This is Mia, one of Maura's mom's friends. Mia and Monica both came over to hang out. Since Monica was only here for a few days with work, Maura had to make the most of their visit here. Maura just loved both of them. Mia had such a really positive vibe and aura about her that Maura really loved. Maura was very sensitive to people's energy, and could detect who around her resonated well with her. Maura also loved Monica for her really cool attitude and her math background. Maura really likes math. She learned alot from her mom. Her mom was much more of a model developer and programmer. She always espoused the importance of using random numbers with sufficient randomness for generating Monte Carlo trajectories. 
Here is Maura trying to get some attention out of Monica. Monica and Mia had met each other at Berkeley. Mia, who studied Philosophy at Wellesley was in some ways the polar opposite of Monica, who studied mechanics and materials science. Maybe it was the fact that they both had such different educational background that they became such good friends. What was important to Maura was that she could muster some attention from both of them.
Here comes Maura, hamming it up and fishing for attention.
Maura convinces Mia to give her a kiss, saying that she would transform from a duck to a happier duck. It seemed to work!
Maura's mom had once overheard how Monica, Mia and Alison had met up in New York just about a year ago. It was really cold when her mom had come out to New York as part of some sort of Wall Street business school trek. Monica had also come out there for holidays at the same time, and decided to introduce Mia and Maura's mom to each other. What Maura's mom only seems to remember was drinking way too many cocktails and visiting the restroom for some time. Maura always warned her mom not to drink too much.
Maura shared her Dilbert books with Monica and Mia that night. They were laughing and laughing about some of the humor that Maura didn't quite grasp. Something about the oddness of office and corporate life. Maura didn't understand. Even though she visited her mom's workplace, there didn't seem to be anything odd. Her mom explained to Maura that you have to be a person to appreciate the humor of Dilbert. Maura wasn't convinced. She decided that at some point in the future, she would investigate further.
Maura always brought the best out of people. Here is Maura fooling around with Mia. Maura remembers watching Duck Tales on television. She always dreamed about being a Countess Duckula.
As the night wore on, Maura started getting sleepy. As the 3 people went on talking about serious topics like relationships, Maura couldn't help but think how important it was to have friends and family, even if they weren't of the same species. Maura understood what it was like to feel lonely, especially during the daytime when her mommy was at work. Those 10-12 work hour days really makes for a lonely duck!
Maura cherished every moment that she had with Mia and Monica. All of the experiences that she had with them would form part of her memory that would define her as a duck. A duck full of such great memories filled with joy, kindness, happiness. Maura looked forward to going back home to San Francisco, even though she would be away from her mommy. But she was nothing but a cellphone call away from quacking away with her mom. And Maura could keep in touch with her mommy through email. There was something about a blog that her mom had mentioned. Maura would need to find out where this blog is. She wanted to keep tabs on her mom to make sure that she was eating well.
And so this weekend, Maura finally returned to San Francisco. Her mom was only there for a few days. But Maura was so happy to see her brother Jake. Jake is a Mallard. But Maura can forgive him for being that way.Jake was at times a very good pillow for Maura.
What she was most excited about was getting to sleep with her gramma. This is Maura on gramma's bed. How many ducks are there jumping on the bed? One! Two! Only Two!!! Maura's gramma is an avid reader, reading lots of books every night. That's what Maura really liked to do while sleeping under gramma's comforter. She liked to read what her gramma was reading. I didn't know that ducks could read, let alone read Chinese Characters in the Japanese Language. She must be a very talented duck.
She even missed her curmudgeonly grampa. Grampa likes to watch television and do gardening. Maura really likes grampa.Maura would surely come back to New York again. She had gotten a taste of the big apple, and now she knew that she wanted to go back again. She especially wanted to meet with Mia and Monica again. Maura loved learning about different people with different backgrounds. She had been around enough math geeks and engineers (her uncles are engineers). Abstract math and tensor gymnastics - thats old hat for Maura. She was interested in living life!
