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Car Singer With a Dorito Problem...

Tuesday, 05 April 2011 03:30

WARNING: Some of what you are about to read is totally ridiculous.

Going Off Course - "Hey, Laurel, what's that?" Harvey asked the pretty, hazel-eyed girl with the humongous smile, cool hieroglyphic-y necklace and blue Three Rivers Parks District polo. It was a bright and breezy summer day at the Lowry Nature Center and the air was redolent with an amalgam of fecund floral scents. He was pointing at a bush.

"That's

Four days later Laurel visited Harvey at his home. And once again she apologized for referring to the poison ivy that had horribly disfigured his face and forced him to take oatmeal baths and coat the affected surfaces of his body with yucky pink calamine lotion by its pedantic Latin biology name.

Minnetonka triathlete Laurel Sundberg knows lots of stuff that most people don't. Especially about plants. Why? Because she's a professional Planticologist, though her official title is "Interpretive Naturalist." Perhaps she was doomed to become a flora, or is it fauna?, expert? Her parents did give her a very planty name, after all.

As Harvey's situation confirms, knowing more about plants than anyone else occasionally has a downside.

Being a Latin-speaking professional Planticologist is only one piece of Laurel's coolness puzzle. A Songaphobe, she would be mortified if others were to hear her sing, thus she prefers to do her singing in her car and not in the shower, which is within earshot of