Are you smarter than a 4 year old?

Tuesday night the family and I went to a botanical garden to attend the annual joint meeting of the Audobon society and the Sierra club. Those of you who know anything about me realize how odd this was. Well, the reason we went is because there was a Raptor - Birds of Prey presentation. We were invited by my friend Nikki. It was in town, it was free, and it was open to kids. All of those things made it the perfect outing for a Tuesday Evening.

I didn't give much thought to anything except the bird show until I got there. The place was crawling with Ann Arbor hippies. I think Charles and I fit in ok, but the hubby pretty much hates the environment so I kept threatening to put him on their distribution lists. It is pretty unlikely that I will join either of these groups, but they did have their strong points. Most of the organizations that I have been part of have been full of long winded people who go on and on to hear themselves talk. The bird watchers and tree huggers are surprisingly brief. They got up, said they had a fundraiser, and mentioned there was more information in the back of the room. It was great.

After the brief announcements, the bird lady came out. She brought 3 birds with her. I am glad Nikki took pictures and sent them to me, because I didn't even think about it. The first one was a Falcon.

Here are the things I learned about falcons:

• There is more than one type of falcon.
• They are the birds that wear the little masks.
• There is a sport called falconing where you use falcons to hunt ducks.
• If you are a falconer, you get your first falcon by catching it from the wild. You then use it to hunt for a year, then put it back into the wild. I don't know where you get your second falcon.

When the bird lady took the falcon out of the box, she asked everyone what it was. All the kids knew. I did not. She told us a lot about falcons and about the other birds at the reserve...including a turkey buzzard. Turkey buzzards can smell, falcons cannot.

The second bird was an owl.

Here is what I learned about owls:

• They hunt skunks and can carry half of their weight.
• Owls weigh about 4 pounds. I think this means they can either only hunt baby skunks, or when they kill an adult skunk, they eat it on the ground.
• Their eyes don't rotate inside their head because they are too big.
• They do not have infra-red heat vision, but they can use their ultraviolet vision to see mouse piss (ala CSI-Miami).

Again, the bird lady told us lots of information about owls and the other birds at the reserve. Owls don't mind hunting skunks because they can't smell. Turkey buzzards can smell.

The third bird was in the biggest box. When she pulled it out, she asked, "and what kind of bird is this?" All the kids, even little Carter who is only four years old (I know this because he told me he was only four years old) yelled out, " A bald eagle!!!!" I thought to myself, what a bunch of stupid kids. She already told us it was a turkey buzzard.

I was the stupid one. It was a bald eagle. This teaches me that I am stupider than a four year old and can't even tell the National bird from a turkey buzzard. How embarrassing. We didn't stay much longer after that. Charles started fussing since it was getting close to his bed time. He liked the birds ok. He pointed to each one as the bird lady pulled them out of their boxes. He stared at them as she walked them past. But, while she was talking about them, he much preferred to kick the chair next to him and flirt with the little girl behind him instead of listen.

Overall, the outing was a success. It also made me think of something I hadn't considered before. I think I am at the stage in my life where I need to make "Family Friends".

You start out life and you just have to make friends for yourself. Sure, your mom has to like them enough to let them come over, but even if your mom doesn't like your friends you can still play with them at school.

When you grow up and start seriously dating or get married, you are supposed to get couple friends. I never had any trouble making friends for just myself. I was never the most popular kid in school, but I had plenty of friends. Couple friends are much harder though. To this day I don't think I have any. A friend of mine tried and tried to make good couple friends, but 4 personalities are a lot to try to merge together.

I think I will be in big trouble now. Now I need to make Family Friends. I thought of this when I was introducing Nikki's family to my family. First Nikki and I have to be friends (and with her taste in music and reality TV contestants that is always tenuous). Then, to be family friends we both need to have children. Luckily she has a little boy, Carter. Carter is 4, Charles is 1.5, so we have to see if they can get along. THEN there is the added complexity of getting the hubbies to be buddies. GEESH.

Well, I don't think I am quite ready to make family friends. I will be content with mixing and matching for now. Maybe I will concentrate on making Carter and Charles be friends and then work on the hubbies later.

How has your luck been with Couple friends and Family friends? Do you have any pointers for me?