The Consequences of Chicken TV

One of the afternoons at Lara's house, Neeps and I went outside to pass the time playing in sweet-shaded clover, and watching "chicken tv".

Reality entertainment at its finest

Neeps was absolutely fascinated by the plump little birds, but I didn't realize just how enamored he must have been until this evening, when he revealed that he has added soft little "bok bok"s to his vocabulary.  My darling little naturalist.

I, of course, started making the sounds back at him, which filled him with absolute delight.  And then I added a loud, "BKOK!" to the end, and he just freaking lost it.  Gales of shrieking baby laughter, like to the point where he was gasping for breath.  I've never felt like a more clever comedienne in my life.

Little Love

When we saw the banners outside the museum trumpeting the mammoth display, I was not expecting this.

Bones, perhaps.  Dioramas, certainly, and artists' renditions.  Many thousands of interesting and educational words, of course.  But not this.  Not her.

I've read about her, of course- the perfectly preserved baby mammoth discovered in Russia almost a decade ago- but it's different from seeing her in the desiccated flesh.  Different, too, now that I'm a mother, with my own baby sleeping soundly against my chest.

My eyes prick with tears as I press my fingers to the glass that encases her.  I cannot help it.  She's almost as big as I am, but all I can think of is her mother, unable to rescue her.  Elephants grieve: it stands to reason that mammoths did, as well.  My brain begins to spin out a story to comfort my heart.

***

My daughter enters the world in a spray of blood beneath a deadly sharp tusk moon.  I wonder, fearful, if this means she will be a warrior for our people, destined to die in battle- but when the Oldest Aunties come they shake their heads at my trepidation.

Not this one.  She is meant to be a great teacher of many peoples, and she will remain when all the rest of our descendants have turned to dust.

What better could a mother wish for her child?  An important destiny twined with a long life.  I nurse my daughter and dream of her bright future.

The moon is dark when my daughter leaves this world, pulled down, down into the mud that is darker still.  There is nothing I or any of the Aunties can do to aid her, but I cry out in rage and anguish, hoping that the strength of my love can somehow bring her back to me.

But death has no fear of love.

You have lied to me!

I am screaming.  I should not scream at the Oldest Aunties- I should show them respect in all things, lest I be shown my place.

But love has no fear of death.

You told me my daughter would outlive us all!  That she would be a great teacher!  But she did not live long enough to see her second full moon- what good are your portents, your signs, if they cannot prevent the death of an innocent?  Why should we follow powerless liars?

I am not struck down.  They are mournful.  They try to comfort me.  They have lost mothers, sisters, daughters of their own, they know grief and they forgive me my sacrilege.

I wish they would strike me down.

We did not lie.  Not understanding a truth does not make it a falsehood.  There is more to this world than what we may know, and your daughter has gone to fulfill her destiny.

A Hike (Ish)

We had decided to hike up to Elk Lake today for our in-by-the-skin-of-our-teeth Monthly Hike, but the Universe had other plans for us.  Which is to say, the Universe decided to make it hot and miserable- so hot and miserable that while we probably could have handled the 4-mile-round-trip-trek (because swimming at the turn-around!), the dogs began to show signs of being dangerously overheated just one mile in.  And so we did the Adult thing and turned back for the car.

Even so, it was a lovely little hike, and I figure two miles is plenty to count, especially in those conditions.  I'd borrowed a hat from Lara, and I was damned glad I did, because Neeps has entered a "rip Mommy's hair out while riding in style" habit that I do not approve of, but am helpless to do anything about.  (Part of me wants to shave half my head.  And it's not exactly a small part.)  But with a hat I was able to hide the temptation from his grabby little hands.

Bonus: looking fly as hell

Because I'd been carrying Neeps in that hellish heat, my shirt was absolutely sodden, and thus I turned it into a purple wind sock on our drive back out of the wilderness.  I was mighty tempted to add my bra to the display, but managed to resist.  Mostly because, if it hadn't actually dried by the time we got back into town, I didn't want to put it back on still damp.  The horror.

Beneath a Pure Blue Sky

The bleached-out sun beats down, relentless, giving the world a slightly-frayed look: colors of summer slowly unraveling into white.  He is a banked-coal weight on my back, delighted by this new experience, the new sights and sounds and smells that are his for the embracing.  A deep blue hat keeps his face in shadow, safe, while a trickle of sweat begins to form in the long channel of my spine.

The woman at the stand gives us specific instructions- "Go to the shorter bushes.  They have the larger berries.  And start in the middle of the row, not the end- you'll find more."

We are in the habit of listening to the wisdom of experts, and it soon becomes apparent that we are wise in our habits.  I find a likely-looking place to start, and crouch down, setting the box- and my water bottle- just so.  Then, because we are the only ones there, I take him off my back, and settle him in a patch of shade within reach of the berries.  I am counting on the novelty to keep my sprout rooted to the spot.

Although they fall swiftly to my attention, the berries on the bushes prove difficult to harvest for tiny fingers new to the pincher-grasp, and so he takes to collecting the fallen.  While I approve of his ingenuity, I am less thrilled by the accompanying handfuls of mulch that are subsequently shoved into his mobile mouth.

I move the box so that he will reach into it for his berries, thereby hoping to avoid a throat-full of splinters.  He is delighted by this development, for it makes his berry-acquisition easier still.  For a while we work in companionable silence; I put a handful in the box, he takes a handful out.  Fortunately his hands are small, and the level in the box slowly rises.

And then I realize that he is in very real danger of asphyxiating himself in his enthusiasm for this new-found bounty, and so I rearrange once more: now the box is out of reach, and one pale, motherly leg forms a barrier between him and the mulch.  I hand him berries one at a time, which slows my collection rate but soothes my paranoia; he is still probably eating far too many for a creature of his mass, but at least they are going into his stomach and not his lungs. He is simply happy- happy to be outside, happy to be eating berries, happy to be with me.  Happy baby boy.

He will not remember this day, spent feasting in the shade of hardy shrubs, but I will- my heart stained, indelibly, with his blueberry grin.

A Three(-to-Five) Hour Tour

We started our little mini-vacation today, spending five days hanging out with Lara up on the Peninsula.  Generally speaking, it's a three hour drive.

Or at least it was, before Neeps got to his current developmental stage.

Now, don't get me wrong- I'm no fool.  I  know that now that we have a kid, things take longer, period.  So I told Lara that we were planning on leaving around 10am, and should arrive between 1 and 2.

It is to laugh.

We did leave at 10 (okay, 10:06), but we didn't get here until after 3pm.  Because even tho' I'd carefully planned our departure to coincide with Nap Time, I had not planned on someone waking up a full hour and a half early, thereby throwing off his entire freaking schedule for the day.

::sigh::

So instead of sleeping through a large chunk of the trip, Neeps was awake.  And... not necessarily pleased about being stuck in his car seat with no one to entertain him (because the back seat was full of away-from-home stuff).

We took a lot of breaks.

It wasn't all that bad, to tell the truth.  We weren't really on a schedule, so I wasn't actually stressed out about it taking so long.  And it was actually quite pleasant to take a long, picnic break in a park, where we all enjoyed the shade and wind and ate junk food and watched Pokemon Go players wander about amongst the pigeons.

family picnic in a strange town!

But we did finally make it!  And Isis is happy as happy can be with her fur-breathren, and Neeps is gratifying pleased to see his Auntie Lara (whom he hasn't seen since January) and of course I am looking forward to a few days of not-working.

And then there's the freaking delicious wine we've been drinking, all grapefruity and wonderful.  Woo, vacation!

In the Eye of a Perfect Storm

I open the door to heaven.

The house is clean and calm and moreover it smells fresh.  It is pleasantly cool, especially in comparison to the heat doing its slinky dance on the porch.  In fact, the hum of the air conditioning is the only sound that greats me.

It is not yet two o'clock in the afternoon.  I am giddy with potential.

You see, my husband has taken today off from work, and is out taking photos on Rainier.  And my son is still at daycare.  And my boss let me off early as a reward.  And- this may be the most important part- the cleaning ladies came this morning, but no one has been in the house since.  Well, no one except the animals, and for once in their lives they seems to have decided they don't actually need to besmirch anything at the moment.

What will I do with all this peace?  Cook? Pack for tomorrow's trip?  Finish the movie we started last night?  Simply sprawl out on a clean floor in blissed-out ecstasy?  Honestly that last one sounds the best... but then again, writing without interruptions of any kind also sounds pretty damn good.

And so here we are.

Mermaid Bait

I used to think that, thanks to my early-childhood training, I wasn't particularly susceptible to advertisements (Except for pizza, man: I see it, I want it.  Every time.  Every damn time.) And when we entered the age of Facebook and Targeted Advertising, I laughed and laughed, because they never showed me anything even remotely appealing.

But I guess after eight+ years of gathering data, they've finally begun to figure me out, because I suddenly find myself... curious.  Curious enough to... click.

And damned if that doesn't occasionally work out in my favor!

Now, if you are a woman, you know what a pain in the ovaries it can be to find a decent swimsuit, let alone a good one.  And if you are a woman with large breasts, you know that the pursuit of decent (hurr hurr) swimwear becomes even more complex, especially if you are in the habit of doing anything beyond laying perfectly still on the beach.  Which, obviously, I am (in the habit of doing "beyond").  So when Mi Ola popped up in my newsfeed, promising me a bikini that would be comfortable and stay put, I was highly skeptical.

But I clicked.

And lo- they had tops specifically designed for large-breasted (and small-rib-caged) women!  And the reviews were... promising.  And the suits were... well, damn cute.  The price was a bit ulcer-inducing, but since I've recently made the decision to start ponying up good money for good quality (and they promised free returns) I went ahead and bit the bullet.

I was torn between two fabrics, so I let Nathan choose: he chose wisely.

The suit arrived surprisingly fast, but when I pulled it out of the packaging I had a brief moment of, "Yeah.  Friggin'.  Right," because it didn't look like it was going to be able to handle my ladies.  But I tried it on anyway...

...and pods of lovely sirens began singing Glory In the Highest, because damn if everything didn't stay in place and look damn good while doing it!  The top was cut lower than I would usually prefer, but that's because usually I'm having to tug the damn thing up all the damn time, and need to leave a little room for "error".  This one doesn't seem like it's going to have that problem... but I'll report back once I've actually worn it in the water.  The way the straps work was like a miracle, because it didn't put any pressure on my neck (a huge problem for me, normally).  The bottoms were also comfortably snug- you know how when you put on a pair of something and you can just tell it's not going to ride up?  Yeah.  Plus they do this cute ruching thing that accentuates the booty.  Good stuff, sisters.

(Seriously, this thing is so good I'm probably going to order a second one in the near future.)

So!  Sometimes advertising works the way it's supposed to, and everybody wins!  Good job, Targeted Advertising!  I'm Proud!