Post 1 of 2 on a Special Day

OK Dear Reader, let's set the record straight, if anything can truly be straight in our curving, gently and otherwise, universe. Rather, let me apologize, first for not posting more stories of Shanghai and the Special Olympics World Summer Games, and second, for this not being one of those. Instead, this is one of these. I remember a couple of years ago half-jokingly telling Mischa, a.k.a. Ed, that I was thinking about getting another tattoo. His immediate response: "At your age Paul?" I credited him for his speedy retort, and that was the end of it, except for a couple of recountings of that particular conversation. It was, after all, quite humorous. Fast forward. Well, don't go too fast. Enjoy the journey forward. I don't know how else to put it Dear Reader, so here goes: today is tattoo day. After exhaustive, actually, quite cursory searching of online images of the cat, I settled on one. It happens to be from the box of Hello Kitty Meow-Berry Pop Tarts. Purrfect! I re-sized the image for what I wanted on my right calf, went to a tattoo parlor (?) , received a quote, and scheduled an appointment. After looking through artists' samples, I settled on one whose use of color far out-distanced the others. It was a bonus that his name is Splat.