Bettin' on Baby

My good friend Sarah is about to have a baby. It should be a good one, since Sarah and Charlie are fabulous.

Because we have bets on the due date, I hope she waits until the 22nd of January (down to the hour would be nice, but I'll take what I can get). There's a trophy involved.

The fact that Charlie suggested that we bet on Sarah's due date doesn't really surprise me since a wager has already been made on this baby... way back in 2001.

You see, Charlie and Nate were throwing rocks at a stump. Nate made the wager that if he hit the stump, he'd get: naming rights to Charlie's first born child and the right to have said child after his or her 8th birthday. (Nate didn't want the hassle of those first few years.)

Charlie lost the bet and Nate declared the child's name to be Sponge.

Sarah and Charlie were dating at the time, and they got married a couple of years later.

So about 9 months ago, Nate was visiting me in Asheville. It was a beautiful Saturday, so we went out to breakfast at the West End Bakery with all of the children under the age of 4 in West Asheville (and their parents, clearly). The bakery was brimming with board books and baby bjorns. As we were sitting outside, I asked Nate, "Do you think Sarah and Charlie will have a baby soon?"

Nate replied, "Ooooooh, I'm not ready."

I said, "Nate, you have 8 years to get ready..."

Later that day, Sarah called to tell us that she was pregnant.

Jump forward to last night. Sarah and I were talking about the birthdate bet, and I told her that one of two options would be ideal:

1. She holds off until January 22nd (I'd like that trophy...) or

2. She has the baby today (January 16th). It's Nate's birthday; he'd have an easier time remembering Sponge's birthday if Sarah have her baby today.

Sarah has always been the most grounded, wholesome, and logical of our friends. She could give us advice, cut our hair, and fix a car all within the same day. She's the beautiful mediator who smoothed me over when Nate spit in my face back in college. (Granted, I did tell him I had whooping cough and coughed on him... ) Sarah also understands the importance of bets in our lives.

This is all to say that I'm sure Sarah would help us all out.

She'd help Nate by having the baby today.

Or help me out by holding out until the 22nd.

And of course she'd help her husband out by helping him uphold his end of the bet.

Sure, she'll miss baby Sponge after his or her 8th birthday, but Sarah's that type of wonderful.

Leaves Be Gone

Lowlights and highlights from our road clean-up day with Morganton TAASC:

*The 16 year old "project manager" saying to a 12 year old, "Do you think you're too pretty to work? I beg to differ."

*One of the older high school kids eating the best things out of one of our 8th grader's lunch.

*Finishing the entire project.

*Spending the day outside after a night of camping in chilly air.

*Talking with Freya, who is one of my favorite Asheville TAASC kids.

She is spunky, honest, and thoughtful; I enjoyed hearing about the Key School students at the Carolina Day School being drilled in Scrabble; her dogs, cats, and brothers; and her love of backpacking.

* Seeing our quirky/kind/slightly lazy kids around the cliquey/macho/cool Morganton kids.

* Finally, meeting a little kid who is called "Subway" because, in his words, "My dad owns all of the Subway restaurants in Burke County!"

Pato

We have a TAASC trip tomorrow (working with the Morganton "old school" kids) cleaning out ditches in the national forest and camping. The founder of TAASC (who is "old school" himself) suggested tools for our 12-15 year olds to bring such as rakes and leaf blowers with ear protection. I told them about the trip and gear list at our weekly meeting tonight.

One of them gasped, "You mean we get to bring power tools?"

I think I replied something like, "We can do that when we go on trips with the Morganton kids."

(I'm trying to get them to like those other kids before we even meet, obviously to prevent gang wars between Asheville and Morganton.)

**Sidenote that will hopefully make sense a bit later: Pato means duck in Spanish. When I was studying in Venezuela, my nine-year old host sister made me some pictures of different animals. I think she thought that I needed all of the help I could get. Below is the pato picture. She put a pata (girl duck) on there, too. She signed the top, Alice Rojas, but it's a bit hard to see.

I think conejo, which means rabbit, could also be a bad word if you call someone it. I don't know if pato is also a bad word, but I think it should mean something like wimp or wuss.***

If so, when those sweet TAASC kids asked about the power tools (or when they complain about minor discomfort), I'd add, "Don't be such patos! What will the Morganton kids think?" A little cool kid peer pressure is great. I read it in some education textbook somewhere.

Later in that meeting, we started watching Touching the Void. As we were talking about crampons, ice axes, and summiting "alpine style" throughout the movie, I asked some of them if they'd like to do a mountaineering trip. They replied, "Do you see how cold that is?!" As if to say, "Why would we do that when we can sit here and watch a movie about it?" Ahh, the fine art of armchair mountaineering. Be careful of the altitude sickness, patos.

This movie is rated R for the language. Don't worry, parents, I sat with my hand on the mute buttom for when one of the climbers falls and his leg snaps. He drops the f-bomb a lot. But really, parents, would you be screaming, "Dang! Ouch!" if the bottom part of your leg rammed up into the top part?

When the kids saw the rating, one of them asked, "Are you allowed to show us this?"

I replied, "Whateva, I do what I want." As long as they don't tell their folks about it...

I'm a pato, too.

Here are some more of my host sister's pictures. The conejo isn't the bad conejo. Sapo, which means toad, is on the same picture with the girl and boy frogs. I think sapo should mean sucker... like someone who is easily duped. She even drew the sapo to look like a sucka. These are all rated G: