Raising Devils

Well, We Totally Look Alike In Our Bike Helmets

Friday, September 16th, 2011 | Adopting Devils

This past weekend, we rode in the always fantastic local “Tour de Taste) (pictured a few posts down). 6 miles, 6 stops for food. Who couldn’t appreciate a ride like that?

One stop had some very tasty grilled cheese sandwiches and an amazing tabboleh salad (and that is so not something I would usually eat, seeing as how it had neither bacon nor chocolate in it, and I can’t even spell it). They were also promoting their own farm products just a bit, by which I mean they were all over the place, and why not? One was a yogurt drink, and I was eying it for Rory.

When we were in China, they had little yogurt drinks in a bucket of ice on the breakfast buffet next to a pile of straws, and every morning, Rory would suck one or two down. Me, I put them with fruit and honey (and I would have added chocolate and bacon, if they’d had any..well, chocolate anyway. Bacon on the side). But Rory slurped then straight. I’ve never found any yogurt here that she had any interest in, though, and I’d like to (although after two years, it probably doesn’t exactly mean that much to her any more).

The friend we were riding with stepped up, and the lovely lady behind the table gave her a small cup for her toddler son. “See if he likes it,” she said, and when he did, “Did you eat a lot of yogurt when you were pregnant? I have a theory that they like what you ate when you were pregnant with them.”

My friend agreed that she had, in fact, eaten a lot of yogurt, and I, holding Rory by the hand, asked for a cup for her, saying, in passing, that she had always liked yogurt. I thought maybe we would make a little joke about it, but the poor dairy lady wasn’t paying close attention. She saw a mother and daughter in their bike helmets, and she said, quite cheerfully, “well, did you eat a lot of yogurt when YOU were pregnant?”

I really should have just said yes, yes I did. Because I did, and if that was unlikely to have much effect on Rory, well, so be it, and I’m not sure there’s much scientific evidence behind that theory anyway. Probably what I drank while I was pregnant was just as likely to affect her as any of the others.

But no, I had to be just that little bit snide. I laughed. I said, you know, I think if you’d looked at her, you probably wouldn’t have asked that, and the poor woman was flustered. “Well,” she said awkwardly, “you never know, you could be a little Oriental..”

I don’t know if she was joking or flailing. I do know we were having one of those moments when suddenly things that might have been funny are just really not because no one knows what any one else meant even though no one meant any harm, and it was all very Curb Your Enthusiasm painful, and I laughed, and she laughed, and I kind of backed away, and Rory did not, in fact, like the yogurt.

Probably because it was maple yogurt, and I don’t think I drank any maple syrup when I was pregnant.

Related posts:

1. Control, that thing we all want
2. The Double Trailer Bike
3. At the Bike Races
4. My New (used) Mountain Bike
5. One is better than two

Tags: adoption talk

1 Comment to Well, We Totally Look Alike In Our Bike Helmets

AwesomeCloud's Mom
Saturday, September 17, 2011

That’s the problem with these obvious adoptions. We’re offended if people care too much, and we’re put out when people care too little.

If it’s any consolation, several people have said to me in conversation, “Oh, he’s adopted? I guess I didn’t know.” Sometimes with the added, “I guess I wasn’t thinking about that.”