Little Things

• An elephant goes through a total of 6 sets of teeth during its lifetime. The most common cause of death among old elephants is hunger, when the sixth set of molars wears out. A single elephant tooth can weigh more than 11 pounds and measure 12 inches long. The tusks on male elephants are actually modified incisors.
• No, elephants cannot jump. They are the only mammals that cannot jump. However, they can swim! Water in lakes and rivers supports them and enables them to swim long distances without tiring. They walk on tip-toe, because the back portion of their feet is made up of all fat and no bone. The movements of the AT-ATs (All Terrain Armored Transport) in Star Wars movies are based on walking patterns of actual elephants.
• The elephant’s trunk has about 15,000 muscles. This powerful organ, which combines both nose and upper lip, is strong enough to uproot a tree, sensitive enough to pick up a pea-sized fruit from the ground, and long enough to reach leaves in trees.
• Humans normally cannot hear elephants communicate because about two-thirds of the sounds they use are below the human hearing range: between 14 and 35 hertz. These sounds may carry for distances of up to 10 miles. Recently, it has been found that elephants can also communicate by stomping their feet and emitting low rumbling, both of which generate seismic waves in the ground that can travel nearly 20 miles along the surface of the earth. Elephants may be able to sense these vibrations through their feet.
• Once every four years, adult female elephants give birth. Pregnancy lasts 22 months. Healthy, full-grown elephants have no natural enemies other than humans. In the past, they have been slaughtered solely for their ivory tusks. During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allied Forces killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
• Never forgets. It is said that an elephant never forgets. In fact, elephants do have remarkable memories. Elephants remember for years the relationships they make with other elephants, even if they see each other only occasionally. In the wild, they remember places to drink and to find food. Remarkably, this information gets passed on from generation to generation.
• You weigh less than a newborn baby elephant. After 22 months growing inside its mother’s womb, a newborn baby elephant weighs more than the average adult human being. They, of course, grow to be the largest terrestrical animal and the largest land-mamal on earth. Female calves weigh 198 to 221 pounds, while males are heavier and weigh up to 265 pounds.

Today is Elephant Appreciation Day.

references:
encarta.msn.com., www.corsinet.com, www.elephant.se, ww.iucn.org, www.phoenixzoo.org, www.seaworld.org, scifi.about.com, www.worldalmanacforkids.com

The trouble with happiness, they say, is that you don’t know it when you have it — you remember it. But what if you don’t remember it, does it mean you were never really happy? What if, by the time you remember it, you are amidst times so dark happiness doesn’t mean anything anymore? Does the memory of happiness just drift away, gone forever?

I used to think that people can never be too happy, as long as they deserve it. I don’t know now. I think I deserve some happiness, too, but why does it elude me?

How do you get happiness, anyway? Is it given to you because you deserve it, like a prize for doing something good? Is it given to you because are a good friend, brother, son, or parent? Do you just get lucky and have it, like a winning lottery ticket? Or do you work for it, like a goal you strive hard to achieve?

"Why do you have this obsession with unhappy things? There are so many things to be happy about," Ina scolds me. I wish I could be like you, Ina. I wish I could drive away unhappiness with the wave of a hand. Ah, but I think despondency is my twin brother. I was born with it and am destined to live with it.

The thought of a big truck running me over still haunts me, Anthony. Every time it gets me, I try hard to think of happy thoughts, like the big, tight hug my mama gives me on my birthday. At least that’s one happy thought I can hold on to. But that thought may be overused, what with the frequency of me feeling down these days.

It’s amazing what two words can do. They can turn a person you think you know very well into a perfect stranger.

I used to say you are the coolest guy I know. I realize now I have to take that back, along with the all the other nice things I said about you, along with all nice times that I must admit I shared with you.

I fucked up, all right. But doesn’t everyone, at one point or another? Still, friends don’t say that to each other. Oh, but then again, I doubt now if we ever were friends. Okay, you told me all about the superficial things about yourself. You eagerly told me about all your love interests and bragged about all your achievements. And I listened equally eagerly, if not more. But after everything, I realize I don’t even know you.

The true you, at least. You paraded a personality that could fool anyone. It’s all a masquerade. But the curtain’s down now. I applaud you for a wonderful performance. I saw everything – I was in the front row (with popcorn, as Alanis would want to say).

I apologized. You know I meant it. I explain myself and you slap with those two words. Hell, perhaps I deserve them. But that doesn’t matter any more, does it? You saw what a jerk I could become; I saw what an asshole you could become. I guess we’re quits.

The two other people involved in this brouhaha, more than you, deserve my apology. It is them, not you, whom I betrayed. It is they, not you, who have the right to hit me with those two words. But they did not. All they did was to make me realize the gravity and the effects of my blunder — and then accept my apology.

I guess sometimes life shows you know who your true friends are in the strangest of ways.

After everything, though, I have to admit I still owe you my own two words, words that may be the last thing I ever say to you, the way things look: I’m sorry.