So this morning Grace comes home from Grandparents, stopping with Daddy Cy at the store to get fingerpaints. Oh, some food, too.
Anyway, she’s using a paintbrush with the fingerpaints (Yay! Less mess!) when the brush falls off the table.
Paint-valanche!
she called out. I still hear myself whenever she opens her mouth…and I find myself wondering if she even knows the word “avalanche” that this particular recurring wordplay derives from.
Now, we go back to Friday. Conversation turned to ST:TNG, in particular, the poem about Data‘s cat, Spot, Ode to Spot. Why, you might ask? Oh, yes, now we go back a few weeks. We Grace got a new kitten 
, and named it Thunder. End second level of recursion, so back to last Friday…
While researching the Spot Ode, I pulled out the one and only DVD of ST:TNG edpisodes we have, The Picard Collection. The entire reason we bought it was for The Inner Light – the only Hugo award winning television episode of anything in the past 35 years.
I haven’t watched this episode for years — I can tell from my emotional state. I remember it being good, but not this good. Especially the scene with the daughter growing up (which everyone is still quoting 15 years later).
Seize the time, Meribor. Live now; make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.
I love you, father.
That scene hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks after the “Paint-valanche” moment.