Zen and the art of clover hunting and poo eating.

The morning of July 4th, I found myself facing an entire day of freedom from work and social obligation. It was a beautiful day. Facing all this time, I was inspired to embark on the planning and cooking a lavish al fresco dinner for two. I just do that every once in a while. I perused cookbooks and decided on an antipasto plate of grilled vegetables, steak with salsa verde and a lovely fruit tart for dessert. Preparing the meal involved 3 trips to grocery stores, and a lot of prep work. I only lost my sanity for a short period of time which I attribute to low blood sugar and our friend's and families (not of my origin mind you) propensity for stopping by unannounced. This typically happens when I am walking around bra-less and puffy eyed and still in my pajamas, or during the first 1.5 minutes of sleep during the nap I am making a doomed, vain attempt to squeeze in. But that's for another blog entry. This particular unannounced visit occurred during a vain effort to nap. If the relatives (who I adore, mind you) had woken Maggie up from HER nap, I would have simply handed her over, said "Come back in an hour!", shut the door and gone back to bed. THAT WILL TEACH THEM!!!

The food was delicious but the real star of the show was Maggie. Not only did she sit in her high chair while we ate, but in between courses she crawled around on the grass in the back yard, happy as a lark. Ms Madge went from clover to clover, carefully inspecting the flowers, picking them, delicately holding them between her sweet little fingers and finally popping them in her mouth for one fleeting gleeful moment until I fished them out. She also did this with a lump of dog poo, which led to my subsequent screaming as her poo-streaked hand moved towards her mouth. I fear I did not make it in time. I scooped her up, raced inside, and Jim and I sat her on the sink median, her chubby little legs dangling, frantically washing the canine dung from her hands. She found it all terribly amusing. See, we had cleared the yard of all visible poo, but missed one tiny chunk, which she of course made a beeline for, found, and tried to eat. Because, why wouldn't she?

We went back outside and sat on a blanket as Maggie played with toys and tried to climb up on our furry friends. Our Golden retriver Harriet, seemed to have figured out that the best course of action is to run for her life lest she be manhandled by a giddy, sticky, 10 month old.

Ms Maggie seems to have discovered a love of all things berry, and she SHOVELED them into her mouth, raspberries, strawberries and blueberries flying. Her four pristene pearly whites standing out in contrast to the red gook covering her cheeks.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing. We sat under a vast expanse of blue sky and had our dinner and played. I felt small and blessed in my little microscopic corner of the world. Clover, poo and all.