Woman v. Robin

So I was coming off the 35E bridge on my bike this afternoon. It's downhill and I was flying. Just as I peeled away from the cars and headed down the bike path that bottoms out at Shepard road, a robin jumped off the chain link fence to my left and started flying parallel to me, about an arm's length away. Of course I tucked a bit lower and sped up my peddling. I looked to my left and I swear to you that I saw the bird condense it's tiny little bird bones to become more aerodynamic. I'd be lying if I said I saw it squint it's eyes and throw me a challenging look, but I bet it did. It flew right along side me, we were neck and neck, for about 200 yards. Then, right as I was getting real worried about how I was going to take a left and make it through the tunnel under the bridge, the bird put on a burst of speed and banked right, flying just inches in front of my nose and then up and out of sight. I think that it was the bird version of buzzing the control tower. I had to admit defeat. But what a race!

Biking adventures

I have re-fallen in love with the Twin Cities this spring. Over the past few weeks I have been able to treat myself to several lovely bikerides. There are so many rides to take right from my house, nearly all the miles on paths devoted to bikers, except for the first mile down to the river and the last few miles back up (UP!) to the house.
At the height of the crabapple-tree-blossom-time I biked down the path along Minnehaha creek and nearly got drunk on the sweet aroma of all the blooms. This route takes me on a 20+ mile route out to the lakes in Minneapolis and then back down the midtown greenway to the river. Today I went down to the Ford bridge, and then through an amazingly green wooded corridor to Fort Snelling State park. A lung-busting hill brings you back up from the river bottoms to the 55 bridge where you cross the Mississippi (or maybe the Minnesota, they're all a muddle right there) above the tops of the giant riverbank trees. A gentle slope takes you back down the south side of the river to the 35 bridge. It was coming off this bridge that I had an epic race with a robin that will be detailed above.
This past weekend I had my most adventurous ride while tooling along the river shore from Crosby Farm to Hidden Falls with Eli. We came around a corner and had to dodge to the right of the path to keep from running over a large snake. This thing was laying stretched out over at least half the path. It was thick and meaty- not like the lithe garter snakes that will flash their skinny racing stripes as they scoot out of sight into the grass. No, this guy owned the path and wasn't about to budge. So we stopped for a closer look. Eli picked up a stick and asked me to poke it. I did. The first poke prompted it to move a few lazy inches forward. Never had I seen a snake so lazy and bold, so of course I poked it again. And this time it did something that surprised us to no end: It lazily lifted it's tail and rattled at us!! Eli and I looked at each other with saucer eyes and then Eli took off at a mad sprint- on foot, without his bike. After about 50 yards I managed to catch up to him. Have you ever tried sprinting while straddling a bike and pushing another, much smaller bike by the handle bars? It is not easy and I think my bike drew some blood from my ankles. Either that or I was bit by that snake! Eli and I remounted our bikes and set off again, hooting over the fact that a snake had just rattled at us. Now, I am not 100% positive that this was indeed a rattler. But they do live by the riverbanks further south in Minnesota. And this was a big snake that raised it's tail and rattled. So whatever you are going to call it, we thought it was amazing. We were bubbling over, excited to tell Jon and Theo our tale. And then as we biked further away from the snake and began to feel safer and safer (although I must admit that every stick on the path gave me a start) we started to embroider our tale a bit. By the time we met up with the rest of the family in the parking lot, Eli had it going that we had to rip his bike out of the jaws of the giagantic rattler. Those few miles, peddling and embroidering with Eli, were my favorite few miles of biking thus far this spring. Although the robin race is a pretty close second.

Sawdust to you is....

The other day I stopped by the NeskeMoen house, the site of our last Amish club event. Jeff and his three boys were out back moving big chunks of newly sawed up tree from the back yard to the alley. Lars, almost 3, had a bunch of sawdust on his head. I asked him what was in his hair. He carefully felt the top of his head (not dislodging any sawdust by the way), thought for quite a while, and then said, "Well Gret, those are tree crumbs." I liked that. Tree crumbs.

Not to be outdone

Here is Theo's attempt to 'be Amish'. He put this little outfit together and then strutted his stuff. As you can see.

Speaking of Amish......

This is Eli in his homemade (well, at grandma's home, not mine) Thomas Edison get-up. He had to research a famous person for school, then the whole class dressed up as their famous people and had a 'museum exhibit'. We had asked Grandma Sherry if she could fashion up something for Eli, thinking a lab coat might be doable. A week later she hands Eli this 3-piece suit, tie and all. He is a boy who loves his sweatpants, but he was really quite proud of this suit. After school that day I had to go to the hardware store, so Eli (in suit) and Theo walked down Snelling Avenue with me. Eli turned many a head, and one fellow Expo parent asked, "What's with the Amish kid?" as we passed. I tried to get him to show up to yesterday's Amish Envy Club meeting in the suit, but he wouldn't do it. Lucky that he didn't, or we would have had to really get out the old wash tubs.

Amish Envy Club gets muddy

It was the third meeting of the Amish Envy Club this past Saturday. We had a glorious May day to transform the NeskeMoen back yard from patchy grass to....mud. But the gardens are bordered, the new grass seed is getting ready to sprout, and we even raised a trellis. We are still a long way from raising a barn. By the end of the day I was exhausted, a bit from the sun, the wind, and the work, but mostly from the laughs. The kids spent the morning by walking over to Como zoo (with some supervision of course) and the afternoon playing in the mud (without much supervision). They found giant nightcrawlers, creepy white grubs, and lots and lots of mud. They couldn't have been happier.

Watch your back, or your head

So Eli's threat for me to watch my back was real. I went to lay down in bed last night and removed the pillow that was propped up against the wall for reading. Underneath, perched nicely on my white pillow case were my dirty old running shoes. This morning I mentioned to Eli that I had found running shoes on my pillow and I wondered how they got there. With a twinkle he said, "I told you to watch your back." He'll get his. I'm off to plant something under his pillow right now.

Snuggling with Theo, and his things.....

Shortly after we finished our year on the compact we did indeed make it down to REI to buy the boys new bike helmets and sandals. Theo was in love with both of them and wore them right home from the store. The next morning Theo awoke just before 7am and came in for a snuggle. With his helmet on. I really wonder if he wore it all night. Later that week Jon replaced Theo's broken goggles with a pair from SuperTarget. The next morning Theo woke up around 6:30 and came in for a snuggle. With his goggles on. So imagine my concern when the next day Theo received a birthday gift of a (sharp) garden trowel and a big wooden peacock head on a stick (a scarecrow for the garden). I made sure I was up before Theo came in to snuggle.

Eli-isms

This past Saturday, Eli crawled into our bed around 5:30am. Luckily for all of us, he fell back to sleep. A while later he picked his sleepy head off the pillow, glanced at the clock, and said: "It's 7:15, please look around yourself, gather your belongings, and exit the bed." We did.

Yesterday, mother's day, Eli was snuggling on the couch with me. I asked him to go get me the paper. When he immediately jumped up to get it, I said, "Sweet! I can get this kid to do anything for me today." He shot me a look over his shoulder and said, "Yeah, but tomorrow you better watch your back!"

450 million years

This past Saturday the family went on a Science Museum fossil hunting trip. The day started in classroom at the museum making small books to use as field guides. We learned just a little bit about each fossil we would be looking for, including the fact that the sea bed the creatures lived in was full of water 450 million years ago.
After making the books and taking a whirlwind tour through the museum's fossil collection (where we learned that the museum doesn't like to use the word 'fake', they prefer 'cast', but our leader let us in on their little secret) we headed out on a yellow school bus for Cannon Falls. We had been told to use the bathrooms before we went, and I did, but after bounce number 37 I was already desperate! The bus ride took us to a roadside hill out in the backcountry of Cannon Falls. Within 27 seconds of getting off the bus Theo was holding a rock above his head and proclaiming a find. And sure enough, there were quite a few little fossilized sea creatures in his hand. We never found the coveted trilobite, but plenty of other cool fossils. After a sunny, windy, muddy day, we returned to 588 Brimhall and Theo and I washed off the fossils on the front stoop. Right before bedtime, I went to go get them to bring them in, but then I thought, oh well, those fossils have been outside for the past 450 million years, I suppose they can last one more night! Yikes.

Trying to be a duck

Last night we were driving home from a lovely bbq. As we topped the hill at St. Clair and Victoria I saw two high school kids in the park to the south (incidently the very park where Rodg proposed to Jean...57 years ago). A girl was videotaping a boy who was acting like a gorilla. I pointed it out to the family and mentioned that the guy really did do a pretty good gorilla. Eli says, deadpan, from the back seat, "Yeah, unless he was trying to be a duck. In that case he really sucked." Love that kid.

Slot machine eyeballs

So I've been having these vision disturbances for a while now.... I'll be looking at something, and when I go to look at something else it's like my eyeballs are in a slot machine and someone just pulled the arm down. My vision goggles around, refusing to focus on anything. This lasts for about five minutes and makes me want to puke. Mostly from the dizzy feeling, but certainly partly from anxiety. Then all the sudden it's like the three diamonds come up on the slot machine and I can see again. When this first started a year ago, I talked to my eye doctor and we were both convinced that it was from my new job responsibilities which put me in front of a computer screen for hours on end. But then it started happening away from the computer, and first thing in the morning, and a bit more frequently....so I went in to see my doctor, fairly convinced that it was a new manifestation of the ocular migraines I get every now and then. She listened to my symptoms and calmed me right down by saying, "We need to get you set up with an emergency visit to an opthamologist! Today!" Love that. So I drove up to Roseville thinking for sure my retinas were going to detach and pop out on to the dashboard. I was put through a battery of tests. I did enjoy some of them and was particularly impressed that all of the figures that I got to stare at trying to find the secret number in the pattern were bound in this discreet little black leather-bound book. I liked that touch of class. Anyway. After an hour of the technician poking and proding my eyeballs with various high tech machines, the doctor came in and after one simple test which only utilized his left hand and me staring at his face, he diagnosed my problem. Seems as I'm getting old. My old eye muscles can't rein in my eyeballs as well as they used to and when fatiqued they have a tendancy to goggle around like they are in a slot machine when I change my focus from far to near. He then said, "Now, you're not yet at the typical age for reading glasses, which is 40..." He sure is right there. I have at least 8 months and 18 days until I hit that number. "....And you don't really need the readers yet to actually read the text, but you've got to give your eyes a little break....." He convinced me that I wasn't so far gone that I have to carry them everywhere or be at risk of having to ask for help in reading the bill for dinner, but that if I'm kicking back with the New York Times, I should slip them on. Kicking back with the New York Times? What does he think I am, middle-aged???? He left me with the suggestion that I pick up the weakest pair at a drugstore. So here I sit, typing away with my fancy new reading glasses perched on my nose. Dang.