excuses

One night right after we moved, my boy was over at a friend's house, and just as the agreed upon hour of curfew approached, he texted me: sorry I'm late, I just saw a huge raccoon. It cracked me up, and was effective in earning him a pass for that late arrival.

In seemingly unrelated news, on  a recent and rare solo Sunday morning, I took a spin in the neighborhood with a newly procured and imminently fabulous pink bike.

pink bike, yellow house

I decided to check out the cool San Diego Stroll that my lovely co-blogger Beth told us about, Go ahead and visit Beth's post to see pretty pictures from the stroll, because I was too busy not falling off my pink bike to consider such things. I do wish Beth had shown a photo of that cool and easy sounding pedestrian bridge, although if she had I might not have traversed it because as one guy commiserated as he whizzed past my gasping, fishtailing pink ass; "hills suck!"  In all fairness to Beth and the bridge, I was still figuring out the gears on my new bike and the return ride was much easier after I crested the learning curve.

Anyway! It's so pretty! Look:

It's literally the exact same spot that Beth photographed!

whoa, nice lamppost!

I thought I at least got a pink handlebar in there or something. Nope! I loved it just as much as Beth knew I would, it's so pretty and sparkly and cool down there by the water, and to be able to get there from home under only the power (as it were) of my own legs made it even sweeter.

My time was short, so I had to turn back before I'd had my fill of nature's spectacles, but as I hurried home I really had no choice but to yield when the elephant passed through the parking lot.

It's hard to know how to react when an elephant walks by, ya know? I'm pretty sure I did an elmer fudd-esque flabbergasted head shake then slowly continued on my way for a minute before admitting to myself and to fellow confused bystanders that this was not in fact normal.

and yet.

Of course I followed, an an explanation - clarifying if not humane - emerged.

Poor ephalant.

I wasn't the only one who had stopped to investigate, it was a really strange encounter and just so weirdly awesome. I was now officially late, though. I was supposed to pick up my son like 10 minutes ago. So I texted him  sorry I'm late, I just saw a huge elephant.

I love this town.