Take me home, country road.
We took the Strider bikes around the block our first evening here. The block in Idaho looks a little different than the one back home.
In the haste of coming off the conference and packing for an unfamiliar airline, which meant packing differently–only one big suitcase and three small carry-ons, I forgot my good camera. Which is a shame, because the bots are finally big and independent and trustworthy enough to give me small moments to fool around with stuff, both technical and non, without destroying the order of the universe.
“What’s the weather like up there, Cap’n Mbot?”
There is a pirate ship in the back yard.
“What else do birds like in their nests, Mom?”
There are ingredients to build birds’ nests. We came back from a walk down the dry creekbed with pockets stuffed with the wormlike tips of cottonwood branches, coin-sized river rocks smooth as gumballs, yellow-gold leaves, grasses, and even a few oriole feathers. After drawing directions for how to do it, Mbot carefully built a nest on the porch railing. He put a few pretzels in as bait. We check them periodically.
Bushwacking to the bewildered* garden (*a garden that’s nearly taken over by wilderness.)
The weather is perfect: frosty or close to it at night, mid-sixties at midday. Aspen leaves shiver in the chilly breeze and the light glows golden under the tall, tangled cottonwoods. We have practically lived out of doors since arriving. Out of doors in the Wood River Valley is my favorite place to be. It is apparently Mbot’s new favorite place, too. After our long creekbed excursion, while Nanny was preparing lunch, Mbot asked her, “Where will you move after this?”
“We won’t move,” replied Nanny. “We like it here.”
“But when you die you’ll move,” Mbot pointed out.
“That’s true,” said Nanny. “We’ll move to Heaven, I suppose.”
“Mom,” said Mbot, turning to me, “Can we move to this house after Nanny dies?”
I explained that we were lucky that Nanny wouldn’t die for a long, LONG time. And then we agreed it was much more fun being here while Nanny is alive.
And then we ate lunch, and went back outside to play–the bots chasing each other around the towering lilac bush, climbing the rigging of the yard swing pirate ship together, swinging in the hammock together, and discovering the bewildered garden together. It’s as though someone waved a cottonwood wand with a crisp tawny leaf at its tip and pronounced us the family of peaceful playing and quiet cooperation.
This has begun to acquire the feel of a vacation.
Superhero Underpants 