Going Hiking

Today, the kids and I took a lovely fall hike. The Moms in Madison group is organizing Tyke Hikes now that we have the lovely fall weather. Today, we met up with other moms and little ones and took a walk through the University of Wisconsin Arboretum. We walked around the edge of the restored prairie and then took the path back through the middle of the prairie. I forgot my camera in the car when we got there, but managed to snap a couple of pics from the parking lot before the wee ones completely lost patiences with me. There were lots of gorgeous fall flowers:

And here you can see the pretty rust color of the big and little bluestem in the prairie (just past the parked cars):

We also got to see lots of cool buggies and animals, including several furry black and brown caterpillars, a slug, and a frog. We also got to examine all kinds of leaves and sticks and grass and rocks up close and personal. But probably the best part was getting to hang out with "fends"...some adult conversation for mama and some flesh and blood friends for Bug and Bean to hang out with (as opposed to our usual invisible animal friends).

Unfortunately, after our lovely, relaxing walk, I had some run-ins with a couple of my arch-nemeses: the "special people to whom the rules don't apply." First, a disclaimer: I am delighted to share the road with bikers. I wish more people rode bikes and left their cars at home. I have nothing at all against bikers. Unless they are jerks. Then jerkness trumps bicyclist. There were a couple of bikers that had a very casual relationship with the actual rules of the road that I did my best to not run over, but one in particular irked me. The road through the arboretum is quite winding, so I just drove slowly to stay behind this bicyclist for a while until there was a long enough straight section so I could pull over into the other lane to pass him. Well, the way is clear and I pull into the opposing traffic lane and start to speed up to pass him and the dimbulb decides that he needs to be riding smack along the dotted yellow line. So I slow down again and resign myself to following him. A few minutes later we get back into another curvy, winding section of the road and this guy suddenly discovers that I am behind him and starts waving me around. Since I want to give him plenty of room (and hopefully, thereby minimize my urge to flatten him), I am waiting until I can see far enough ahead on the road to pass safely. Meanwhile, he is making increasingly larger and more enthusiastic gestures that he wants me to pass, as if he is starting to get ticked off because I'm not passing quickly enough. I doubt he realizes how lucky he is to be upright rather than a big smudge on the road. In general, it is not wise to irritate the bejesus out of a hormonal post-partum mama with a wailing 3½ week old baby in the back seat (since we were driving too slowly to lull him to sleep...the motion of the car usually puts him right out, assuming we are going more than 10 mph). I'm just sayin'...

Fortunately, the mood swings go in both directions, so by the time we were done with lunch, the nice walk and lovely weather won out over the bad bicyclists.

Tragidal!

That's Bug's pronunciation of the word "tragical," which, for a drama-prone four-year-old, is essential vocabulary. We are always in the midst of some tragedy or another, but now Mama is the one with the tragedies!

Tragedy, the first: Near misses with the Yarn Harlot. In late May/early June, we were in the Portland, OR area. We left early Wednesday morning to return home and while we were driving, the Harlot was appearing at Powell's Books in downtown Portland. In my finest display of stoicism, I sucked it up and accepted the fact that sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles (or the vacation schedules work out). So, a couple of days ago, I was blog reading at Chez Harlot and there were new tour dates listed. My eyes immediately picked out the word "Madison" from the list. I clicked the link to see the tour schedule and skimmed through the list until I found the word "Madison" and, lo and behold, it was positioned squarely next to my birthday! At this point, I was wavering between complete hysterics and wanting to maintain a little grown-up dignity (and not frighten the children), when I get smacked between the eyes with two little letters following "Madison": Dude, they looked way more like "CT" than "WI." Fer cryin' out loud, our Madison is over ten times bigger than their Madison. No stinkin' fair!

Tragedy, the second: Related to the recent laptop tragedy, I have discovered that I haven't the slightest clue where the USB cable for my digital camera is. My laptop had the right size memory card slot built in (well, still has, but only in the sense that a rock with the right size slit would have a memory card slot built in), so I would pop the card from camera to laptop and copy pics and off we go. Well, the desktop has no such slot. I even have a new FO picture in my camera. *sigh* I need to either find the stinkin' cable or invest in a card reader. Until then, a pictureless blog, I'm afraid.

Tragedy, the third: My lace shawl has continued to grow and is rapidly reaching the point where a single round has 1000 stitches! It is a little demoralizing to knit and knit and knit and discover than I can't mark off any rows finished! Fortunately, the chart I am working on is worked four times per round and has a central 34-stitch repeat and edges that only grow to about 50 stitches before another central repeat is added, so there are LOTS of stitch markers, so it remains pretty easy to pick up and put down frequently. Besides, now that I am on the fourth time through the chart, I am familiar enough with it that I only have to look at it at a few key points rather than slogging along one stitch at a time like I did at first.

Okay, so maybe these tragedies don't compete with stuff like human rights violations or world hunger, but dang, I'm 31-1/2 weeks pregnant, it's hot and humid, and I'm tired. Cranky is about the best I can manage on a good day! I feel entitled to a little drama. Hah! I'll do my best to get back to cute kids and knitting stuff again, though. Meanwhile, I promised said kidlings that we would go to Farmer's Market this afternoon, so I had better go round up shoes (and shorts for Bean) and deliver...

And I shouldn't forget to add that Kitty Daddy appreciated the well-wishes and sympathy! The stone is out and, as is inevitable when general nurseness and Y-chromosomes are combined, he took it to work to show it off to his co-workers the next morning. As a non-medical-professional and a female, I just roll my eyes. We happen to have a book about the human body out of the library, so we found the page with kidneys and talked about Daddy's owie. Since then, both kids like to pull out the library book and explain the whole situation. Bean's two-year-old interpretation is absolutely hilarious, if a bit difficult to understand. Bug's explanation is clearer, but last night after his bath he didn't want to get dressed, so he got the book out and explained it all to Daddy. Between the four-year-old earnestness of delivery and the nudity, Daddy had to work pretty hard not to crack up!