Jenn.lately

When your mama brings you a little tubby-puffin from Iceland… but you don’t find the love note until a week later when you take a bath…. Thanks mama! ❤️🥰

Boat daze.

Story time!
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Once upon a time, I road my bicycle a very long way. Like, 11 or 13 countries and a couple of continents long way. I did so in the company of my homemade team of mini-cyclists (and their dad, of course!).
🚴‍♀️
Somewhere along that 10k km or so, Mother’s Day was celebrated and I was solemnly presented with… a tiny glass salt shaker? … “Erm… thank you, children…?”
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“No! MOM! It’s a flower holder… for your bike, so you have a place for all the flowers we pick you!” They did pick a lot of (very short stemmed) flowers.
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In the land before 3-D printing, a zip tie did the job and I rode the rest of every single kilometer ever ridden on that bike since mothers day 2008 with said flower vase bobbing along on my handle bars.
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The flower picking tapered off as the elves wandered their ways.
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Three years ago when one of them absconded with my car whilst I was wintering on the side of a volcano somewhere and I came home to just two wheels instead of four, I upgraded them with an electric kit and a bike trailer. Who needs a car? (I didn’t… until I inherited more kids… and then I did… and now we do. But I digress.)
👍🏼
As you know, I have EDS. My hands… thumbs specifically, are a special challenge. The throttle situation hurt. A lot.
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Now in the land of 3-D printers, the in-house inventor an engineer has iterated a number of times and upgraded the shape of my handle bars and position of the throttle. And…
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He remembered the vase in the design!!! It’s perfect and I love it. And I’m pretty convinced I can’t ride a single mile without it because, I mean, it’s been almost 20 years since I’ve tried.
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So now I need some kids to pick me flowers. (Thank goodness for rentals!)
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And I may or may not be contemplating another 10,000 km. Why not, right?

Only 9:30pm. Winter is coming.

In case you’re wondering, this is why one has sons… my vaparetto to the city for my birthday date with my bestie.

This island life…

Good morning eggplant.
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You may laugh now.
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And other photos from my birthday week…
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The gardens are swamping us (at the risk of repeating myself… PLEASE come get zucchini)
We have eggplants as big as the neighbour baby’s head
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(Judah: “sometimes you exaggerate, but those really ARE as big as Orson’s head!”).
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Bean does not understand morning yoga. At all.
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Swipe all the way to the end to see how much a hand changes over half a century (courtesy of my mom who made that tiny plaster when I was wee).
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And it pleases me to still be taking baths with my original baby fish. Let’s not think about what might be in that mid century plastic, shall we? I no longer lick them, so it’s probably fine, right? Probably. Or maybe that explains a few things…

And then it was August.

Summer daze. Family visits and long days on the water. The kid is learning to drive the big boat solo…

Sunrise over wildfire smoke. Unedited. The sky looks like a filter. Kingston is a ghostly shadow that at the edge of being visible. The outdoor bathtub had a think layer of grey smoke film coating it. (The ash Judah asked about yesterday?) burning eyes. Tight chest. And we are far away from the real danger.