Red Shoe Diaries

Whew! Well, that was quite a weekend - I won't say it was fun, because going to a memorial service for someone your own age can be categorically dismissed as "Mostly Depressing". However, there were lots of other things this weekend that did not involve quantities of grown men crying, thank heavens. Some of those things:

• S. getting to see a whole bunch of his old friends, many of whom had never even met me, six years later. Said friends treated him like the returning rock star of the Peninsula that he is.
  
• Hardly predictable, but at least I could channel "sad" into "teeth-grittingly irritated": Answering The Question approximately an additional 423 times in the 36 hours we were there.
• The masses of adorable little "Smalls" (sprogs of the Questioneers) running around. And around, and around, and around, until I was forced to remove their tiny little legs and stack them neatly in a pile.
  
• Handing one of said "smalls" over to her father with her third loaded diaper in fifteen minutes. Laughing loudly and mercilessly at his look of, "You're not going to offer to change my adorable daughters' poopy bum?" dismay.
• Blueberry, strawberry and pecan pancakes and chicken-apple sausage at Tarpy's
• Watching the look on little M.C.'s (our neice) face as she tried to figure out the Great Mystery that is grass under her fingers.
• Following The Sightspeed Guys' advice and going to a National Park.
• Hiking barefoot in 85 degree weather over rocks and lava-like clay-ey sand in order to avoid getting blisters from my sensible shoes, purchased for tooling comfortably around town. Look! Do those look like instruments of torture, compared with the rest of my shoes?
• Seeing a little teeny baby bunny (he was about the size of a grapefruit), a large lizard, and best of all, the car, on the trail.
  
• Spontaneously stopping by Chiada's house and hanging out with her and her lovely should-be-a-chef hubby, E.
• About E: He made us Jabenero jerked pork and killer curried rice, anyone? Coming right up!). Plus, their dogs, Chloe and Rayna. Ever have a Dalmation sit on your lap?
• In-car manicure and pedicure.
  
• Getting back home to Fynn and Edie and the froglings, the new Martha Stewart wedding magazine, and Oatmeal Cookie Ice Cream. Mmmmmm