I paid 10 pesos to take this picture of Lauren with the llama in Santiago. As we were walking away, the llama’s owner came running after us waiving a 10-peso bill and yelling “Falso!” He said I paid him with counterfeit money so I gave him another 10. Only later did I realize he’d swapped my original, real 10-peso bill with the counterfeit one and conned me out of another 10.
I think Emerson said that nature balances living beings’ character and abilities. Consider the shark. Small ones are vicious while the 20-foot whale shark eats only plankton. Aggressiveness and the ability to cause mayhem tend to balance. Fortunately, the same holds true with people. I’ve known several 200-pound weightlifter types but all had sweet dispositions.
I suggest keeping this in mind when naming a dog. Balance the name’s machismo the viciousness of the breed. Attila the Corgi and Cuddles the Pit Bull would be in harmony while Daisy the Yorkie or Heinrich the Doberman would not.
The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics published my article on the statistics of submitting poems and stories to small-press journals. To download a copy go here.