While Mort was eating his breakfast, he asked me to read him a book about whales. So I did. And then I remembered I had pictures of real, live whales from 73 years ago when the economy was a bit different and Duke worked for a company that out of the blue said, "Hey! You're doing a great job! Here's an all-expenses paid trip to the Cape for a weekend."

And so we went on a whale watch and got to see two mother and calf whale combos. It was very exciting. And Mort thought it was pretty cool that we had pictures of whales in our photo album.

And that led to Mort looking through our photo album and marvelling at these strange creatures who are now his family. "Who is that?" he asked pointing to almost every picture of Duke, of my Mom, and of various dear friends he calls Uncles. A picture of my sister with very short platinum(well, we thought so at the time) blonde hair produced the gasp of, "She looks like a super pop star!" And no, Mort is not 109. I'm not really certain where the phrase super pop star originated.

And in an almost tie-in, have you ever seen the website myparentswereawesome? Because it's pretty awesome. People have uploaded pictures of their parents back in the day before they were parents, back in the day before they were stressed and weighed down by worry and responsibility and age and became bewildered by the crappy bands being played on the radio. (I mean, have you heard that ridonkulous Owl City song Fireflies? It makes me want to punch something every time it comes on.)

But that's what looking through the photo album with Mort reminded me of this morning. Because those pictures are only 12 or 13 years ago, but life was so different for us then, and we seem so young and bright-eyed and fresh and unencumbered that Mort could barely identify us as those nice, albeit slightly greying and crinkly-eyed folks who feed him and clothe him and read to him over breakfast. Goodness. So much nostalgia for a Monday morning.