You crack me up, kiddo.
Friday mornings are when we aim to do the grocery shopping for the week. Friday mornings, I find, strike the happy balance between crowded, stocked shelves and empty, peaceful malls. And so it’s been our thing to browse the aisles together after breakfast on Fridays, and then break for an early lunch before heading home for a snooze.
Today was no different from most Fridays, I suppose. We had just commenced our shopping, and I had parked Arddun next to the broccoli aisle where it’s near enough for her to appreciate nature in all its biotechnological splendour, yet far enough for her not to help herself to a carrot. And then two little old Greek(?) ladies happened to walk past our trolley.
“Oh!” one exclaims, and starts stroking Arddun’s cheek lovingly. She brushes her fringe aside, tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear while my daughter beams and basks in her newfound adoration.
“Oh!” the same one exclaims, and sighs and clasps her hands. She signals her elderly friend over and says proudly, “Look at this beautiful one! Look at her! She reminds me so much of my Yarni!”
“Oh she does!” agrees the other, and they both continue to coo and touch her face and hair. Arddun’s loving it. I’m pretty chuffed myself.
“Is Yarni your granddaughter?” I hazard a guess.
“Mmm?”
“Yarni… you say my daughter Arddun looks like your Yarni. She your granddaughter?”
“Oh no no,” smiles the old lady, love shining in her eyes. “No, Yarni is my [insert foreign word].”
“Pardon?” I ask, shaking my head.
“My… ah… my…” she searches for the word. “My pooch-a. My dog.”
True story.
Had to do it.
The moment: a full half minute, trying to figure out where her toast disappeared to.
She tried, mind you. She looked over her chair on the right. She looked over her chair on the left. She even looked behind her. And then she looked right into my laughing eyes, her face all quizzical.
I got home from grocery shopping this evening, only to find half the magnetic contents of my fridge strewn across the kitchen floor, and the remains of what clearly had been a battle with the kitchen rug.
Apparently right after the tussle, she crawled back to the living room where Daddy’s watching the cricket, and got his attention by gurgling adorably while pulling herself up to standing using Daddy’s leg hair.
What you’re not seeing in the photo: paper and other junk, stuffed under the fridge. Why, I ask. Because I’m cute and because I can.
Canberra drivers are a scary breed. I think it’s got a lot to do with all that space we have, and the expectation that our roads are near deserted about 85% of the day. We are a glorified country town with big city ambitions, so we’re torn between manically weaving in and out of traffic with our soccer mum cars… and parking like the world is our paddock.
These are just 2 examples of I-couldn’t-give-a-rat’s-tushie-about-anyone-else parking, taken 7 days apart.
Specimen 1: “Lines? What lines?”
Specimen 2: “Your driving is getting in the way of my perfect park.”
BTW, the only reason I noticed specimen 2 was the backed-up traffic about 10 cars deep, gingerly trying to negotiate around that car in that narrow lane while avoiding oncoming traffic. Nice.
Finding The Happy 