river rat: We three things. 1) February is here. This is the time of great wailing and tearing at flesh for the cold has finally seeped (even here in the dirty south) into the marrow, pushing anger from its deepest recesses where immunities once bubbled to life. Instead of white cells, I have more red cells - anger cells - in my bloodstream, and nothing short of eleven sixty degree days and/or cloudless sky can lower the red count. Cold.
2) My son takes gymnastics classes (as does my daughter) at the North Raleigh Gym where the staff and gymnasts take their fun and their athleticism seriously. The facilities are modern and clean and often packed with tumbling, flipping, redfaced youth on the business side of a glass waiting room, while hacking, sleepy parents herd younger siblings on the waiting side of the glass. It feels like being in an aquarium, sitting there waiting, everyone's fancy phone going off with text prompts and jangling games, gymnasts pressing their noses to the glass to see if mommy or daddy or grammy have arrived or if their one and only successful round-off was witnessed by someone who (isn't paid to) cares.
My son, the large, loves gymnastics. He's not so good at all the moves he's learning, however his smile and enthusiasm go a long, long way (as his instructors have told me). I watch him laugh and work hard at cartwheels and tumbling and the rings and parallel bars...he's in heaven out there.
Then last week, on his way to the door, he licks his palms and I feel my stomach drop, inwardly shouting, "NOOOOOOoooooooo........" I can only think of all the last apparatus on which he and every other germ infected child just dragged their snotty hands and faces, wondering what day exactly my next cold will take root in pissed-off system. Germs.
3) I sat in a car once while Tim pissed into a bottle. We were going into a tunnel leading to the city and there was no waiting. It was summer and hot and in a rental. His bladder's ejecta increased the humidity significantly. Vapors.
