Excuses, Excuses

Okay. So.

On Wednesday night, I had a legitimate reason for not blogging, and it's name was There Was A Storm And Our Power Was Out Until After 3 A.M.

On Thursday night, I did not have a legitimate reason. My illegitimate reason's name was I Forgot.

On Friday night, I had a semi-legitimate reason, and its name was We Went To A Richmond Flying Squirrels Baseball Game And It Was Raining So The Game Was Delayed Until 9 P.M. And We Got Home Really Late.

(It's semi-legitimate because I had all day to blog and I didn't, and although I was tired when I got home late after spending several hours at the baseball game, I stayed up doing other things anyway.)

So, how 'bout them Squirrels? I think it's really funny that the team is called the Flying Squirrels... I mean, usually when you pick your team's mascot, you pick an animal that's fierce, fast, or threatening in some way. But you know what? The baseball fans in Richmond really go with it. They bring their enthusiasm, and all of a sudden, it doesn't feel stupid that their mascot is something you'd normally call cute and fluffy.

They did a pretty good job making the Flying Squirrel logo and the costume of their mascot, Nutzy. It's all in how you stylize something.

So that was fun, despite the rain and ridiculously late starting time. They sold hot dogs for a dollar as an apology. I got one. And it was tasty.

Today I overslept by a lot. I think I accidentally turned my alarm off instead of hitting the snooze button. And I didn't really do a whole lot today. I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I had a pizza delivered because one of my aunt's dogs is at "camp" for the weekend and he wasn't here to go ballistic when the doorbell rang. It just seemed like an opportunity I had to take advantage of.

I went for a lovely walk after dinner. Just kinda wandered around the neighborhoods a bit. I walked past the elementary school and found a set of monkey bars so tall I had to jump in order to reach them. So while I can't imagine them being of much use to small children, I had fun swinging across them. Maybe I'll go back a few times a week and get some good calluses going.

Did you ever read Ramona's World by Beverly Cleary? In the book, Ramona (in the fourth grade at the time the book takes place) and her friends often compare the calluses they get on their palms after swinging on the rings at the playground. The girls who lived closest to the playground had the biggest (and best) calluses.

I used to keep that in mind as I mastered the monkey bars at my first elementary school. Those things were HUGE. They were so high off the ground that you had to climb a ladder to reach them, and it was a long, loooong drop down if you couldn't make it all the way across. And getting across wasn't easy. For one thing, there were a lot of rungs on the monkey bars. It was a good 15-20 feet across. But you also had to contend with the huge gap in the middle- a gap where a rung ought to have been, but was never placed. The gap occurred in the dead center where the poles that held up the middle were.

(Yes, the monkey bars were so long that they had to have support in the center. They were THAT intense.)

When I was in probably third grade, I gradually worked up the strength to get to the center of the monkey bars, but the gap was a problem for a while. I eventually figured out that I could somehow steady myself by wrapping my legs around one of the support poles and then REEEEACH across to the other rung. And that's how I mastered the monkey bars.