introduce the carpet to something other than your knees

We returned tonight from La Crosse and made it back a little earlier than expected, which is nice. He was the keynote speaker at a large gardening conference today, so they put us up in a hotel with a water park. Luciana and I were both able to go along. She got a lot of pool time over the last couple of days, which we hope means she will go to sleep at a decent time tonight. She informed us that it's 'tradition' whenever we stay in a hotel that we have to get carryout Chinese food. She's great at creating traditions that suit her desires. She and Mark both got their usual order, but I saw that they had szechuan eggplant with water chestnuts, and since I usually love eggplant, I had to try that. It was very good. I have leftovers that we brought home, and since I haven't yet had a chance to eat dinner, I will be revisiting my yummy eggplant.

Mark was busy with speaking, answering questions, and wowing all the garden groupies. Oh yes, there are indeed garden groupies. Most of them are over 60--not all, though. Ladies of all ages love my hubby, though, which I find endlessly amusing. He's very attentive to his audience members as they flock up to him after his talks, and he has a good sense of humor. The chicas love that, and it's cute. Since I'm pretty much the opposite of effusive and open, it's very nice that he has fans. He in return finds endless amusement in the occasional crushes that my college students develop for me (however, the frequency of this has steadily decreased over the last decade :-) or my little crushes on various animals rights activists. And scientists. And several of the cast members of LOST. ; D

Anyway, while he was busy, we had time to kill. We got a late checkout, which allowed us to stay in the room until 2. L. was ready to hit the little water park as soon as she got up this morning. I was able to put her off until about 9:30, which is still much too early for me to face others. Especially when those others are loud, unattractive in swimsuits (which is why I try to avoid mirrors when wearing swimwear), and/or children. I had to explain to her that if she didn't wait until mommy was ready to deal with people, that mommy might not be able to restrain her desire to shove noisy children, and that would probably get us kicked out. That plus cartoons bought me almost two extra hours of quiet time. We stayed at the pool until 1, when we had to get out to shower, pack, and load up the car.

I gave L. a few choices on what she wanted to do to fill the time between when we had to checkout to when M. would be finished and ready to go. She chose the mall. I am not a mall fan. I probably go to a mall two or three times a year, tops, and it's usually to accomodate one of my girls. But I went and let her decide which stores we would hit. I got to try out the GPS. Truth be told, I wouldn't have ventured out on my own without it. I am directionally challenged, and that is an understatement. The GPS (her voice is called 'Emily') and I managed to get to the mall and back, without any getting lost issues. We had a few arguments, Emily and I. The bitchy way she says 'Recalculating' when you decide to take a different route than the one she suggested...you can almost hear the unspoken 'idiot' that follows. It came in handy when looking for food as well!

Last weekend Dej helped me out quite a bit with my errands. She also has stayed here (with Joe) to take care of our animals the last few overnight trips we've had. To show my appreciation, and because it was so 'her', I ordered her a gorgeous vintage ring from etsy. I received it in the mail on Thursday and was really excited to give it to her Friday morning before we left. I opened the packages (yes, plural, because I also happened to find a couple of cute things for myself...I feel really guilty about it, but they were inexpensive and they make me happy for some silly reason...Wait, maybe it's good because I was helping to stimulate the economy?? :-D ). I was so happy. The items I got from Musarra & Co were beautiful. They looked lovely in the pictures online but were even prettier 'in person'. Not only that, but her communication through the whole ordering/shipping process was outstanding--both timely and pleasant. The items arrived in beautifully decorated containers. If I had more time tonight, I would post pics of them, but that's not gonna happen right now. Everything about it--jewelry and packaging was beautiful. It really brightened my day. If you enjoy one-of-a-kind vintage jewelry, you have to check her shop out! Oh, and both of my girls were delighted by all the beautiful things too.

Since I'm also not going to have time to upload the pics from our trip tonight, I'm going with some old pics from the last time she went to one of daddy's talks (in MN). On this particular occasion, I wasn't able to go with them. We were a bit concerned, because the last time she went to one of M's talks without me, her behavior wasn't exactly...acceptable. She likes to be the center of attention, even when her daddy is talking. >:-[ I explained to her, very logically, that this would be a big group, and most of them didn't know M. or only knew him professionally. I continued that people would make judgements about what kind of dad and what kind of man M. was, based on how well his child (her) behaved. She agreed, and promised whe would be a little more appropriate. I even gave some of examples of what, specifically, would or wouldn't be acceptable behavior. I thought we had reached an understanding. I should have been more specific. So at the MN talk she did behave...mostly. When M. showed on the screen a photo of him blending up a batch of moss in our blender, L. did not get up or interrupt. She stayed in her seat, raised her hand until M. called on her, and said, "Aaaw...I'm telling mom what you put in her blender." She did go out of her way to dress up very nicely and do her hair in a new 'funky' way, so she would look extra pretty for her dad's talk. She also left this note, with a tip for the housekeeping staff. She's an entertaining child.