience these new sights for the first time. Seeing the world through the eyes of a child is indeed to discover it anew!

When we were driving back, I mentioned to my mother that I liked to kayak in Alamitos Bay (located in Long Beach). To my surprise, she told me that her late father, my grandfather, used to kayak in Alamitos Bay in the 1950s and 1960s! Wow, what a coincidence! She told me that I have a lot of his personality traits (adventurous, hard-working, etc.), but that I'm a nicer person. Well, that's a compliment! But I think that heredity is stronger than we as a society might want to admit--lots of unusual little traits do get passed down, and we are by no means blank slates. Little Charles, for example, looks a lot like DH, and has a similarly mischievous smile. But he has more of my calmer disposition. Watching him grow up is a form of self-revelation for both of us!

Best Wishes,


Jen