Pregnant and Delicious

Sorry for the halt in posts, dear reader.  This website author has been out of town, out of commission, and out of my mind tired.  One of my out-of-town excuses landed me in Two Harbors with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law. Growing up, we camped at Split Rock Lighthouse just about every year.  So naturally, we stayed in a cushy hotel suite at Superior Shores.  After waking up in our soft hotel beds on a Saturday, we put forth the effort to eat a huge lunch and head to Split Rock for a non-hike.

We had good intentions of hiking, we really did.  I even brought a trail book with, because I liked the idea of scampering about the North Shore.  We wore sturdy shoes and brought sunscreen.  But our time outside was cut short by a visicous species of biting flies.  "They just came out today," a period-costumed guide told me as I swatted at my legs.  "So they're hungry for blood."  Intent on introducing my 7-month-old camera to one of the most-photographed sites of Minnesota, we walked to Pebble Beach for a better view. My mom handed me one of those new bug repellant fans that you clip on.  I turned it on, flipped it over and watched a horse fly happily make camp right there on the plastic.  I watched as he unfolded a tiny lawn chair and ordered a margarhita.

I was eaten alive.  My mom feverishly tried fanning the flies off of me as I tried to stabilize my telephoto lens, and when I looked at my pictures later, half of them were completely kitty-wompus. 
Everyone else was bothered by the flies, but I was in tears by the time I got in the car, my legs and arms on fire with itch.  I read later that pregnant women are more delicous to insects.  We emit more carbon dioxide than the average human, and our metabolism is high (for once in my life).  This combination makes me irrisistable. 

Michael and I went to Higher Ground Music Festival last weekend in Winsted.  This time, I learned my lesson and packed about sixteen packets of bug repellant wipes.  I must have misread the label.  They were bug attractant wipes.  Beware of labels that say "Family Care."  The fine print spells out a lesser amount of repellant so that if your 2-year-old licks it off, they probably won't need their stomach pumped.  It also contains Aloe Vera, because we're all worried about keeping our skin soft in the summer.  This translates into: go ahead, wipe it all over your body.  You'll smell like Bit-O-Honey to the mosquitos you're trying to avoid.  Miserably bitten, I put my jacket on in the 80-degree heat, draped Michael's jacket over my legs, and fanned by face with a newspaper as mosquitos took kamikaze dose-dives at my face.  Look how sexy I am:

Pregnant and delicious.  Speaking of delicious, this week I have an appetite so voracious you'd think I'm part draft horse.  Yesterday included: cereal, cottage cheese, pears, almonds, yogurt, chips, PB&J sandwich, (and here's where I gave up): a Lindor truffle, 10 shelled peanuts, a medium hot fudge shake from DQ, 2 tacos, and a frozen waffle with peanut butter and brown sugar.  So much for a healthy pregnancy weight gain.  At this rate I'll be able to crush skyscrapers with my feet by week 24.  I'll be holding little Michael in my gorilla grip 40 stories in the air:  "GET ME AN ICE CREAM COOKIE SANDWICH NOOOOOWWWWW!!!!"

In related news, I saw Winnie the Pooh last week.  Did I take Oliver?  No, no, why would I do that?  I took myself.  Okay, Michael already took Oliver, and he insisted I needed to see it.  He was right.  It was the sweetest movie I've seen since Crossroads with Britney Spears.  Pooh won me over right from the beginning, when that silly old bear crooned a song that went something like this:  "A Pooh bear takes care of his tummy; he feeds it with foods that are sweet."  Now that's my kind of bear. 

Gotta go.  It's been 20 minutes since my last meal.