We spent an afternoon at the zoo. National Zoo. Downtown Washington, DC. I do enjoy a good zoo… and National is top o’ the heap… cuz, y’know, it’s like, free. If you don’t count the $20 bucks for parking.

Anyhoo. We get to the zoo every time we visit the in-law family on the east coast. This year, in an effort to let SIL rest, we took her kids, too. The cousins. Three. Ages 6, 3 and almost 2. Along with our own miscreants. Six kids, Filipes and I. Thankfully she had the foresight to pack snacks and drinks. For six kids. Because, we packed NOTHING! And while conscientious, organized SIL handed us a cooler pack full of afternoon at zoo sustenance, all husband and I could do was look at each other sheepishly, while pulling one another’s heads out of our respective asses. I mean, who plans to take six freakin’ kids for an afternoon at the zoo in 90 degree heat and packs NOTHING?!?! Perhaps we figured we’d spend a fortune on hotdogs, french fries and pop…. or maybe just get ‘em jacked up on over-priced lemonade and cotton candy. Or perhaps, just perhaps, we did not think at all…. But, I digress. Off to the zoo….

Mr. Gorilla Cranky-Pants…

See… just not in the mood for company…

And nothing but ass…

More Cranky-Pants… Orangutan style. Regarding his adoring public with disdain…

And some pretty- stinky!- flamingos!

Shnoooort…. Schnuuuurzzzzzzzz…. Schnuuuuuuuuummph…

Zzzzzzzzzzzz…. urcccchh…. huuuunnngh…. zzzzzzzzzzzz……

And along with the animals of course….

The girlies….

The challenge of the water fountain….

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Understand that I did, in fact, have hair growing up. I’m fortunate enough to say that I still have it. I say fortunate because given the torture and trauma I made my pre-pubescent and adolescent hair endure, it’s a freakin’ bloody miracle.

Interestingly, I have waves in my hair now. Perhaps a bi-product of having kids. I dunno, but I actually don’t mind my hair most days. Not to gross anybody out, but as my hair gets dirtier… greasier… the better it gets. I kid you not. Certainly, it reaches a point where it starts heading in the other direction. From full and wavy to dull, drab and limp. It’s not thick and it’s fine. So it can only take so much dirtiness… greasiness… before it just looks bad. There is a fine balance after all. I know, I’ve grossed you out.

In the early years, my fine, delicate strands and tendrils endured repeated assaults: home perm after home perm, striving for the perfect ringlets shown on the front of the box. So easily duped. Of course the model with the perfectly formed spirals had been primped, preened, rolled, curled, blown… only God, Allah and Oprah really know what else… deceiving young, desperate pre-teens into begging their well-meaning mothers into buying this toxic crap and voluntarily infusing it deep into their scalps. Scalding… burning… and by and large, frying their young heads. Oh yes… and my mother?!? Oh right, due to her own never-ending struggle with fine, staight hair she was indulging the desperate quest for TeenBeat beauty of misguided pre-teen, and actually rolling fine, delicate tendrils onto narrow plastic rollers! Infusing young scalp. Just as her own well-meaning mother, with her own beauty baggage, had done for her. Ack!

I’m not placing blame. I know I was desperately… frantically obnoxious in my insistence for curly hair. Despite each. And every. Fucking time. Ending up with a head full of crispy frizz! But, surely the next time would be different. Some how. And for a period of about seven years, there was always a next time. Thankfully, though, at some point, once I could afford it, I employed the (relatively) knowledgeable assistance of local salon. Marginally less destructive. Equally ineffectual.

The odyssey that was my perpetual search for the perfect curl for my so-very-imperfect hair did finally come to an end. Overlapping with my need to reclaim my inner blond. A saga commonly referred to as: My Journey Into Sun-In. Painful fodder for another post. One hair trauma at a time….

Well, I am now a mother. Of a daughter. Who, without a doubt, and despite my best efforts, will likely be dissatisfied with her own hair. But, honestly, and not because I am this girl’s mother, the child has beautiful hair. It’s fine, yes. But she has more of it. She also has delicious, wonderful waves. Even when it’s messy, unbrushed, tatty and tangly- much of the time- it’s lovely. And I love it. Each and every delicate, little ringlet.

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Mother Nature is up to her old shenanigans! It is cooo-ooold up here in the little valley that nestles our cozy, little cottage house. The only thing is… the last several mornings- and evenings- have been far from friggin’ cozy!

She’s a bitter tease, that old wench! Ahhhhh… Mother Nature!

Regardless the frosty start, things are shaping up to be a pretty good day. An early morning…. Ok, so it wasn’t spent alone as I prefer, but little Fidge has a way of making me smile. Even when she’s intruding into the sanctity of my very sanity; my buffer-zone; the peaceful silence of my first-thing-blissful-aloneliness, watching the sunrise with only the gently hum of my laptop and delicious hiss of steam from my cup o’ life-affirming joe.

Shower. Removal of offending body hairs. Head to toe. Sure the brows could use a little more work, but hey…. it’s a Thursday and the tidiness around the cankles would make even the best of electrolysis-icians proud, making up for what might be still sprouting out of place above my increasingly hooded lids….

Happiness=Hairlessness, I always say. OK, not. But to begin a day 1. actually clean; and 2. less several hundred grams of body hair…. well, it gets things off in the right direction.

Yes, things are off to a dandy start…. as I head into the ’school room’. Oh, please let the good times at least continue, if not actually roll….

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I’m always reminded, when I find myself with only one child, how friggin’ easy it would be with only one.

The boys are doing golf camp all week. Filipes was out golfing. So it was just the Fidgey and I. The girls.

We’ve had a lovely, oh so easy, girlie-day. This perfect day began with Fidge sleeping in, waking a whole two hours after the boys left this morning. Wild! What on earth did I do with myself, you ask? Oh, plenty! I caught up on The Daily Show/Colbert Report as I blogged, edited photographs from last couple of gigs… just some relaxed piddling. Which, surprisingly, actually amounted to something.

Anyhoo… on with our day. A little crunchy yogurt- yogurt, flax seed and granola (one of her breakfast faves)- for the girl and on to choosing our girlie-day wardrobe. Apparently, this day called for….

Fuschia!

It was the only colour for which we had dresses in common. And she was insistent that we wear matching dresses. On this girlie-day. Regardless of the fact that my particular dress is cut down to two and a half inches BELOW my sternum.

I felt like I was about to drop sadly deflated hooter at every turn.

And too damn hot for another layer…. No wonder that dude in the grocery was hovering beside us over the vegetables. I gave new meaning to “a little nipply”! Hel-lo!

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BC Cherries! And cherry stained faces! Perfect, plump, absolute edible joy and bliss….

There’s more joy in Best Shots at Mother May I….

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See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…we need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa

Following a downright beautiful, hectic and so very crowded Canada Day long weekend, things calmed down a little here this weekend past- July 4th, to American friends. Enjoying a little peace and quiet for this Best Shot Monday at Slurping Life…. there’s also more of my Zip in his tire swing…

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Our beach. At our lake. Has a great tire swing!!

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If you let it, the mind can run away to the ends of fantasy and back again. Particularly when confronted with a challenge you just don’t bloody well feel up for… such as, when ruminating on a tough UPHILL triathlon only hours away… and then lo and behold, in the deep, dark yet scarily vivid recesses of your mind, yer being abandoned on a high mountain trail, alone, lost, with no food or water, stalked by wolves and cougars, ultimately to end up an early supper for a frustrated mother bear and her eager little cubs.

And there’s where our story begins….

I did get out of the pool last. I did end up alone, the last racer on the bike trail… slowly pedalling if I wasn’t trudging, pushing my bike up the steep, narrow inclines, alone with my thoughts, sometimes singing- and yes, as I sang tunes loudly hoping that, if my presence alone was not enough to scare off predatory wildlife, then my complete lack of musicality would be- but always working to appreciate the sounds of the birds , the butterflies and the burbling of the creek in the narrow valley below, and reminding myself it’s really not so bad. Things can always be worse, after all. And… I took the short option trail, which brought me out to the festive crowds cheering, the first person to take to the trails on foot.

And so, I ran. Again the short course. Which brought me into the finish….

FIRST!!!

OK, so I know that out of 12 individual participants in this inaugural race, I was the only person to take the available short cut. I was also one of only two women to participate. The other woman hauled ass, my friend. She won the event- the long EXTREME event, I might add, beating the guys handily. For her, this was merely a fun event in an otherwise gruelling triathlon circuit over the summer.

Ahhhh, if only…..

Anyways, it was a great day. A great event. And many volunteers in the way of our trusty local Lions Club. They were organizing, offering support and several opportunities for water and oranges.

It was great. And, yes, if it happens, I will, in fact, participate again next year. LONG COURSE!

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An outstanding long weekend such as this has been ripe with all kinds of shots… What, with happy kids, all the sun, the lake, and our reliable little boat. We’ve waited a long time for this weather and we are drinking it up!

Newfoundland (today’s projected high: 10C… ack!), I apologize for these, on this Best Shot Monday! Oh, and it’s hosted by Melody.

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Yesterday was spent on the lake.

Today:  Rinse.  Repeat.

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