A Little Slice of Seattle Heaven

Last weekend I went to Seattle for 5 days to visit my very good friend Alicia. Seattle is gorgeous in August and Alicia is everything I could hope for in a friend, but what made time with Alicia in Seattle so special is that I left Maria behind! Mark and my mom took good care of her and I missed her a bit, but not nearly as much as I thought I would! Again, no mom-of-the-year awards for me, but it was heavenly to eat food while it was still hot, have long, uninterrupted conversations, change no diapers, eat at nice restaurants without fear, stay out late, shop till we dropped, sleep when tired and wake up late!

On our first morning we walked from Alicia's apartment with a Space Needle view over to Pike Place market for a breakfast of fresh berries and pastries. We ate dim sum, talked, shopped at some favorite stores that sadly don't exist in my town, soaked up the sun and picnicked at two different beaches, talked, walked all over the place, talked, and even redecorated Alicia's living room! We got some funny looks when carrying the curtain rods home from Bed, Bath and Beyond, but overall I loved living in the city for 5 short days. Very different from my usual walks at home which involve looking at the corn and soybean fields and needing to drive just about everywhere. Living in the country has its advantages, but city life sure is attractive! And time with a good friend is priceless... thank you Alicia!

Sunroom Sundries

It's been an interesting few days in our sun room. Happily it has been getting cool enough that we've been able to go out there in the mornings and evenings. Last night I noticed a praying mantis on the sun room door.

This morning it had been joined by another praying mantis... I took a closer look and indeed they were doing what bugs do on the Nature Channel. I dimly remembered learning something quite horrible in high school biology class about praying mantises and I was scared.

I hoped against hope that my memory was wrong. But I couldn't be sure if it was or it wasn't. The uncertainty of it all drew me (against my better judgment!) to check back on the mantises throughout the day.

At first they were continuing to do what they had been doing. Then the moment came when all my fears were realized. I don't think I want to fully explain what happened, but it involved cannibalism... go ask your biology teacher for details. After my dreaded suspicion was confirmed I no longer checked back, but I did hum taps for the male praying mantis.

The wikipedia entry on praying mantids was quite interesting. Apparently one can keep them as pets and feed them crickets. (Mattox, are you reading this?) I started thinking that might be a fun sort of science project to do with Maria when she gets older - keep a praying mantis in a little terrarium and feed it crickets. There certainly is no shortage of crickets here among the corn and soybean fields! But now I'm wondering if this feeding of crickets would be too gross and would scar Maria for life. I figure as her mother I'm totally doomed... no matter what I do I'll scar her for life in somehow, but I'd like to keep the damage as minimal as possible!

PS. This picture was taken before anything too terrible happened. The odd part is that the female was missing one arm, but that didn't stop her from doing what she did. Such aggressive little critters!