She tried to squeeze through crowds, gripping the calves of strange men for extra leverage or just for something to lean against. She dipped her lime-green Crocs in the trash-filled trickle of water that ran down the gutter. She wielded a giant stick she found and denuded the trees along the sidewalk of the ornamental rocks at their base. She cleverly evaded my attempts to ensnare her.
Simon and I took turns running after her, apologizing to her sideswiping victims and men whose calves had been manhandled, snatching her out of the gutter water, wrenching old gum wrappers out of her hands, keeping her waving stick confined to our "bubble," and holding the fistfuls of rocks she found.
At the beginning, I tried to get her to sit on my hip, but she lifted her arms and did a hula-hooping gyration with her middle. My arms could find no purchase.
Finally I walked with her about a block away from the race, to a giant hole where they're building a new bank. I guessed there might be some big rocks and back hoes to look at, and I was not disappointed. Behind a chain-link safety fence were huge chunks of concrete that had been ripped from the foundations of the previous building. The chunks resembled boulders.
"Bocks," Clara said in awe, pointing through the fence.
"Huge ones," I replied.
After the charm of the construction site had worn off, I brought her to the Clif Bar sample table, where she enjoyed two black cherry square gels that the hosts assured me contained relatively low levels of electrolytes and vitamins. "They do have a bit of caffeine," one of the hosts added as Clara chomped down on her second one.
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