“I hope when all of you go skiing, you don’t break your femur. Because it isn’t pleasant.”

That’s what First Lady Maria Shriver told the crowd gathered this afternoon on the Capitol’s south lawn, a crowd that originally had expected to see her husband, Governor Schwarzenegger.

The governor had to cancel his appearance at the first day of inaugural festivities, after his doctors reportedly told him to rest his newly-repaired leg, which he broke in a skiing accident in Idaho just before Christmas.

Shriver, two of her kids, and her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, all showed up for today’s big event, celebrating environmentally friendly technology… and the environmental record of the governor.

Schwarzenegger’s extended recuperation schedule prompted an awful lot of tongue wagging around the Capitol today, about whether tomorrow’s inauguration plans might change. But the governor’s aides say he will indeed take the oath of office for his second term tomorrow morning at Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium.

You can hear Shriver’s comments from this afternoon by clicking here.