I wake up to the radio because I’m less likely to smash things that don’t beep at me in the morning which means that occasionally I wake up to the day’s news report.

Yesterday morning was one of those days. I went from soundly sleeping to hearing the news that Stephen Hawking had died.  Slightly stunned I was still half in dream world contemplating the loss of a renowned physicist who’s physical limitations had inspired so many while the radio man jabbered on.

Artwork by Tooks. Did you know we made a book together? Link in the sidebar!

It seems there was another newsworthy death in the world, Sheela, the local zoo’s 25 year old camel, had died.  I sleepy blinked at the ceiling befuddled by the juxtaposition of deaths.  I wondered at the oddness of the pairing of world famous scientist and author’s death with that of Sheela the camel, as well as wondering what an average camel life span is*, when the radio continued.

This is not Sheela the camel.

I was then informed that “the saddest” news of the day was that Jordy something-I-already-forgot-and-I-only-remember-his-first-name-because-my-cousin-named-a-dog-after-him wouldn’t be playing for the Packers this year. Since I give less than a rat’s behind about football, I got out of bed mind reeling. Really news?  Hawking- dead, Camel – dead, football guy going to play somewhere else. These are my three bits of news you deem important for my day? This is the state of the world that I’m going to start my day with? These specific things are the things you think I need to know?

Jordy the dog who was ever so much cuter than Jordy the football player. (photo from cousin Emily)

I continued to ponder this through making myself tea and ritualistically spilling it on myself as I drove down the driveway (I am my mother’s daughter) on the way to school. I was just coming to the conclusion that people value different things, and Sheela the camel and football are super important in other people’s eyes. Though, obviously, those people are lesser, ridiculous people with messed up priorities because who cares about a game where the ball bounces funny and you stop every three seconds when there are physicists learning new things about black holes…  When there was a cry from the backseat.

“GOGURT DOWN! GOGURT DOWN!”

(I kid you not, that’s exactly what the girl yelled!)

And then I forgot all about the scientist, the dromedary, and the athlete because there was yogurt spilling in the back seat of the vehicle. And that is some seriously important breaking news.

Priorities.

We all have ’em.

*Stephen Hawking says be curious… and so… the average bactrian camels life span is 20-40 years in captivity but up to 50 in the wild. That gives me a whole new pile of things to be curious about, how about you? 

**In other news, while editing this post, John became curious and asked Google “What is the most difficult punctuation mark to get right”… he is a smart ass but I feel vindicated because it’s commas and apostrophes because they have seven jillion rules apiece and who can remember all that?