February 1: Ballet, Henry Fussy, New Cartoon

I just got home from my daughter's ballet recital.  She was beautiful.  Tall, poised, and graceful.  I sat in the auditorium, watching her glide and leap across the stage.  I remembered her first recital at age five, when she wore a purple tutu and bossed the other dancers around.  Loudly.  I remembered how small she looked, too.  Tonight, she looked so...not small.  Grown up.

Mrs. Arable experiences the same thing in Charlotte's Web when she spies Fern on the Ferris wheel with a certain person of the opposite sex:

The children felt refreshed after their nap.  Fern met her friend Henry Fussy, and he invited her to ride with him in the Ferris wheel.  He even bought a ticket for her, so it didn't cost her anything.  When Mrs. Arable happened to look up into the starry sky and saw her little daughter sitting with Henry Fussy and going higher and higher into the air, and saw how happy Fern looked, she just shook her head.  "My, my!" she said.  "Henry Fussy.  Think of that!"

I understand how Mrs. Arable feels.  Except, when I saw my daughter in her white costume, dancing across the stage with a wedding veil on her head, I didn't think "My, my!"  I thought, "Holy shit!"  I'm the father of a teenage girl, and she's gorgeous.  Time to arm myself against all the Henry Fussy types headed my way.

Grown up or not, Saint Marty's daughter is going to be banished to a convent very soon.  It worked for Mother Teresa.

Confessions of Saint Marty