Of Blogs and Frogs and One More Elephant

http://webandofmothers.blogspot.com/p/leap-blog-dog-join-now.html

This year is one of those years where we mess with the time-space continuum and add a random day to the calendar. (I learned in science class why we do this, but it's still weird.) Do you have plans for Leap Day? How will you spend your extra day in February? Why not spend it playing Leap Blog?

Some really fantastic bloggers got together and decided it would be fun to use this bonus day to share guest posts on each others' blogs and they've let me tag along, too. It's not too late to sign up. Just click on the link under the frog picture and it will bring you to the sign-up page and perhaps a clearer explanation of what's going on.

This also means that if you should click this way on February 29th, you will not find my usual nonsense, you will find a guest blogger to peruse and enjoy and you must promise me now that should you choose to follow them (which you should), you must not forget about me. Now go sign up so we can mix it up good.

Also, another elephant. Last month, Kelly over at Southern Fried Children - don't click there now, you won't want to stop reading and then you'll forget what I was saying and it's vitally important - wrote an hilarious post about her mom called The Linguist wherein she describes her mom's penchant for picking up accents from people. I commented at the time that my dad used to do the same thing, much to my chagrin. To further mortify entire countries of people, he would often purchase and then wear "native" hats in an attempt to "go local". This obviously had the opposite effect of what was intended and was somewhat the same (or worse) than a tour company T-shirt and a fanny pack. This was especially true in Asian countries where my white, red-haired father could in no way be mistaken for "native" - even if he was wearing the traditional bamboo hat favored by 18th century indigenous peasants.

The only person in my family not to be embarrassed by this phenomenon was my little sister. She was always a Daddy's girl and this was no exception. So we have pictures of our family in Austria where the two of them are sporting jaunty mountain-climbing yodel-ay-hee-hoo hats, in Hawaii with (I kid you not) hats woven from grass, and in China with Chairman Mao hats, and so on, while my mom, brother and I are all just sporting perms and pained expressions. My all time favorite, though, is of just my sister. A tall and skinny 10-year-old with a giant bamboo lampshade hat in Thailand. The hat is too big for her and sits down on top of her glasses. Utterly un-self conscious and thoroughly absorbed in her activity, she (and the hat) are tottering atop an Asian elephant.

It's a picture that makes me laugh and makes me proud.* While I was lurking around with a camera and big bangs trying to disappear, she just fully embraced the whole experience and hopped on that elephant. Because of the way we grew up, I always kind of assumed that everyone just traveled the whole entire world and that I would do it forever. That I would be able to go back to Thailand any time and hop on an elephant. It hasn't happened yet. And it may never happen.

I had the opportunity once to ride an elephant, but I didn't. I was too busy trying to be cool.


*Sadly, I have searched and searched for this photo and can't find it. I believe it may have been kidnapped by my sister. She's not as proud of the picture as I am.