Tag Archives: fun

Rained Out Again but Enjoying the Rain

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My daughter has been participating on a T-ball team (sort of like baseball, except they have the option to bat off a T).  So far she has had only two practices.  Four have been scheduled.  Two have been rained out, including tonight.  The kids are supposed to have a game next Tuesday.  That will be interesting.  Most of the kids don’t know the rules;  they do not know, for example, that touching the bases is part of the deal.  But it’s really about having fun anyway.

Instead of going to T-ball, my children played in the rain instead.  First, on the way home from my son’s school, they played with the windows.  They put them down to clear off the rain, which worked for all of three seconds.  Then they decided to put them down every time a car passed.  They got pretty wet but they were laughing so hard I figured it was OK to let a little moisture into the vehicle.

By the time we got home they were all fired up to run around outside in swim suits.  So they did.  They got soggy and muddy, playing in puddles and sliding down the slide.  They were soaked and dirty when they came in, just in time for a warm dinner.  They really wanted hot chocolate, to get cozy as they put it.  We waited until after dinner for the hot chocolate, then curled up by the fire with jammies.

Soon it will be time to head up for showers and bed.  The rain will likely continue into the evening.  I love going to bed when the rain falls.  I even enjoyed walking out to meet the bus this morning, listening to the rain on the umbrella and smelling the new blossoms.  Lilacs and apple blossoms are out now and the air smells sweet when the rain falls.

I don’t have to water the garden these days.  I just have to sit and watch the rain fall on the soil.  The children know that rain means the garden gets enough to drink, so they are happy when the skies gray and spill over.  Plus, they get to romp in the puddles.  So we had no T-ball practice today, but we all enjoyed what we got anyway.  We’ll get back to the field next week.

Feeling Alive

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At the moment, my son is driving his toy cars off an old board onto the frozen lawn.  The sun is shining.  His down jacket is unzipped.  His pant cuffs are soaked through.  He is, although not consciously, supremely happy.  Watching him makes me so as well.

Today I had a meeting in town.  I rode my bike to get there.  I should ride my bike more often, or so I have told myself many times.  Doing so today made me realize that I have been right.  I rode only about three miles each way–not far–but I felt great.  On the way in, the temperature was in the twenties.  Leavensworth Road, my route to avoid traffic, was frozen.  It was so frozen in a couple of spots that I had to walk.  I felt the cold, the wind, my muscles moving.  I felt alive.

It seems so simple:  I take a little more time to ride rather than drive and I feel so much better.  The only disadvantage to biking is that it takes more time.  Most of the time that isn’t even a disadvantage.  As long as I have the time to take, it is worth it.  The ride home was muddy.  Leavensworth Road had thawed out.  I got a little splattered but I had fun, I got a bit tired and I smelled the world rather than just zipped by it.  I need to do that more often.

On Saturday I stood in front of 400 people and presented a bunch of information about paying for college.  I had planned for it and I had been looking forward to it.  Five minutes before start time I realized that I felt a little nervous;  not much, but enough that I forgot to introduce myself.  Other than that it went well.  I think I provided enough information in a way that worked for most people.  Driving home (too far to bike that day), I felt great.

I realized that the positive feeling came from my pushing myself.  That was the largest crowd to which I had presented, and the topic is one that those present feel is important, even have anxiety over, so I took some risks.  I took a risk even volunteering to do it.  Because I took risks, however, because I stepped outside my comfort zone, the reward was high enough to make me feel pretty good.

I need to take on these challenges more frequently.  I need to take risks, to push myself, to try new things.  A lesson for me, one I have learned more than a few times, is that I need to simply step forward and try.  When opportunites come my way that seem intimidating, I need to say yes.  It is easy to stay within my comfort zone.  It is easy to do more of what I already know.  But if I want to feel alive, I need to make things a little harder for myself.

On my ride this morning, my biggest fear was not that I would be late or that I would forget how to ride, but that I would get stuck in my peddle clips.  I have a tough time getting out of them sometimes.  I practiced on the driveway on my way out, in fact.  Nonetheless, when I had to stop to cross a big patch of ice, I could not get my left foot out, leaned that way, and hit the dirt, literally.  It made me grumpy for a moment, but then I remembered how fortunate I was to be where I was, doing something so amazing.  I took a fall, but I got up and kept going.

That’s the thing.  I can’t be afraid to take a fall.  So I get a little dirty and my ego gets bruised.  So what?  No one but me even had to know it happened.  So often we are afraid to let others know we have made a mistake, and that makes us afraid to take a risk where we might make a mistake.  But I don’t want to sit with friends and tell them how I almost tried something but didn’t.  I want to give them a good story, and often the best stories are ones where we fall down but then get up and keep going and, ultimately, are rewarded.  That is the kind of story I want to tell.

If we take risks enough, we feel comfortable, given some time.  We can get in the groove.  Before long, we can be happy without even knowing why.  If we are lucky, we are happy without even being aware of it.  And if we take the time to pick up our pile of toy cars from the grass, we might even get the chance to try it again.

Sore and Glad to be Sore

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Apparently over six feet of snow fell on Bolton Valley over the past week. That is pretty nuts. That is a lot of snow. Their total for the year so far was 272 inches when I checked earlier. When we lived up there we had a few 300-inch years. Those were good years. This one is shaping up to be in the running.

I left later than I wanted this morning but I finally got my gear together and headed up there. I was solo. My wife stayed home with the children while I skied. I was riding the lift about an hour after they opened. Come to think of it, the lift I was riding might have opened a little later than the others, so maybe I was only a half hour behind first tracks, but I did pretty well. There was plenty of untracked powder for me to track up. I only skied for an hour and a half but that was about all I could take.

I would ride up, ski down and hop right back on. No dallying for me. Since I telemark, deep snow means lots of up and down. For someone who has not skied much this winter, it also means sore thighs. I could feel the burn as I hopped and carved. I did stop in the middle of runs more than once, to take a break and catch my breath, but also just to marvel at the snow. It was deep and beautiful and wondrous.

I don’t know how many runs I took. Plenty, I suppose. I got way tired and had lots of fun. Snow that deep feels just plain dreamy. Floating on it feels like flying. I sometimes compare it to whitewater boating. Both offer the sensation of fluid movement, where one feels partly in control and partly in the flow of gravity and the elements. Catching a turn or a wave just right makes me feel a union of sorts with the world.

That is what life is about–the feeling of being so in the moment, feeling so part of your little piece of the world, that all else falls away. Joy, that’s what it is. Call it idealistic if you will, or even foolish, but if you do, I am guessing you have never had the feeling. It can come from other things as well, I am sure.  These are two that I know.

Driving home I could feel my sore muscles with every depression of the clutch. It reminded me that I should get out there more. I should take the time to get out there, and I should make sure my kids get to know that feeling of joy through experience. I am sore, but I hope to get out there again tomorrow. We will take the kids, but we will also get a few runs in ourselves, just to see if there is some powder still to cut up somewhere on the edge of the trail. Maybe I will find a spot tomorrow to ride the fluff again, even for just a few turns.

A Little Skiing

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It’s not like I get out there that much these days.  My spouse and I used to get out at least once a week to ski, often long days in the backcountry.  Of course, we lived in the mountains.  We could walk out the door and access hundreds of acres of wilderness.  We also could walk out the door and ride the lift to ski or snowboard.  We used to sled on the groomed ski trails.

I’m not saying “Oh those were the days” or anything.  I’m no sentimental sap.  Living there was amazing but it also was pretty much impossible to walk out the door in the winter and safely go for a run.  A five mile steep road, covered in snow and hemmed in by snow banks is the place to run if you want to get back home.  But we did get in lots of skiing.

Yesterday I had one day at least of the kind of adventure we used to have.  I went with a handful of other gentlemen, poking around for some slides in the Adirondacks.  We found the snowmobile trail, skied up that, the puttered about looking for some access in the woods.  It was thick, filled in with hobblebush and birch saplings that had sprung up from the ice storm ten years ago.  Eventually, however, we found the slopes.

There were a couple of steep slopes, covered in powerdery snow.  There was a little ice underneath, but hardly much.  We were in there, we sweated, and we earned out turns.  It was great fun.  We sat for lunch at the top of an open slice of moutain, snow falling like crazy, with our backs a frozen waterfall and ate lunch before dropping down.  It was pretty dang good.

In the past week five feet of snow has fallen in the mountains.  Tomorrow, school on break, my wife and I both off, we will get into those mountains and, hopefully, link some turns.  I got in a little skiing.  I hope to get in much more this week.

KENKEN

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I have been pretty much way into crossword puzzles the past few months.  Late this summer I purchased a book of 300 crossword puzzles and scribbled away every day.  I just completed them all, and that includes going back to the few I skipped and completing those.  I have a few more shorter books of them but I just got introduced to KENKEN.

This was a holiday gift from my wife, who was aware of my puzzle fanaticism and who thought I might enjoy the new challenge.  I have.  I have been somewhat into Sudoku, a craze that most people are aware of by now.  KENKEN is similar to Sudoku (a 9×9 grid with some of the boxes filled with numbers, the goal being to fill in all the boxes without repeating a number in any horizontal row, vertical row or smaller 3×3 grid).    The difference here is that some math is involved.

The book I have starts with easy puzzles.  The grids are 3×3.  I blasted through them but they gave me a sense of how to solve the puzzles.  The book ends with 5×5 puzzles.  These are still relatively easy and I am afraid I will have to advance to more difficult ones.  Here is a fairly easy example (from www.Kenken.com):

Easier KENKEN Puzzle

Easier KENKEN Puzzle

And here is a more difficult example (from Wikipedia):

A Tougher One

A Tougher One

As you can see, the first one has simple addition and subtraction, while the second one also contains multiplication and division.  I am ready to leap fully into those.

So far I have done well but I am still working on the easier puzzles.  I will need to go out and get a more advanced book.  I am hooked.  Sudoku is fine.  I have had some fun with that.  But I never got jazzed on it the way I am with these.  I will not give up on crossword puzzles.  I still have lots of those in the house to work on.  I will, however, be busy with KENKEN for a while.

Second Christmas

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We just came back from a trip down south, to Connecticut.  I grew up there and my parents and some siblings and other relatives live there, so we visited for our second Christmas.  Every year my parents host Christmas the weekend after the “real” Christmas.  This has several benefits:

1. Those of us with various family wings can worry less about the conflict of who to see.  In our house we have decided that Christmas Day we do not travel.  We stay at home, share gifts, have a fine dinner and play.  We do not, however, have to worry about a long drive, so Christmas Eve we can see my in-laws.

2. Those of us who work where there are no true holidays (my mother and brother work for a nursing home) can offer to work so someone else can take the day off.  This feels pretty good and is a great gift.

3. We can do things for others.  My sister, for example, volunteered at a homeless shelter on Christmas.

4. If we have procrastinated, and we have enough of a buffer, we can get some steals on post-holiday sales.

I admit that I have not taken advantage of this last one, but still, it could happen.

We had a good long day for our second Christmas.  It felt like a major bonus for our children who got more gifts from Santa and all their various relatives on my side of the family.  We ate together and laughed and had a generally grand time.  Three of my four siblings were there (the other lives on the west coast) so it was a full house.

But wait, there’s more.  On Sunday we made another full day of it.  We took the children to the museums in Springfield, Massachusetts, just over the state line.  Somehow we managed to hit it right and got to wander the science museum just before a puppet show began.  It was put on by a traveling performance group and was targeted at children.  It was a hit.  We had time to check out the Dr. Seuss sculptures (he was born and lived in Springfield) one more time before heading home.

We had some time before heading out to Friendly’s for dinner.  This was a treat for the children, really.  They got to eat french fries AND ice cream sundaes.  What could be better?  It was actually the same establishment where I had my first paycheck job (I had paper routes before that), flipping burgers and manning the frialator.  Ah, the times I remembered.

Then, the finale to the day, we went to the Connecticut Trolley Museum for their winter fest event.  The place was decked out in holiday lights, including lights across all the power poles on the trolley lines.  Four trolleys ran the out and back route, under the lights.  It looked like a tunnel of color in the darkness.  When they switched the power pole on top of the trolley to go from one direction to the other, we were all in the dark.  No one working said anything about this, at least not right away, so everyone was quiet.  It was peaceful, fitting for the season.

My son was a huge fan of the exhibit hall, where two trolleys are indoors and a dozen or so electric train and trolley sets zoom in their loops.  There were trains of all sizes and they were dressed in holiday garb.  One train looped through Santa’s village with elves and snow and workshops and all.  Sure, I was pretty into it as well.  And it was festive.  A woman with a guitar sang carols, lights decked the hall, and several Christmas trees glowed in the corners.  There were kids all about and everyone seemed to be having a blast.

Back home today, after a long drive, we have to settle into post-Christmas.  We have some things to put away, some things to assemble, and some things to recycle.  We have a task list for the rest of our holiday break, and some good friends on the way in a couple of days.  Lots to do, lots to enjoy, lots to think about.  Both Christmases were as good as they get.  And two is enough.

Crafty Rascals

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My wife was at a holiday party this evening so I was home with the children. I made them dinner. We ate together. We toasted several things, including their mother. We missed her.

I cleaned up. I asked them to be good to each other while I did so, and they did that. They took out some art supplies and worked with them. I came around the corner after cleaning, and listening with only one ear, to discover what they created.

We have a funky ride on toy that they loop around the stairs on the wood floor. They love it. They decided to decorate it tonight. In case you can’t see it very clearly, we’ve got a montage of sea creatures and party clothes. How’s that for a mix?

Art Car

Art Car

Links to Animated Randomness

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Here are a few links to check out that you may or may not find intesting.  They are, in any case, humorous to me, and, as the title above promises, random.  Enjoy!

Savage Chickens

This site offers “cartoons on sticky notes by Doug Savage.”  Every day offers a new cartoon written on a yellow sticky note.  Most of the heroes are, you guessed it, chickens.

Doug Savage Snowman Cartoon

The Comics Curmudgeon

This site offers commentary on newspaper cartoons.  The name says it right.

Marvin 12/2/08

i081202marvin

Speaking of emotional devastation, I was pleased to see Marvin’s grandparents left completely shattered as their plans for retirement fall to pieces around them, but that’s just because I hate Marvin and want all of its characters to suffer horribly. Maybe they’ll have to move in with Marvin’s parents! And everyone will get on each other’s nerves, and Marvin will poop in his pants while thought-ballooning wryly! Oh, the hilarity.

Angry Alien

Angry Alien Productions offers some good animated humor.  Here is a link to a 30-second version of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life starring those cute little bunnies.  And there are plenty more 30-second clips in all movie genres.

That’s it for today!  See you on the funny pages!