OK, so I just sat in Fountain Square, which is very lovely, and ate ice cream while watching "I Am Legend" on a huge jumbotron poking out the roof of Macy's. Steel and glass canyon walls all around me, a beer garden (I did not partake) keeping people mellow, families drawing up chairs and sitting on the edge of the fountain, red-clad Cincinnati Reds fans filtering in after the ball game 5 blocks away to eat ice cream at Graeter's, the well-known (apparently (and deservedly)) ages-old purveyors of artery damage located there, on the...um...East...? side of the square...It was the nicest, warmest, most relaxing way to wind down my evening. Sure beat watching soccer games on TV whose outcomes I already knew. My day went this way:
Up at 7:00 or so, to do some small amount of exercisin' and catch a little South Korea v Greece on the tele. Saw SK score a goal, and headed over to the convention center to work.
I'm pretty sure there are some propietary things I'm not supposed to tell you, but I will tell you this: There are a lot of us, we work at a comfortable pace, we're well-trained and monitored, and we grade consistently. We get breaks throughout the day, and are served a pretty nice breakfast, lunch, and dinner over there. My colleagues are all nice people. There, I don't think the College Board's competitors (who I do not think exist) can glean much from that. I'm doing well - I got a post-it note from my Table Leader today, congratulating me for following the rubric so closely. I stuck it up on my computer screen for all to see...and then took it down again, because it felt kind of weird.
But I didn't throw it out.
We get out at 5:00, and dinner is served until 7:00, so that's when I've been taking my run. I don't know how far I'm running (can't get Google Earth to work on this computer anymore), but I run 'til I'm tired, exploring as I do so. I ran south toward the riverfront, and did a lap around Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals. It's right next to the Reds stadium - which is named "Great American Ballpark", and is the second awful name of a prominent thing in downtown Cincinnati, the other being "Fifth Third Bank"". I think I had known of the existence of the bank before coming here, but seeing that God-awful name, displayed in such huge, proud, red letters, on top of a very impressive building, made its silliness all the more evident to me. Once done circumnavigating the stadium (Monday, I think I'll use the lunch break to go buy the kids some Bengals gear at their pro shop, which is open 10:00 Am to 5:00 PM), I trotted out toward an elevated highway nearby, and noticed it had a broad sidewalk along it. The sidewalk appears to have been built specifically to allow rabid Bengals fans (and there are a lot of them - this town loves those hapless Bungles) to stand there and watch practice. The practice fields are located right next to the stadium, and while there are hedges and fences separating them from the direct view of people who might be standing at their level, the sidewalk view from up above is fantastic. You can see everything. Or you could, anyway, if anything were happening there. Not nearly close enough to hear much, other than maybe the occasional whistle (it's quite a busy highway), but the sidewalk is broad and long and plain-ol' designed for dawdlers. I jogged that way and scanned the stadium, a very nice one, and the fields as I went.
The sidewalk and highway then turn into a bridge, which goes to Kentucky. I took it. The Ohio River is really a pretty good facsimile of the Wisconsin, about the same size, if narrower and faster - OK, that sounds dumb. But hear me out: I would say that a roughly equal volume of water goes down both. But the Ohio is narrower and deeper. Is my guess. But since it stormed pretty heavily last night and this morning, today it was a very dirty brown and had a lot of flotsam in it. Some natural, and therefore forgivable, but a lot of it was just garbage. Hey, maybe the rivers that flow through Chicago and Memphis and LaCrosse are just as dirty. What do I know. But this river, and this riverfront, struck me as particularly gone to pot. It's a major city, and it's tried a lot of things - they constructed these two stadia right on the river (and the Reds ballpark, whose name I will no longer utter because it is stupid, incorporates riverboat imagery into its ambience), there are a good number of riverboat restaurants, which seem to be popular, with well-dressed people filtering in as I ran past...There's even a huge levee on the Kentucky side, with a giant steel gate (down when I ran by yesterday) that rises out of the ground in the event of a flood to keep the low neighborhoods on that side dry and safe - yet another piece of evidence that they have tried hard to make this river an attraction. And maybe it is nicer at night, with the lights of the nearby downtown twinkling on its surface as the boats slide past. But during the day, it's pretty grim.
I don't know - It's not THAT grim. But it's not that nice.
Once in Kentucky, I found myself in a hotel district. Cheap, small, perhaps even seedy hotels. I touched a metal grate, just to have had a reason to have come across, and turned back toward Ohio. And I so enjoyed the slow rotation around the stadium and the practice fields, that I touched the guard rail at the intersection that led back to the hotel, and turned around and took one more trip to Kentucky, to make sure that grate was still there.
It was.
I'm really enjoying the way I run here. I don't know how far, and I don't care how fast. I go at a comfortable pace, with my newfound freedom from pain in my feet of my ankles or my knees or any damn thing. I run 'til I'm tired and then I stop, and each time I've stopped, I've been no more than a few blocks from the hotel. I've walked to the hotel both times, showered, and headed out to eat.
Yesterday when I did this, I ate at a little pizza place I found on the way to the stadium. You see, I had run past the stadium earlier, and had noticed that all these baseball fans were beginning to filter in. I asked someone when it started; he said 7:10. I thanked him, jogged / walked to the hotel room, and soon found myself standing and chatting with a young Italian man about the secrets of great pizza as my two slices warmed up in his oven. He told me he'd been living in DC four years ago when Italy beat France in the World Cup final, and that he and all his friends had gone to celebrate...in front of the French Embassy. I laughed long and hard at that.
And then gobbled my two slices as I walked to the ball park, joining an ever-growing throng. I wore my Brewers cap, and thought, Hey! The Brewers and Reds are in the same division! Could it be...?!
Nope. Kansas City Royals. Oh well. I scanned the prices and the sections, and bought myself some damn fine seats, ten rows back behind the Reds dugout. Then I bought a beer, walked to my seat, and settled in.
I had missed the top of the first. I was so close I could see which of the Reds had shaved that morning. Dusty Baker, their manager, came charging out of the dugout to challenge the ump, who'd called a Royals runner safe at first. I saw a home run by the Reds, lustily cheered by all of us; I saw some nifty fielding and a bunt that moved a runner from first to second, and that runner then scored on a single. I sat next to a couple from Indiana who have season tickets; they were there with their son and his girlfriend. She told me they were also Colts season ticket holders; she told me she was gaining weight again because she was trying to quit smoking. She told me the old Riverfront Stadium used to host Reds and Bengals games; she told me about her mixed record of success with Weight Watchers. She told me she'd had a hysterectomy. She told me the stadium was only three or four years old, and that the Reds were currently in first place. I told her I needed to get past her to go buy another beer, because this one I'd just finished had been great.
And I walked to the hotel. I had watched the game through the top of the sixth, and that, my friends, turns out to be all the baseball I can take. I'm really glad I went - I now know a hell of a lot more about Cincinnati, the Reds, and a large woman from Indiana. But the experience wasn't going to get any better if it went on longer.
Tonight after my run, I dashed quickly to the eatery in the convention center and managed to snag a meal before they closed up the buffet line. I sat next to a very nice Spanish teacher from Seattle, who's pregnant and is taking next year off to take care of her baby. We exchanged teaching ideas and travel stories with kids, and stories about trying to raise kids bilingually - her husband is Japanese, and only speaks to her son in that language; she tries to speak to him in Spanish, since they once lived in Mexico for three years, and he is still reasonably fluent. It was a very nice chat.
And then back to the room, where I washed some running clothes in the bathtub, and out the door to find Graeter's and have some dessert. Which led to "I Am Legend". Which is still creeping me out a bit, and the fact that I'm listening to Bon Iver as I write this isn't helping in that regard. I may need to stay up a bit yet.
Work tomorrow at 8:00! Hoping to get another positive post-it note. I hope I can sleep, what with the anticipation and all. Wish me luck!
Hell, who am I kidding. It ain't luck.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Jet-Setter
That is I. I am sitting at Gate F30 at the Philadelphia International Airport, wearing a Sport Jacket, and tapping away at the keys of a Computer. Everyone walking by is jealous of my obvious status and importance. They gaze at me longingly as they pass and sigh once they've gone by, knowing that now, having had this glimpse of my glory, they'll have to return to their own lives, which will pale in comparison.
Possibly. Although my coolness is probably somewhat reduced by the fact that right now I really, really have to use the bathroom.
Getting to the airport was really very stressful. I had to do a bunch of stuff at school before I could go (I'm not going to be there for the last three days of classes (by the way: I'm done teaching for the year!) or to administer the final exams, so I had to have everything laid out in excruciating detail), which bled over past the end of the school day, and I was almost out of gas, so I had to stop on the way home, and after I grabbed my bags and hit the road, I took the wrong highway in Albany for the airport, and lost probably 20 minutes there, and when I got back on the right track, I remembered that there was construction, and I managed to sniff my way to within very little distance of the airport (I was actually proud of how close I got, quickly, without the benefit of signs indicating the airport, and of the fact that I just plain KNEW I was near it, despite not really knowing the city). It was 5:14 PM, and my flight was at 6:05. All seemed lost!...
But then I safely, though illegally, crossed over to a clothing store, stopped a woman on her way out and asked her how to get to the airport, and she showed me a shortcut. The whole stop took 100 seconds, tops. And the shortcut was made shorter still by my (safely) disobeying two traffic signals. And I still parked in the economy lot, and made it to the gate in time to check my bags and write Janneke an email. I am a Jet Setter indeed. Flouting the traffic law! Urging the shuttle driver on to greater and greater speeds! Sport jacket tails flaring out behind me like the contrails behind an F-16...!
And just wait 'til I arrive in Cincinnati, and there's a guy holding a sign for me. How cool will I be THEN!
'Course, it won't say my name. It will say "AP READER", which I am. I'm going to Cinci to spend a week grading the AP exam. It's a paid gig, which my school has allowed me to do to raise my prestige and skill level as an AP teacher. Never mind that I get great results for my AP students by basically ignoring the test until about a month before they take it. Or that I don't believe in the whole AP racket. I know the test, and I'll be a great grader. And we'll be that much closer to financing our Puerto Rico adventure.
The shape of which is kind of changing on us. The more we think about it, the more we feel like 6th grade is a particularly pivotal year for Q to be missing. There's the 6th-grade musical, there's the year of being the Big Kid in Town before transferring up to the high school building, there's the "Travel" soccer team that he and his pals are probably going to join...So we're thinking that we'll do two serious summers in Puerto Rico, with camps for the kids and lots of interactions with people, for two, three months at a time. And possible return journeys during the year. We want to get them immersed, but a full year away is starting to seem like a lot. Besides, it will be easy-peasy to rent out the house for the summer. Not so much for the year, probably.
T lost her front tooth in school the other day! Oh, yeah - I told you that already. Between that and her bike riding (which, weather permitting, she does every night now), this kid is positively transformed of late. She's independent as heck - something happened the other day at her after-school day care as I was picking her up that I just loved. She's not real big, as you know. And there's another girl there who's probably seven inches taller, though they're in the same grade, and who is a little bratty and pushy. T was showing her a little toy tea pot, which she had just figured out - it has a cup that also serves as a lid. She offered me tea, and when I said yes, she lifted the fup out of its hole and wa-lah!, she was ready to serve. She was excited, and walked over to show this discover to the aforementioned girl. Who started grabbing at the tea pot halfway through T's demonstration. But she didn't get angry, didn't panic, didn't give in, didn't get offended - She just calmly moved the teapot out of her grasp before she could get hold of it, continued with her description and demonstration, and when she was done, the girl said "Cool!" And T calmly, smilingly handed her the teapot and came back over to me. No need to be a victim, or the boss - she just defused the situation and moved on. She is one together little lass.
Man, OK, I reeeeally have to use the bathroom. The Chinese food and two macaroons I had for supper just went right through me, I guess. It's been great, but we jet-setters have a lot on our plates. I'll catch you on the flip side.
(That's jet-set slang for "good bye". Dig?)
Possibly. Although my coolness is probably somewhat reduced by the fact that right now I really, really have to use the bathroom.
Getting to the airport was really very stressful. I had to do a bunch of stuff at school before I could go (I'm not going to be there for the last three days of classes (by the way: I'm done teaching for the year!) or to administer the final exams, so I had to have everything laid out in excruciating detail), which bled over past the end of the school day, and I was almost out of gas, so I had to stop on the way home, and after I grabbed my bags and hit the road, I took the wrong highway in Albany for the airport, and lost probably 20 minutes there, and when I got back on the right track, I remembered that there was construction, and I managed to sniff my way to within very little distance of the airport (I was actually proud of how close I got, quickly, without the benefit of signs indicating the airport, and of the fact that I just plain KNEW I was near it, despite not really knowing the city). It was 5:14 PM, and my flight was at 6:05. All seemed lost!...
But then I safely, though illegally, crossed over to a clothing store, stopped a woman on her way out and asked her how to get to the airport, and she showed me a shortcut. The whole stop took 100 seconds, tops. And the shortcut was made shorter still by my (safely) disobeying two traffic signals. And I still parked in the economy lot, and made it to the gate in time to check my bags and write Janneke an email. I am a Jet Setter indeed. Flouting the traffic law! Urging the shuttle driver on to greater and greater speeds! Sport jacket tails flaring out behind me like the contrails behind an F-16...!
And just wait 'til I arrive in Cincinnati, and there's a guy holding a sign for me. How cool will I be THEN!
'Course, it won't say my name. It will say "AP READER", which I am. I'm going to Cinci to spend a week grading the AP exam. It's a paid gig, which my school has allowed me to do to raise my prestige and skill level as an AP teacher. Never mind that I get great results for my AP students by basically ignoring the test until about a month before they take it. Or that I don't believe in the whole AP racket. I know the test, and I'll be a great grader. And we'll be that much closer to financing our Puerto Rico adventure.
The shape of which is kind of changing on us. The more we think about it, the more we feel like 6th grade is a particularly pivotal year for Q to be missing. There's the 6th-grade musical, there's the year of being the Big Kid in Town before transferring up to the high school building, there's the "Travel" soccer team that he and his pals are probably going to join...So we're thinking that we'll do two serious summers in Puerto Rico, with camps for the kids and lots of interactions with people, for two, three months at a time. And possible return journeys during the year. We want to get them immersed, but a full year away is starting to seem like a lot. Besides, it will be easy-peasy to rent out the house for the summer. Not so much for the year, probably.
T lost her front tooth in school the other day! Oh, yeah - I told you that already. Between that and her bike riding (which, weather permitting, she does every night now), this kid is positively transformed of late. She's independent as heck - something happened the other day at her after-school day care as I was picking her up that I just loved. She's not real big, as you know. And there's another girl there who's probably seven inches taller, though they're in the same grade, and who is a little bratty and pushy. T was showing her a little toy tea pot, which she had just figured out - it has a cup that also serves as a lid. She offered me tea, and when I said yes, she lifted the fup out of its hole and wa-lah!, she was ready to serve. She was excited, and walked over to show this discover to the aforementioned girl. Who started grabbing at the tea pot halfway through T's demonstration. But she didn't get angry, didn't panic, didn't give in, didn't get offended - She just calmly moved the teapot out of her grasp before she could get hold of it, continued with her description and demonstration, and when she was done, the girl said "Cool!" And T calmly, smilingly handed her the teapot and came back over to me. No need to be a victim, or the boss - she just defused the situation and moved on. She is one together little lass.
Man, OK, I reeeeally have to use the bathroom. The Chinese food and two macaroons I had for supper just went right through me, I guess. It's been great, but we jet-setters have a lot on our plates. I'll catch you on the flip side.
(That's jet-set slang for "good bye". Dig?)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Fafuta!
That's what you call someone, apparently, in that uncivilized backwater where Janneke was raised when THIS happens:
And THIS is what happens when you call someone's mother's native land an uncivilized backwater:
And THIS is what happens when you call someone's mother's native land an uncivilized backwater:
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Barefootin'!
Just a quick note to share the news of the weekend. First of all, the weather was phenomenal - Absolutely perfect. No day too hot, or rainy; a gentle breeze blowing for much of the time...Just peachy. We did a lot of yard work (and I don't just mean me - T and Janneke did a ton of weeding, while Q, on Sunday, the heaviest lift of the weekend, was away all day at a sleepover), including a reclamation project on the gravel path between our deck and the back yard. I've never known quite what to do with it - it's under the neighbor's ancient and decrepit pine trees, so trillions of pine needles fall on it yearly, as well as the miniature laves from their locust tree. None of that can be easily raked or swept away, so it gets ground into the gravel, and becomes soil and muck; combined with the soil under the gravel, it makes a perfect home for weeds, which come up vigorously.
One of our first years in the house, I found a solution that was very labor-intensive, but effective. I made a sifter out of some scrap lumber and quarter-inch wire mesh, and shoveled wheelbarrow-full after wheelbarrow-full into it. I shook out the dirt and the leaves, washed the gravel with the hose, and eventually had a lovely gravel path again. After only two days and enough calories of gravel-sifting to feed Paraguay for a month. I decided early on that it was a fool's errand, but continued, not wanting the guy we'd hired to install our flooring in the basement, to whom I had described my plan, to see it fail. In the end, though, he when all was said and done, he just asked me, "Was it worth it?" And I simply turned away and gently wept.
So I'm ashamed to say that my solution this year involved a lot less sacrifice on my part, and a lot more on the earth's part. I took the hose to it without doing any real shoveling. Eventually, I got a pretty good scheme going - my thinking was that the rocks, which, while small, are still rocks, and were unlikely to be blasted very far by a glancing jet of water across their surface. But the leaves, dirt, and pine needles, when hit, would be blasted farther. So if I just strafed the surface with an intense jet of water, starting at the top of the walkway and heading down hill, eventually I would wind up with a mound of crud at the bottom and a barely-disturbed layer of clean rocks above it. It pretty much worked out that way, in the end, and the walkway looks a whole lot better than it did. But the Earth is one swimming pool's worth of water less whole. Can't win, I guess, no matter what I do.
In gravel walkway maintenance, anyway. In other areas, I'm becoming a very consistent winner. Like in running. yesterday, Memorial Day, we celebrated by taking the whole family (after T's baseball game, where she hit well but got thrown out two times out of three) up to the U-10 soccer field and playing in a pickup kids-and-adults soccer game, organized by Magnus, our friend and the girls' U-10 soccer coach. Not too many people showed up, so it wound up just being Janneke and me, Brad, Betsy, a guy named Jeff, and Magnus and his wife Margaret against all our kids and a few extras who jumped in for fun. The field was big for such a small team, and we all played barefoot - the unfortunate part of that being that Janneke got stung by a bee on one toe, and had to leave the game. (Mostly to go home and cook, as most of the players were coming over to our house for a barbecue.) But the fortunate part is this: I sprinted and raced and zoomed around that field like I was 12 years old! I had NO pain, ANYWHERE! Not in my knees. Not in my hips. Not in my feet. NOTHING! My feet are getting to be so strong and healthy now, and my fitness level is so improved from all the running I'm doing, that I was downright playin' some damned soccer, and suffered no ill effects what, so, ever. In FACT! This morning, and all day long, I have had no residual stiffness or soreness in my right foot at all - quite different from most mornings, when I grimace and wince a bit on my way to the bathroom. The right foot, while painless during my runs, has been pretty creaky after a night's sleep. But yesterday, I must have simply blasted it into such supple pliancy that there's just no trace left of an injury.
I am deliriously excited. I might start going to the grass fields to do WIND SPRINTS, I feel so dang good! A lot of my athletic identity has always been pinned to running - I wasn't tall, or skilled, or especially coordinated. But damn it, I was strong, and I could motor. And now that I can motor again, look out! I may even look into trying to play some kind of dang SPORT!
(Though it would have to be barefoot. Whenever I had to stop quickly on the field yesterday, I would do so with a very fast series of stutter-steps, chopping my feet to brake without digging them so deep into the grass that I would slip or lose control. If I had been wearing cleats, I'd have been able to stop in one smooth, quick CHOP!, and would very likely have snapped something in one or both knees. I am becoming a barefoot evangelist - I had a blast, and would love to start playing ultimate frisbee, but I do know this: It would have to be barefoot. I know my limits.)
Those limits, by the by, are getting more limiting as the years go by. The most challenging one this spring is the allergies. Holy Toledo! I have never had as bad a time as this. The reason is pretty obvious - here's the culprit:
That scum on the puddle at the end of our driveway is pollen. Pollen, pollen, everywhere, crawling down my throat. My only real symptom from the pollen is a cough - a persistent, insistent, itching, cloying cough that lets you get aaaaalmost completely asleep before it shakes you awake again. Oddly, the only time of day I don't cough is when I'm running. I go six miles without a single solitary symptom - 'course, when I get back, I spend five minutes in the back yard hacking up lungs until it sounds to the neighbors like they live on Frat Row at 3:00 AM on a Saturday night. But it's worth it - those 50 minutes of bliss are about the only decent breathing I get done these days. Today seems better than yesterday, but that's not saying much.
The barbecue yesterday, by the way, after the pick-up soccer, was wonderful. Very nice bunch of kids, who needed pretty much no adult supervision the whole time. No squabbles, no conflicts, just lots of interaction and play time. A great variety of ages (T, 6, all the way up to Benni, 12), genders, and interests. Q got to spend a fair amount of one-on-one time with Benni, which made him feel very big and important, and T was being fussed over and cuddled and pulled along from one event to another by an unending succession of older, patient girls. And the adult company was wonderful too - a great end to a great weekend.
Though I now have to really buckle down and plan all the classes for which I will be absent this coming week. I leave for Cincinnati on the 10th to correct AP exams, and don't come back until the 18th. So there are a lot of instructions to leave.
I was staying down here to meet up with the fambly at Q's soccer game in Pittsfield, but I just heard it's been canceled. So I'll do another thing or two here, then head home. Take care, brush your hair,
Joe
One of our first years in the house, I found a solution that was very labor-intensive, but effective. I made a sifter out of some scrap lumber and quarter-inch wire mesh, and shoveled wheelbarrow-full after wheelbarrow-full into it. I shook out the dirt and the leaves, washed the gravel with the hose, and eventually had a lovely gravel path again. After only two days and enough calories of gravel-sifting to feed Paraguay for a month. I decided early on that it was a fool's errand, but continued, not wanting the guy we'd hired to install our flooring in the basement, to whom I had described my plan, to see it fail. In the end, though, he when all was said and done, he just asked me, "Was it worth it?" And I simply turned away and gently wept.
So I'm ashamed to say that my solution this year involved a lot less sacrifice on my part, and a lot more on the earth's part. I took the hose to it without doing any real shoveling. Eventually, I got a pretty good scheme going - my thinking was that the rocks, which, while small, are still rocks, and were unlikely to be blasted very far by a glancing jet of water across their surface. But the leaves, dirt, and pine needles, when hit, would be blasted farther. So if I just strafed the surface with an intense jet of water, starting at the top of the walkway and heading down hill, eventually I would wind up with a mound of crud at the bottom and a barely-disturbed layer of clean rocks above it. It pretty much worked out that way, in the end, and the walkway looks a whole lot better than it did. But the Earth is one swimming pool's worth of water less whole. Can't win, I guess, no matter what I do.
In gravel walkway maintenance, anyway. In other areas, I'm becoming a very consistent winner. Like in running. yesterday, Memorial Day, we celebrated by taking the whole family (after T's baseball game, where she hit well but got thrown out two times out of three) up to the U-10 soccer field and playing in a pickup kids-and-adults soccer game, organized by Magnus, our friend and the girls' U-10 soccer coach. Not too many people showed up, so it wound up just being Janneke and me, Brad, Betsy, a guy named Jeff, and Magnus and his wife Margaret against all our kids and a few extras who jumped in for fun. The field was big for such a small team, and we all played barefoot - the unfortunate part of that being that Janneke got stung by a bee on one toe, and had to leave the game. (Mostly to go home and cook, as most of the players were coming over to our house for a barbecue.) But the fortunate part is this: I sprinted and raced and zoomed around that field like I was 12 years old! I had NO pain, ANYWHERE! Not in my knees. Not in my hips. Not in my feet. NOTHING! My feet are getting to be so strong and healthy now, and my fitness level is so improved from all the running I'm doing, that I was downright playin' some damned soccer, and suffered no ill effects what, so, ever. In FACT! This morning, and all day long, I have had no residual stiffness or soreness in my right foot at all - quite different from most mornings, when I grimace and wince a bit on my way to the bathroom. The right foot, while painless during my runs, has been pretty creaky after a night's sleep. But yesterday, I must have simply blasted it into such supple pliancy that there's just no trace left of an injury.
I am deliriously excited. I might start going to the grass fields to do WIND SPRINTS, I feel so dang good! A lot of my athletic identity has always been pinned to running - I wasn't tall, or skilled, or especially coordinated. But damn it, I was strong, and I could motor. And now that I can motor again, look out! I may even look into trying to play some kind of dang SPORT!
(Though it would have to be barefoot. Whenever I had to stop quickly on the field yesterday, I would do so with a very fast series of stutter-steps, chopping my feet to brake without digging them so deep into the grass that I would slip or lose control. If I had been wearing cleats, I'd have been able to stop in one smooth, quick CHOP!, and would very likely have snapped something in one or both knees. I am becoming a barefoot evangelist - I had a blast, and would love to start playing ultimate frisbee, but I do know this: It would have to be barefoot. I know my limits.)
Those limits, by the by, are getting more limiting as the years go by. The most challenging one this spring is the allergies. Holy Toledo! I have never had as bad a time as this. The reason is pretty obvious - here's the culprit:
That scum on the puddle at the end of our driveway is pollen. Pollen, pollen, everywhere, crawling down my throat. My only real symptom from the pollen is a cough - a persistent, insistent, itching, cloying cough that lets you get aaaaalmost completely asleep before it shakes you awake again. Oddly, the only time of day I don't cough is when I'm running. I go six miles without a single solitary symptom - 'course, when I get back, I spend five minutes in the back yard hacking up lungs until it sounds to the neighbors like they live on Frat Row at 3:00 AM on a Saturday night. But it's worth it - those 50 minutes of bliss are about the only decent breathing I get done these days. Today seems better than yesterday, but that's not saying much.
The barbecue yesterday, by the way, after the pick-up soccer, was wonderful. Very nice bunch of kids, who needed pretty much no adult supervision the whole time. No squabbles, no conflicts, just lots of interaction and play time. A great variety of ages (T, 6, all the way up to Benni, 12), genders, and interests. Q got to spend a fair amount of one-on-one time with Benni, which made him feel very big and important, and T was being fussed over and cuddled and pulled along from one event to another by an unending succession of older, patient girls. And the adult company was wonderful too - a great end to a great weekend.
Though I now have to really buckle down and plan all the classes for which I will be absent this coming week. I leave for Cincinnati on the 10th to correct AP exams, and don't come back until the 18th. So there are a lot of instructions to leave.
I was staying down here to meet up with the fambly at Q's soccer game in Pittsfield, but I just heard it's been canceled. So I'll do another thing or two here, then head home. Take care, brush your hair,
Joe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)