Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Will Strip For Safety

Two absolutely beautiful days in Washington land. These are the kind of days that remind me WHY I like living here ... because sometimes it is really nice outside!

Obviously having a baby on a nice day would be silly. Birthing really is a good rainy day activity, I think. So I didn't bother having the baby today or yesterday ... tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy but I have a hair cut and a final pre-baby massage, so obviously those are important and I don't want to do it then either. Thursday, however, it is supposed to rain, so that would be good.

The glorious weather warranted as much outside time as possible. These days don't come to us that often! Yesterday I walked about four miles with Abigail. Walking is supposed to help get the baby out (on Thursday, not tomorrow, like I said). And today we opted to sit in the sun and make a mostly futile attempt at tanning. Sitting does NOT help the baby get out, but if sure feels good.

We chose to sit in a lovely, sunny spot in Dupont, outside Forza which gave me the opportunity to drink a delicious frappe with way too many calories. Let's go over the good and bad points of this decision.

Good points:
-- Sunny and warm
-- Delicious beverages
-- Right under a speaker playing mostly excellent music. I'm not sitting in my house reliving the Dashboard Confessional days as a result (more about that in a minute).

Bad points:
-- High calories in that delicious beverage
-- Nature

I really want to focus on this last point because it provided what is likely the most entertaining moment of the month (the month is young, but still, this was fantastic).

There we were, sitting, minding our own business, when a Giant Wasp decided Abigail's shirt was the best possible landing spot. And if the shirt was great, well then obviously the INSIDE of the shirt was even better.

And THAT is how Abigail ended up with a bee/wasp IN her bra and ALMOST ended up stripping in full view of, well, everyone ... for safety.

The truth is that at times like that you don't really think about the fact that you're in full view of everyone, including a certain company commander of our acquaintance (and, more importantly, our husbands'), with a perfect vantage point from inside the coffee shop. You don't think about the fact that taking off your shirts is perhaps a BAD idea ... you just think about getting the wasp OUT of your shirt before it leaves bites in a very inconvenient place.

Fortunatly before the stripping (for safety!!) happened the little bugger made it's way out of the offending area.

But ... whoa. That was close. ...

At which point what was likely a relatively small bird splatted a REALLY big poop on the ground not so far from us. That totally could've been on my head.

And that, friends, is the danger of being all out in nature -- even if that nature is within five feet of a coffee house. This is soooo why I don't go camping. Stripping for safety, even in the woods, is discouraged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good point of the coffee house was the fabulous music they were playing. I don't know who put that together (ok, there was an overuse of Straylight Run, who I love, but not THAT much), but it was fabulous. And it got me thinking.

I have these incredibly great memories of listening to really good music with my dad while driving to church when I was, oh, about 6-years-old. And that music still makes me smile (and it helps that it wasn't terrible so I'm not embarsssed to be all "I love this song!").

I need to intentionally shape the musical memories I give Baby B. Will he grow up thinking his mom has/had good music taste? I am not embarassed that I love LOVE the Shins and Coldplay and ... etc. Will those artists still make him smile when he's 20-odd years old and I have way more wrinkles than I'd care to think about now? ....

2 comments:

  1. It's true. that happened. Oh and it's really a valuable lesson for us all.... You too might be one bee away from becoming a stripper.

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  2. One of my earliest musical memories: Scheherazade. No idea if that's significant. I still love it though.

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