Spotted during our "travels" this week:
Thought of our jeep-fan friend Amy when we saw the above tire cover.
Below: Hard evidence of CK-loss at the severe-to-profound level. Averages out at about 100 decibels per tire. For the less technically adept, that translates into: what my car would look like if I was a single and childless gal.
Leah's current obsession is maps.
Quite appropriately, we took her to the National Geographic Museum yesterday. It actually turned into two field trips, since the metro has its own map as well, and she took it upon herself to be navigator: "Before, we had FIVE STOPS left, and...and... and now we just passed the zoo, so now we have four -- FOUR -- four stops left! Were you watching me? You're supposed to WATCH ME! Okay? OKAY?! Okay. Look, look, I'll show you again. Now watch: One, two, threee..."
She's such a smartass that she's designed her own map, which is quite magic. Because this map correlates to any space in the world, no matter where we are. On this map, you can navigate from our house to the metro, or from wherever we are on the Beltway to some place in distant southern Maryland, from her
pillow to Fairyland, or from the dinner table to where the stuffed doggie is behind the bookshelves in her bedroom.
But in order for this map to work, it takes two people to operate it. The first and most important is Miss Princess Explorer herself, who is the only one with the omniscient power to identify our starting point -- "The blue next to the black. No, no, not the green, the BLUE!"
And then the second person, who could be just about any ol' schlump on the street, identified only through the powers of Her Royal and Beautiful and Smart Highness, is then charged with the imperially important imperative of identifying the endpoint.
What happens next is truly magic: Her Highness goes into a fit of gasps as she realizes how soon we will be there. She waits until whatever vehicle we're traveling in has progressed at least one pinky-nail on her map (which translates into roughly five feet in Earth physic) to perform this wondrous feat of navigation again.
Because who knows where we'd be without her map?! *gasps* LOST!!! Which means we need to stop for ice cream and regroup. Because that's what adventurous explorers do. And we know this because Dora the Explorer said so.
This post has been inspired by awesome Kate's Quickie Post #1: Maps over at Arbofo. Be sure to check out the links her commenters supply as well. I especially like this name-those-countries game she linked to -- great for killing those "I really should get going but I'd rather do something else doldrums:"
I was wondering what that thing was!!!! But Leah didn't bother explaining it to me. And I was even wearing a skirt! Guess it wasn't princess-y enough for her!
Posted by: Lara | March 28, 2008 at 01:37 PM
*blush* 49.
I need that map.
Posted by: Carrie | March 29, 2008 at 10:50 AM
haha, thank god i didnt see that jeep because if i did, id probably get out of my car and fix it.
cute map from leah. makes a lot of sense to me!! *amused*
Posted by: SAZZY | March 29, 2008 at 03:31 PM
loved seeing y'all last night. the map is exactly why i want to "observe" leah! :) she's a child genius.
i could only think of 31 countries (well, I thought of 10 more but couldn't spell them right!) and my dead body is worth 3190 bucks. cool.
Posted by: tate | March 31, 2008 at 06:55 PM
45. that sucks! i was too nervous! i was! all that pressure! does this still make me smarter than a 5th grader?
Posted by: LARRY | April 02, 2008 at 01:11 PM