A curmudgeon, a question, and a camera.

The curmudgeon is me.

Well, it was me. I read your sound and much-appreciated counsel on my last post and then went to the train station to find my friend hopping off the InterRegio with a typically overstuffed suitcase and a giant grin and I shed my bitterness over that rankling comment like a snake slipping out of its skin. Hilarity ensued, as did just a few little glasses of wine.

I should never have allowed one small moment of verbal improvidence to fester so.

***

The question is this: "Are you pregnant?"

We were invited by a friend of Gilles to join a group of his other friends, most of whom we didn't know, for a hike on Saturday. A lovely time was had by all, including me, and then this strange moment occurred.

After exchanging the standard three goodbye kisses and polite niceties about how lovely it was to meet, a woman with whom I'd shared, oh, several whole minutes of conversation over the course of the outing leaned towards me conspiratorially with eyes wide open and stage-whispered her three-word inquiry, as recorded above. Except it came out more like this: "Are you pregnant?!!???!"

I startled and stared at her while these thoughts went through my mind: "Well, I would have been ... but [insert wry laugh] that's over and done with, and surely not what she means anyway ... so let's see, putting that unfortunate situation aside ... it's two days past ovulation ... if they had ever been destined to do so, egg and sperm would have met by now ... so perhaps I am! ... but wait just a second ... I haven't been discreetly vomiting at the side of the trail ... [quick review of what I'd seen in the mirror that morning] ... the tum's nice and flat – today, anyway ... and I'm wearing nothing proclaiming that its contents are unique and precious ♥ ... so what reason could there possibly be for me to hear this question?"

Too shocked to respond with anything snappier, I eventually stammered, "Nooo ... why do you ask?"

"Because you're just glowing!"

I don't doubt that I was. A day of laughter and hiking on a sun-dappled trail followed by a beer on a terrace can do that to a girl.

But seriously, glowing or not, is that question ever appropriate?

***

The camera is ... on the loose with incriminating pics.

On Sunday afternoon we all went to Gilles's parents' house for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. (Or, rather, cakes. There were three!) Gilles took the camera to show them pictures of the hike, and we didn't realize until we arrived back home that we'd left it on the table along with the few remaining crumbs.

Not a bother, really; we have two, so I could continue capturing all of my friend's and my antics and adventures. Not a bother except that along with those pictures, the camera contains a day-by-day, pee-stick-by-pee-stick record of this month's CBEFM results.

I don't at all suspect my parents-in-law of being snoopy, but I really hope they don't decide to admire the splendor of Saturday's waterfalls a second time and stumble instead upon the splendor of that venerated peak reading.