Uptight white folks, a recipe, and re-twisting a twisted ankle.

Hwy 395 South, winding its way towards Mono Lake.

Hey kids,

Daddy is out of town for the weekend, so it's just been me and you for the past couple of days, Wavy. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what the two of us could do together that wouldn't be too taxing on my poor ankle. Originally, I had wanted to go exploring with you down by Red Lakes off of Hwy 88, but the thought of us being down there by ourselves, and of me trying to chase you down as you are carried away in the mouth of a big brown bear, well... I eventually thought better of it.

So what else can two gals on their own possibly do to while away an afternoon... how 'bout SHOP! I vaguely recalled that there is an outlet mall down in Mammoth Lakes, about a two-hour, scenic drive south of us. Jakey and I used to make that drive when he was being a colicky bee-yotch. Plus Mono Lake is on the way.

So we set off late in the morning on Saturday. I remember forcing Jakob to listen to my Desert Island Discs when we took these jaunts. You know -- CDs that you would take with you to your deserted island if you could only take a handful. I was trying to instill some musical taste in him early and often. Fat lot of good it did, four years later, he thinks "Yellow Jellybean" sung to the tune of "Yellow Submarine" is the height of hilarity, and that any song that starts out with the words, "Oooooooooh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" is a classic for the ages.

You fell asleep about half an hour down the road, so I just turned the stereo off and enjoyed some silence, which I don't do often enough. It was nice. It's a gorgeous drive that winds down Hwy 395, through lots of high desert and parallel to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Mammoth Lakes is a touristy ski resort town, with lots of chi-chi shops and uptight and overprivileged white folks who glare at you when you kinda accidentally on purpose run over their foot with a stroller. (Sorry, angry dude in line at the burger joint that we stopped at for lunch. You had it comin'...)

After lunch, we drove up and down the main drag a couple times and found that there really weren't any shops at the outlet mall that caught our attention, but there *was* an arts and crafts fair going on in the Rite-Aid parking lot. So that's where we wound up, buying $4 SnoCones and assorted boobles and baubles. And basically trying to avoid even more annoyed, wealthy people on vacation.



I'd have photos to post, but Momma's forgetfulness strikes again. The battery ran out on the camera on the way home from Mammoth, and I don't know where I left the charger. Somewhere between here and San Francisco. So there's a butt-load of photos that I can't get off the camera until I get it charged. Sigh.

Addendum: I found the charger. It was in a pocket in the door of my truck. I don't remember putting it there. Or why I would in the first place...

We stopped at Mono Lake on the way home, snacked on Goldfish, salami and cheese, changed your diaper in the parking lot in front of God and everybody, then moseyed on down to the Lake for a quick look at the fly-blown, stinky shoreline and a tufa formation or two. Really.... Mono is nicer than that; you just have to be willing to explore a little bit farther than you were amenable to after spending most of your afternoon in a carseat, and then a stroller, and then a carseat again.



Mostly what you wanted to do was run and run and run in a straight line away from the Lake, through the desert brush and tumbleweeds, back toward the highway. After about 10 minutes of that happy horseshit, I bundled you back in the truck and off we went.

We stopped off at the supermarket when we got back into town and bought the stuff to make Corn Bread Bites from last October's Cooking Light magazine that's been lurking in my bathroom for, oh, about 10 months now.



We also bought a tub of a gourmet-ish Chicken Tortilla soup in the deli section. Soup and mini corn muffins. How "girls' night in" is that. If daddy and Jakob were home, they'd round that meal out with a turkey burger or a plate of ribs or something.

Today I had planned to take you out to buy you some shorts at Target, since you only have one pair left that fit, and that one pair has some ungodly stains on them. But, just as we were leaving, and you were halfway to the car, I stepped down out of the front door onto the porch, and onto my twisted ankle JUST SO... and twisted it again, but good.

I yelped loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear me, yelled at you to get back in the house, then spent the next half hour on the floor in front of the front door, sobbing and hyperventilating, while you stood nearby, bewilderedly patting me on the knee.

So we spent the rest of today in bed, watching another Deadliest Catch marathon, icing my ankle and fighting like cats and dogs. You take great pleasure in pulling all the books and DVDs off the shelves and flinging them to the floor, and taking off your diaper, and turning computers and TVs on and off, on and off, on and off, on and off, no matter how much I yell at you to STOP STOP STOP.

That's part of the reason I try and get you out of the house as much as possible these days. Cuz if we stay home, you turn into Bad Baby and I turn into Mean Mom.

We called a truce at the end of the day, and to make up for being such a meanie, I took a Vicodan and drove us down to get a couple burritos to eat at the park while we watched the sun set and the moon rise in the smoke-filled skies above the Sierras.

So... not too terrible a weekend. Took a nosedive there towards the end, but it could've been worse. Coulda been better, but coulda been worse.

Love you, and you too, Jakob. Good night!

PS: This just in -- "Nicole Kidman gave birth Monday to a baby girl named Sunday." I don't know how I feel about this yet. I need more time to process...