Okay, okay, I guess I should explain about the cougars, shouldn't I.

When my daughter Lyra told her father that she was moving to Powell River, BC last week she explained to him that it was a small town where she could go practically everywhere on her bike. He told her she needed to be careful up there in the woods because a cougar could just leap out and take her right off that bike before she knew what was happening, and she'd be dead, quick, just like that. *snap fingers*

While the (uh, extremely remote) possibility exists that Lyra could be taken out by a cougar, we all thought this was the funniest, most off-the-wall thing he could have said to her in a gazillion years in the way of fatherly advice. Not "Dress warm, honey, it's cold up there" or "Do you have enough money for the trip" or even "When will you get down here to see me again," but "Them cougars will take you right OFF that bike."

So all the way up to PRBC we joked back and forth about being careful of the cougars. After about 11 hours of the trip we were all giddy and tired and the joking became even more bizarre, and I think it was eventually Jeremy that posed the idea of the aquatic cougars, but you could watch out for them because before they pounced you would hear the JAWS theme as a warning. Bah-dum. Bah-dum. Cougars in the frozen food section of the supermarket, cougars at the Walmart, cougars on the (and surrounding the) ferry (aquatic cougars can be differentiated from sharks because it's their little EARS that stick up out of the water, thank you Lyra for that visual!!), cougars lurking near every bike rack in town, just waiting to **pounce!** On the way home, FaeryAngel Lynne and Joelle and I were STILL joking about it, but I assured them that since we had no bicycles in or on the car, we SHOULD be safe, which sent us into another endless fit of giggling.

Oh jeez, we are going to be able to joke about this for YEARS, man, YEARS.