You Know You Have to Pay for Them Here, Right?

Guy in Borders on his cell phone: "I'm at the library. I'll call you back."

Big news!

Hattie has some big news to share over at her blog. Without giving too much away, it involves her being a big sister. Oh, wait, maybe that's too obvious ...

This is not an Ostrich

We've taken several trips to Avila Valley Barn with Hattie recently. She loves looking at all of the animals, as do about a thousand other people, most of whom prove that we've come an irreparably long way from our agrarian past here in America.

I can understand, maybe, how people watching the emus call them ostriches. Maybe. But I have to shake my head at the people who call chickens ducks. Maybe these people just can't see or hear very well?

On our most recent trip to the barnyard, I witnessed two boys--maybe 8 or 9 years old--visiting the goat pen.
Boy 1: Look! Baby horses!
Boy 2: No, they're baby donkeys ... (this delivered in a voice thick with an undercurrent of "duh!")
(My wife added that another boy I didn't hear came up and identified the goats as little camels.)

While visiting the emus, I also overheard a mom explaining to her 3-year-old how dinosaurs turned into large, flightless birds and another telling her kid to keep his hands away from the chicken wire: "They'll peck your fingers off." These aren't necessarily comments made in ignorance; they just made me laugh.

I'm generally torn when I visit a place like Avila Valley Barn. I am aware that I am a parent of a young child and a member of the visiting crowd, yet I still find myself frustrated with the parents and the crowds, wishing they weren't out and about like I am--or at least that they would act civilized. Bill Buford writes in Among the Thugs, "The crowd is not us. It never is." I shake my head at the pushing and shoving and inane, shouted comments, but later wonder whether people were shaking their heads at me when I, for example, technically cut in line to buy ice cream with the Rookses. And I hate it when people cut in lines.

Maybe I'm a hypocrite. Maybe I'm an elitist, even though I despise entitlement. Whatever I am, here's a picture of Hattie with a baby horse:

When We Were Very Young

This photo of Hattie reminded me of an illustration from A.A. Milne's poem "Corner-of-the-Street," but it reminded me of the text to "Lines and Squares":



Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet,
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who treat on the lines of the street,
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all of the squares!"

Overheard at Bel Frites

With apologies to this blog's younger or more sensitive readers, here's a line from an interesting late-night/very-early-morning conversation I recently had with a random stranger at downtown SLO's Bel Frites, a restaurant that serves only fries, dipping sauces, and Belgian beer.

Obviously drunk guy: These fries are the best thing to happen to me all night, and I got laid earlier.

No more Sunny Baudelaire

For quite some time--months now--Hattie Rose has resembled the youngest Baudelaire orphan from the popular children's book series. She has had four teeth that, though not particularly sharp, she's used for biting. Her favorite thing to crunch is ice, which she asks for by name along with a vigorous head nod and chest rub to indicate "yes please, and how."

In the span of the last week and a half or so, Hattie seems to have been getting in at least six new teeth. Finally! Maybe, once her teeth are in, she'll stop shrieking for an hour and a half when Sarah tries to get her to go to sleep. Her gums don't seem to bother her when she's awake and playing, but as soon as the lights go dim and she's confined to a bed, she starts. In fact, I hear her right now.

Maybe she's just stubborn? I mean, both of her parents can kind of sort of be a little willful sometimes ...

Old MacDonald Got Confused

I found this graffiti at a bus stop at Cuesta College.