That was a long silence.
Thanks for sticking with me. I saw a blog with a sweet little logo in the corner that said. "B.W.O. - Blogging Without Obligation". Perhaps I will get myself one of those.
We have been traveling for a week, visiting coops in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for demos. It was a great week with good contact with many of our accounts (and many of our customers). We took some time to play as a family at Winter Festival and the Science Museum, and are so happy to be back in our ridiculously large family bed, with plenty of room for all of these feet and elbows.
The greatest adventure of the week belongs to Beanie.
You know, Beanie. The 1970's bean-bag doll that I loved and now Lupine loves?
Right. Beanie.
The adventure began with Sage, Lupine, and I wer car-less in Minneapolis, while Pete was off at a demo. Sage had sixteen hard earned dollars in his pocked ear marked for Lego Land. I was feeling atypically adventurous. A bus ride, a train ride, and an escalator ride later we were in (gulp) The Mall. The Really. Freakishly. Big. Mall.
Our day went like this: Play Legos. Buy Legos. Buy ice cream. Eat ice cream (wear ice cream). Escalator ride. Train ride. Bus ride...
We got off the bus in the half-darkness of early evening. We started walking the rest of the way home. Lupine was in the Ergo, and I looked down with horror to realize Beanie was gone. Gone.
Gone.
Always calm in a crisis, I half-shrieked, "Where is Beanie?"
"I saw her on the bus, lying on the floor," said Sage. (Cue Lupine's crying here.)
"And you didn't pick her up?!" I asked, not trying very hard at masking my disbelief.
"I didn't think of it," he said.
"Buy new Beanie. Buy new Beanie now," said Lupine, between tears.
Right.
Buy a new 39 year old bean bag doll right now, at 6:30 pm on a slushy street corner in Minneapolis with two (make that three) tired, overstimulated, underfed, sugared up kids people.
We trudged home and I contacted the bus station. After endless calls and transfers and dead-end conversations, I finally put Lupine to bed, sans-Beanie for the first time. She cried a little but is an amazingly resilient girl and fell to sleep with her other five (yes, really) favorite snuggle buddies. (She has six mandatory sleep friends, but beanie and the polyester afghan are her favorites, above the handmade organic blankie and Waldorf dolls).
Finally, at 9:00 p.m. I got news that Beanie was found!
Pete picked her up, all salty and dirty and happy to be home and I washed her and put her to bed with Lupine (giggling in her half-sleep).
The next morning Lupine relived the adventure with this summary: "Beanie no hands. Beanie no hold bus ticket. No ticket Beanie. Beanie lost... Beanie come home! Yayyyy!"
Yes, Beanie come home. I'm not sure who was happier to see her - Lupine or me.
