Friday, April 25, 2008

not smarter than your average bear

Today I walked by a couple of guys fishing in a waterway near my house. Both of them were smoking. As I approached, one of the guys took the butt from his mouth and flicked it into the water. I hope he catches a huge fish and gets a nice big bite of butt. What an ass.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

2 months old

Don't you just want to eat her up?


Tuesday, April 22, 2008

little yogi

I guess all that Mommy & Baby yoga is paying off...look at my little peanut doing Goddess Pose in her sleep!

Monday, April 07, 2008

an awkward teenage moment that wasn't mine

A little over a year ago we moved to our new house, which sits on several wooded acres. Imagine a 50-acre subdivision, where most of the homeowners have 1-to-2 acre plots around the outer edge of the 50 acres...well, we and our neighbors each own about half of the remaining interior portion of the property. We live on a hill, so when we go out back there's a trail that leads down onto our property. We have some walking trails and a lovely stream with a footbridge. Our property is not fenced, and it does butt up against the rear property lines of all the homes that sit on the edges.

What am I getting at here? Well, occasionally we will look out our back windows and see people walking through the woods...which means they're on our property. It's not so much that we care if someone walks through, except that sometimes they bring their dogs (and our dog is fairly territorial) and also if someone were to get hurt (by, say, falling off the footbridge into the rocky stream and splitting their head open), I'm guessing we would be liable.

So, today I was about to take Maia for a walk, and I was planning on taking the stroller out front onto the street. But then I noticed a red-cloaked figure down by the stream. So I popped the baby into my wrap carrier and went down the trail into the woods. From my window it had appeared that the person was near the stream, maybe bending down picking plants? However, I was not quite prepared for what I found when I got down there. I approached the footbridge and saw that the person was IN the stream. SITTING in the stream, facing away from me. Near the bridge was a backpack with some towels. I said "hi, can I help you?" and an awkward-looking, chubby teenage girl turned around looking a little startled. She got up and I took in what she was wearing--a red hooded sweatshirt on top, and on the bottom some very short plaid shorts and sneakers. Did I mention she had been sitting IN the water? It's warming up here but it's not THAT warm!! It was about 55 degrees here today and our stream is in the shade.

I felt bad for her immediately. I had caught her doing something rather strange and I'm sure she was embarrassed. I said "it's a little cold for that, isn't it? I just wanted to let you know that this is private property. It's just that if someone got hurt down here we could get in trouble." By this point she had already stood up and was walking toward her towels. Not wanting to humiliate her any further, I kept walking up the trail. By the time I looped back around she was on her way off the property.

I felt bad, like I should have told her it was OK to stay or something, but what I'm really dying to know is WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE DOING?!?

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

strategy for future misbehavior

When I was a kid and was acting up, my dad used to threaten to sell me to the gypsies (no offense to any of my gypsy readers). He would actually go so far as to pretend to call the gypsies on the phone and ask them to come pick me up. Now, having finally seen some real gypsies later in life on the streets of Paris, I know that they don't have phones, but hey, I was young and naive. If only my dad had known that the gypsies in Paris set out their crippled little kids on the streets--and are even known to throw babies at passerby just to get them to drop their purses! Then, maybe then, he would have thought twice about threatening to give them his only child.

J and I were talking about how today's kids don't really know who "the gypsies" are, so we will never be able to use the "sell you to the gypsies" strategy with Maia when she gets older. However, we have a new plan. We will threaten to sell her to "Good Ole Tom" for extra cash. I hear that cute white babies are at a 20-year high.