Eating as a team sport?
10:24 p.m.
Little Princess is at least one-quarter Scottish in ancestry, her last name is of Scottish origin, and when I saw that highland dancing was being offered at her elementary school (she was in kindergarten at the time) one evening a week, I jumped at the opportunity. She, however, was not as enthusiastic as I was. My daughter has never been particularly athletic. When I would take her to play group when she was two and the other kids were racing around the room, spending calories like allowance, she would find a niche somewhere to hole up in, observing her comrades but not joining in. She is physically sluggish, if I may use such a term, taking a long time to move from point A to point B. There is nothing physically wrong with her. She�s just slow.
Anyway, she didn�t take to the highland dancing. Either the instructor wasn�t all that exciting, or she just didn�t find it all that interesting, and we discontinued the effort after the first course was over. Buddy Boy was never athletic either, although he is not �sluggish� as his sister is. He wanted so much to play little league baseball, and we were finally able to sign him up for it the summer he was 11. It was not a good experience. He was small, couldn�t hit, couldn�t throw and couldn�t catch. He played right field all summer, and the one time a ball came to him, he missed it, causing his team to lose the one game that season. Or at least he blamed himself for it. He didn�t continue with that either.
In Grade 7 he went out for basketball, discovering yet again that he is not cut out for team sports. Everyone was bigger and more into the whole mentality than he was. I don�t mind in the least. I thank my lucky stars that I have avoided the fate of moms who have kids involved in hockey, soccer, baseball, and all the other sports. Hockey is the worst. You have to drive your kid, with all his equipment, to points distant, sit in a cold arena on hard benches, and feign interest in what�s happening on the ice. Not for me, thank you.
But all that aside, they are not totally devoid of physical exercise. Karate has been the outlet for both of them over the years. They prefer the one-on-one aspect of the sport. They�ve also both tried tennis, but aren�t naturals. Buddy Boy signed up for football (as a fall sport, it won�t interfere with his involvement in the school play), but I think because of his small size that�s going to be a bust too. We shall see.
In other news, our vocal ensemble rehearsed tonight, and I�m feeling the pain. I haven�t been practising regularly (mea culpa) and didn�t warm up properly for this event. The music tends to lie low in my register and I find that tiring. I�m a soprano dammit! Also, Vlad has me singing second soprano where we divide, and I�m so used to jumping to the top note that I find I have to pay special attention when there�s a divisi. Luckily our altos are stronger than usual (we have two new members whom I can actually hear) and that makes a big difference.
I made a fine supper tonight. I thawed a package of frozen Pacific salmon, cut it up into little pieces and fried them in olive oil in the wok, draining them on paper towelling. I cooked up a mess of tagliatele, mixed it with olive oil, garlic, onion, salt, pepper and grated parmesan and put that in the bottom of a large bowl. On top I laid the salmon pieces, and on top of that a wokful of broccoli spears and chopped carrots saut�ed with garlic and salt. It was delicious. I also cooked up a mess of asparagus (they�re in the stores, don�t you know it) which I did not eat, seeing as how I despise asparagus. But four out of six people at dinner tonight enjoyed them mightily. I just thought I�d share that tasty tidbit with you.
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