Mother’s Day Reducks
OK, it’s out of sequence and a week late, but with your kind permission(s), I’d like to post a few photos from my Mother’s Day kayak trip. No mothers in attendance.
We have kind of an odd relationship to Mother’s and Father’s Days here at Chez Perils. While we took it semi-seriously when I lived with my parents, Mrs. Perils always said that her parents considered it a contrived commercial “holiday”, and eschewed its celebration. When we married, I took that and ran with it.
My middle brother (ed: I apparently lost count. I meant my youngest brother) had an interesting encounter with a neighbor. Attempting to draw my bro into a shared commiseration, the neighbor asked him what he was doing with my SIL on Mother’s Day. My bro said something like, “probably go out in the boat - she likes to drink beer and fish.” The neighbor, who was probably doomed to do something “girly”, winced and had to venture further up the street in his quest for sympathy.
Since I had just gotten back from a trip to Milwaukee on Friday night, I was fore-armed with what I thought were sufficient gifts: three unopened little packs of airline snacks - including pistachios! I placed them on Mrs. Perils’ keyboard and headed down to Lake Union to meet up with some folks for a fresh-water paddle.
We headed towards Lake Washington and a nifty little area near the Arboretum called Foster Island. Despite its being hard by the busy 520 bridge, it’s fun to just noodle around its myriad channels.
Here’s one of several beaver dams we encountered:
It also must have been turtle hookup day:
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The trip there and back took us through the Montlake Cut, and under one of the prettiest little drawbridges:
As I finished up the trip, I began to reckon with the nagging realization that Mrs. Perils does, in fact, like to be recognized at least a little on Mother’s Day and, at the very last possible minute, I stopped on my way up the hill at one of her favorite haunts, Chocolati, and scored a gift certificate. Just in case pistachios were out of favor.
And, yeah, I called my own mom and had a nice conversation with her as well.
