not your astronaut: ticking away

back to last week ... or the week before? where does the time go?

there were a lot of nice things about my birthday, but i knew i'd be taking friday off too and decided that i would let erik go to school so i could have some time to myself. it was nice not having to rush around in the morning to get him there, and after i dropped him off i went to phipps conservatory to have a look at the frabel glass exhibit in the daylight. it was interesting and weird driving through schenley park because the roads were still completely lined with heavy iron fences from the g20 reception the night before. there were dozens of people all over the park on forklifts and large trucks dismantling the fencing and clearing it out. when i got to phipps, there was a small group of protesters on flagstaff hill and wpxi newsman gordon loesch was reporting on them, but they were very peaceful. the group dressed as buddhist monks was also there. i got my camera and lenses ready to go, and immediately after getting out of the car and closing the door, i realized i had locked my keys in there.

d'oh! well, i immediately called AAA and wandered around near my car for about an hour or so. here is what i saw:

finally the AAA truck arrived and, though my car proved particularly tricky to unlock (which i guess is at least somewhat comforting), the nice man was eventually about to open it so i could retrieve my keys and go into phipps. i went around the entire conservatory twice, once with my "everyday" zoom lens and then again with my macro lens. i didn't go into the stove room with my macro lens because it was so humid and i didn't want it to fog up like my other lens did. so unfortunately all of the butterfly photos from that day are a little clouded over. they would have been better with the macro lens, but i didn't want to risk damaging it. here are some of my favorite pictures:

and my absolute favorite, the cosmos (i want to plant some in my yard next year!):

a brief summary of other things that have happened recently:

i horribly broke the tooth that i had the crown replaced on in december. it's bad. really bad. what's left is going to have to be surgically extracted, but i couldn't get an appointment for weeks. fun.

i left my headlights on in my car in the parking lot at the lab. all day. i made a second call to AAA within a week of the first and waited for almost an hour and a half to get a jump start.

we went to the delmont apple 'n arts festival and it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! great job mom!!! i know you work really hard on it! erik got stung by a bee for the first time. he whimpered a little but didn't cry. at least we know he's not allergic to bee stings! there was a huge inflatable slide that erik LOVED! he did a great job climbing up and sliding down by himself.

they had a petting zoo where you could feed cute baby animals and give them a bottle.

we ate scrumptious apple dumplings and bought yummy apple cider to take home.

on the way home we stopped at walmart where i put a franklin regional (my high school) hat on erik and asked him to smile. why does he make this face when i ask him to smile?

sadly, later that night when i asked him what his favorite part of the day was, his response was "walmart!" he did get a prius at walmart.

on sunday we made a long overdue trip to the playground. it's been a little chilly, but it was still a beautiful day, and the playground was almost empty. i think erik had fun.