You just can’t be in two places at once. It’s a tough life lesson, and I have had to learn it again and again (which, come to think of it, suggests I have never learned it at all). It is also one of life’s greatest injustices: an electron can be in two places at once, but we can’t: see Discover, June 2005 (although if string theory is correct, it is not only possible, it is likely that we are in an infinite number of parallel universes at once. However, with the exception of a few very strange evenings in the 70s, I have seen no evidence of these alternate universes in real life. If I had, I would have chosen the universe where you get to sleep late in the morning).

But I am getting off point. Sometimes, as the Lovin’ Spoonful said in a song, you have to finally decide, and my wife Kathi and I faced such a moment the other day. We were driving to the airport, on our way to Paris for our honeymoon, when we saw a sign advertising the live reptile show at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. It never rains but it pours, they say, and that was how I felt at that moment. At the Herp World Expo we could have learned more about Geckos Unlimited; we could have met members of the global dart frog community (try saying that three times fast). But if we took that particular fork in the road, we would have missed our flight to Paris.

We had to decide, and it wasn’t easy. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. Right now I have to catch up on my reading at Chameleon Forum.com.