"So, putting on the shorts and tank top to catch that too-brief northern summer sun and placing a giddy Trig in his toddler backpack for a lawn-mowing adventure..."

"... I looked up in surprise to see a 'new neighbor' overlooking my property just a stone’s throw away. Needless to say, our outdoor adventure ended quickly after Todd went to introduce himself to the stranger who was peering in...."

Okay. So a journo-stalker — Joe McGinniss — has moved in next door to Sarah Palin. That happened. But I'm distracted by the idea of Sarah Palin mowing her own lawn while wearing a baby in a backpack.

***

Back when I had my first baby, I thought it would be great to use a backpack, and I used it exactly once, and only for a few minutes. It was terrible! I'm not going to carry anything that weighs more than 3 pounds unless I really have to.

That reminds me... I've been listening to these New Yorker podcasts of authors reading other authors' short stories.  I love them. It's cool to hear the voice of an author who really loves some other author's story. The first one I listened to was Monica Ali reading Joshua Ferris’s "The Dinner Party" (which you can live stream at that link or download.) At one point in that story, 2 characters are showing what seems to be a present-day attitude about baby carriers versus strollers:

“How much you wanna bet they buy a stroller?”
“A stroller?”
“A stroller.”
“A stroller,” she said. “To cart the baby around.”
He put cheese on a cracker. “For to cart the baby around in, yes,” he said.
“And you, if you had a baby, there’d be no stroller, right, because it would be oh so predictable? Absolutely no stroller?”
“I was thinking we could duct-tape the child,” he said. “It would be cheaper.”
“Like a BabyBjörn, but duct tape.”
“Exactly.”
“Would the baby face in or out?”
“If it was sleeping, in. Not sleeping, kind of kicking its feet, wanting to see the world, duct-tape it out, so it has a view.”
“Allowing the child to be curious,” she said. “Feeding its desire to marvel at this new experience called life.”
“Something like that.”
“The child must be so relieved that I’m barren,” she said.
He left the kitchen. He stood in the living room with his drink, listening to the sounds of her cooking.

What that says about Sarah Palin, I'll leave it to you to divine.