Minutiae

So far this day, I have:

-accompanied my mother to the Ford dealership in Redwood Falls, where Bessie the minivan had an oil change. Jason! met Bessie on our day of adventuresomeness. The conversation, as I recall it, went something like this:

J: You drive a minivan?
E: Actually, Ali's driving it today.

-toured an alpaca farm on the way back from Redwood (I admit, this was my ulterior motive for going with in the first place). There were nearly three hundred ridiculously cute alpacas on the Rich-Nes grounds - mothers with close-cropped coats (well, apart from the manes framing their faces), fluffy babies with enormous glossy eyes, and two penned-off males (fighters, those two) who paced and hissed and spit at one another and had stare-offs every minute or so. Michal and I spent an hour walking through the barns with Richard and Agnes, who pointed out the week-old alpaca and the nineteen-year-old (that is, ancient) alpaca and the wee little alpacas who didn't quite understand the concept of eating hay. To commemorate the occasion, we purchased a skein of charcoal grey wool; alpaca scarf, here I come.

-been head-butted three times by Chatty as I sat eating lunch. I think kitty just wanted attention, so after her proddings I picked her up and pranced about the room with her until she seemed bored and fed up with me. That should do the trick.

-finished a book (A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King - fluff, but enjoyably so). I estimate I've read it at least ten times over the years, because that is simply what I do.

-eavesdropped with my mother while shopping for a wedding present in New Ulm. We overheard the mother of a family friend consulting with a sales associate about an engagement present, and we both instantly hushed, trying to determine whether she was buying with her son in mind. Curiosity killed the alpaca, I suppose (that's what Richard said, anyway - "They just want to know everything, that's the only way they get in trouble.").

And you thought there was nothing to do in rural Minnesota...