Don't mind me, OMFB. This is merely the only way I'll be able to find the list again.
AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DE FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY.
That was easy. That I can do without thinking. I can't do it in statehood order. I am pretty sure Connecticut wasn't third, but I often think it was since it is third smallest and Delaware is first and smaller. Statehood order, of the top of my head: DE, PA, the other 11 not including ME and VT (showing shocking disloyalty to New England), the general clean-up of the east and southeast-eastern midwest, KS in 1861 and WV sometime during the Civil War, CO in 1876 (the Bicentennial State, yo), and then the rest of them, ending with NM AZ AK and HI.
More to the point,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, Missouri, Arkansas,Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii.
031223: What do diamonds have to do with Arkansas?
Tex came over to my cube asking what I guessed would be on Alabama's. I had no idea whatsoever, and it's easy for me to wax disparaging about the South. So I said whatever, couldn't be anything good. It's Helen Keller, and he was tickled that I had shown my true colors. But please. No one thinks, "Gosh, you know, Helen Keller wouldn't have been such a brave, determined voice for the blind and the deaf and the otherwise disabled, wouldn't have graduated from Radcliffe summa cum laude (or magna? I forget), wouldn't've traveled the country speaking out and meeting Great War veterans, if she had been from any other state than Alabama."
Connecticut's design is by far the best, of course. The rounded treetop fits the coin well, of course, but it's a tree! There is nothing better than a tree! Plus there's a stone wall, very appropriate, that balances the caption. All of the designs so far have been either about the Revolution, if they could manage it, or used icons of the state. Pennsylvania's is boring, but at least it is the Keystone State. Ditto Georgia--a peach? New Hampshire's is iconic, Virginia's is pretty if a bit of a stretch, since it wouldn't be Jamestown's bicentennial for another seven years after first minting, I know North Carolina and Ohio nearly came to blows about which would claim flight (holy shit, they're nitpicking on Capitol Hill about which state can claim it), Vermont's is pretty lame but at least people do associate syrup with the state in a way they don't associate Helen Keller with Alabama. Etc.
Anyway. I'm comfortable with having been mean about Alabama, but I love Helen Keller! I wasn't being mean about her! Really!
"Buddy" is an adjectival noun sometimes. There are buddy toenails, buddy clippers (for the toenails), buddy fluff (in drifts on the floor, on our shoulders, or stuck to his beak), buddy eyelashes, sweet buddy basil breath, buddy greens, buddy dishes, two buddy windowsills, the buddy bedtime, buddy poopers (an essential accessory, some bit of junk mail for the buddy poop), the buddy foot (lifted and waved in a request to be picked up), buddy yawns, the buddy box and the variety of buddy caves, buddy flaps, buddy sneezes, buddy chow, the buddy spray bottle (for showers), and of course the buddy beast himself.
Last night after I finally got home from work, the pool, and Le Central, Blake had a thorough head petting and then some buddy fun with a 5280 magazine. It might be almost as good as the Utne Reader for whatever the magazine equivalent of a fabric's "hand" is: a good snap in the beak from good substantial paper, and also, a lenient mommy expecting to vacuum the next day who doesn't prevent the confetti production.