The boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant, outside view.

boa constrictor 1 cropped
Originally uploaded by elissanelson

Donna asked for an explanation of the tattoo, so here it is--for posterity, I suppose, though my sister did warn me that I'll spend the rest of my life explaining it.

In Antoine de Saint Exupery's 1943 novel The Little Prince, he opens with a story about a picture he saw in a book when he was six, of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. The picture is accompanied by an explanation about how boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it, and then they can't move, so they sleep for six months while they digest. This inspires our hero to make a drawing, his "Drawing Number One" (see picture). After completing it, "I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: 'Frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?'" He keeps trying, even making a Drawing Number Two, inside view, showing the elephant inside the boa constrictor, but he soon gives up on drawing and on "what might have been a magnificent career as a painter," realizing that "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

For the rest of his life, whenever our hero meets "one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say:

"'That is a hat.'

"Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man."

So to answer your question, Donna, I guess it's a reminder.