When I was an intern in Boston I had one friend (little Monkey)


But little Monkey had to go set track records at Harvard sometimes so I did spend a lot of time alone.

For Easter my family flew out to visit:

That's right, Plymouth, MA to see the Pilgrim village.

Turns out the village was closed in the Winter but the Pilgrim Museum was open.
When I heard there were wax figures in the museum telling the story of how we stole America (don't get all excited, I'm not getting into that) I refused to go in. You all know how I feel about these guys:


But my dad bribed me with a bet. If I took the wax figure tour and read the plaques which coincide with each scene and answered one question about it correctly, he'd fly out one friend to visit me for a weekend. And me being so lonely, I agreed. But our dad once tricked Ash and I to watch this

on an airplane because HE wanted to watch it but was too embarrassed to watch it alone. He told us he would give us EACH 1 C-Note if we watched it all the way through and answered ONE simple question about the film. So we eagerly watch a dog movie thinking we're so smart and then the one question was: which national park was that stupid movie filmed in... We didn't watch the credits! Blah! Turns out it was Glacier National Park and I'll NEVER forget/ forgive it.

Remembering this painful story I took the wax figure tour very seriously.

Which became painful for obvious reasons.

I even started counting how many figures were in each scene in case it was a trick question.

Did you know those lame pilgrims brought cats over from England? One was a kitten and it made it all the way to stupid America.
Guess the cat's name?
Oh, that's OK, I didn't know it either but that was the question.
Who names a kitten 'Barnacle?'

In order to cheer me up, when we were in the Pilgrim museum gift shop my dad offered to buy me a replica of 'Barnacle.' I said OK only if he bought me a Pilgrim hat. Then he said he would only if I wore it that day. I think to his horror I DID wear it all day (and to this day on every Thanksgiving)

-- and someone even thought I was Amish.

After that my dad would bring an occasional present for Barnacle - like a cat bed or mouse toy. When my friend Shell met Barnacle she would pet him while she watched TV. Argh!

In the end, though that cat isn't so bad and I take him to every apartment I'm in.
And that's the story with my fake cat that looks stuffed.