Becoming One With Our City

Since we've moved here, nearly two years ago now (!), we've been mostly staying in our little comfort zone, which is about a four-mile radius around our house where we run, bike, eat, and shop. I mean, of course we DO venture out occasionally, to meet friends or when something catches our eye, and we are always up for a drive to Saugatuck or Holland or anyplace, really, on the water. On the whole, though, I'm a creature of habit, and we do have these two children with us 99% of the time, so we've been less adventurous than we'd like.

That is starting to change. Ever since Jason got back from his trip to Belgium at the beginning of July, he's been all about hopping on his bike and exploring our town. Apparently the bed and breakfast that he, his dad, and his brother stayed at let them use bikes to get around the city of Bruges, and he's become a huge fan.

So tonight, we strapped the girls into the back of our Chariot jogger/bike trailer and headed out of our comfort zone. We stopped first at Cherry Deli, where I seriously wanted to order every single sandwich on the menu. (Okay, maybe not the pastrami, but pretty much everything else.) We got our food and then biked the rest of the way downtown GR, winding through neighborhoods and bumping over brick streets as we went. We parked the bikes, spread out our blanket, and enjoyed Blues On The Mall. Jemma shimmied and bopped around while eating her fruit, and Annie took forever to finish her plain turkey sandwich, but we didn't care. We were watching interesting people (read: bikers), listening to some genuine live music, and happy to be having a new, fun experience in a city we're just getting to know.

At one point, Jason took a restless Jemma off to wander around and see things, and I stayed on the blanket while Annie took 19,000 tiny bites of sandwich. She looked over at a group of women sitting a few yards away, smoking.

"Mom, what are those?"

I looked where she was looking. "What are what?" I asked, stalling, stalling.

"Those wands." (Leave it to Annie to somehow connect cigarettes to a princess-related item.)

I looked around for some way out of this, then said, "Yeah, those are called cigarettes, and they're not good for you." (Casting about in my brain for some way to be more specific without using the word "die" or anything similar . . . ) "If you breathe them in, like that, it makes it so you cough and can't run as fast." I sat back to see how this would sink in.

Annie stared for another minute, made a face, then waved her hand dismissively. "Hot," she added, as though this would explain all the reasons you wouldn't want to smoke. Okay . . .

All in all, a good experience for the girls, who went to bed tired and happy, a semi-workout for their parents (biking back home, uphill all the way, trying to speed through the sketchy areas, was a little tricky). And I have half a turkey/dill havarti/grilled peppers and squash/pesto mayo sandwich in the fridge, leftover for lunch tomorrow.