Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Olympics’

Midsummer Mornings

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on August 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The Groom is out of the garage apartment! He tested positive for Covid after returning from their beach vacation with his family, so the Bride banished him. But today he is free to walk across the yard and return to work after a negative test. He was reminiscing about the first time he contracted Covid in the MICU, right about the same time, midsummer, in 2020. How different it was then; patients were dying, there was no vaccine, no Paxlovid.

My side-yard neighbor also tested positive last week. Les has become a good friend since we moved here. She’s a bit younger, with two sons in their twenties; one is away in college and the other at his first real job. A new empty nester, married to a pediatrician, I love her spirit. Les can get things done. She told me how we’d divide the monstera plant threatening to take over my dining room, and the next thing you know we’re outside with three pots! We exchange porch surprises of baked goods from time to time and she texts me every morning –

“Good Morning! The gate is open.”

This is my invite to her salt water pool for pool physical therapy! I throw on my bathing suit, grab a towel and walk across the street for my morning meditation/ aqua therapy. I do all my exercises plus deep water pool-noodle-yoga moves and feel like a ballerina again. The water temperature is 84, pure bliss. A little chipmunk races around her shrubs while a rabbit cleans its face, and if I’m lucky it’s blessedly quiet. No hammering construction noises, no lawn machinery, no cicadas. On Wednesdays, the midmorning garbage truck will punctuate my pointe tendus.

When I hang up my old/lady/one/piece bathing suit and step into the shower, I can hear the John Williams’ Olympic theme. Ah, to be 15 again! We’ve been watching synchronized swimming this week, aka Artistic Swimming. Now this is a sport I can handle, after all I used to be a synchronized swimmer at Camp St Joseph for Girls. We’d twirl and tap the lake water in our flowered bathing caps while lesser mortals tried canoeing. But this year’s Artistic Swimming is not this Nana’s Artistic Swimming; this is Cirque du Soleil next level magic:

 “…it demands endurance, power, leonine grace, hair gelatin, dance lessons, mastery of the eggbeater, flamingo, scull and rocket split, daily seven-hour practices, the limberness of fresh linguine, abs of granite, exceptional breath control, pink nose plugs, frequent bruises, occasional concussions…” https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2024/olympic-artistic-swimming-synchronized-strength-risks-paris/

Granted I can sometimes feel like a seahorse while riding a pool noodle, but I can not fathom doing those tricks underwater!

While making myself another cup of coffee, and wondering why more girls don’t faint in the pool from oxygen deprivation, I decided it was time to tackle the abundance of zucchini Farmer Bob has harvested. I returned from California to three very large zucchini on our kitchen island. I delivered one to the Bride and one to Les – what to do with the third? The Rocker turned me onto the NYTCooking app and lo and behold I found a new and different recipe for zucchini bread! It’s a tad healthier, made with olive oil and just a little brown sugar. I had to add chocolate chips of course.

Yesterday, the Love Bug and I went back-to-school shopping. Here in the South, school starts mid-August which is sacrilegious to a Jersey native. Just like her Mother, the Bug knew exactly what she wanted and was very particular. About to turn 12, the Bug is somewhere between a very large child size and very small adult size… what we’d call a junior size. And who knew a pair of jean shorts could come in so many varieties? Back in the 60s, we would just cut-off our old jeans and call it a day. Now they come pre-cut, already holey and ripped and fringed on the bottom… oh God, I am starting to sound like my age.

Time to wrap this up and jump in the pool. I hope your midsummer day dreams are coming true!

Read Full Post »

Olympic Dreams

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2024| Leave a Comment »

It was forty years ago in LA, the Olympics that is, when we were living in the Berkshires and I was about to give birth to the Rocker. We lived in a farmhouse on the outskirts of a bird sanctuary. Idyllic and terrifyingly beautiful, surrounded by cardinals, chickadees and grouse, there was a dairy farm up the road. I had picked the date of his birth, a repeat C-section was scheduled; Reagan was president, I remember watching the Olympics live while nursing my newborn baby boy.

“Synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics debuted in Los Angeles as Olympic events, as did wind surfing.”

There is a picture of us at the Bris, tall gladiolus of every color stood guard while friends gathered. Two rabbis came and Grandma Ada was there. She would drive four hours from NJ, always bringing food, “Did you eat?” and a cousin or two. We loved to sit on the swing in the big screened-in porch; the bassinet was on that porch because babies need fresh air. I looked so young, so peaceful. Or maybe I was just exhausted.

“John Williams composed the theme for the Olympiad, “Los Angeles Olympic Theme” later also known as “Olympic Fanfare and Theme“. This piece won a Grammy for Williams and became one of the most well-known musical themes of the Olympic Games…”

I’ve just returned from LA, from visiting the Rocker and Aunt Kiki. My baby grew up to be a talented musician and composer. His company debuted two new trailers while I was there – one for a movie and one for an Apple series. I told them about the Woodstock themed 40th birthday party I’d planned for Bob’s big day, and we talked about my son’s generation – listening to Kurt Cobain, learning to design and create websites. Somewhere between Gen X and the Millennial Generation, the Rocker is a Xennial, a unique subset.

“You have a childhood, youth, and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones. … We learned to consume media and came of age before there was Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where you still watch the evening news or read the newspaper.” https://www.bos.com/inspired/xennials-what-you-need-to-know-about-this-micro-generation/

Their California home is like a tree house, perched on a hill with lush tropical plants. We watched the Paris Olympic skateboarding finals on Peacock, a streaming platform. I thought about my son doing tricks on a skateboard, playing rollerblade hockey, moving effortlessly through my dreams. He is tall and lanky like my brothers, Po the Cat drapes herself along his legs while we critique the athletes. And we cooked and played together in the kitchen to fantastical music Kiki curated. My baby is turning 40.

Read Full Post »

Sochi, Snow and Somnambulance

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on February 16, 2014| 1 Comment »

What d’ya know! We actually did get a foot and a half of snow just in time for Valentine’s Day, and the next day it was sunny and melting. Unfortunately, I gave away my beloved cross country skis a long time ago, the pair I had kept in a sacred shrine in a NJ garage. In the Berkshires, I would just strap them on and take off into the trails behind our farmhouse at the edge of a bird sanctuary. Eventually, I gave up hope. We just never got enough snow at the Shore to matter, and I figured that moving to VA would be the end of my snow sporting days. Little did I know.

We do have a small ski resort here in Central VA. Really, I was surprised too. Wintergreen is where some people will go for the weekend with their kids and snowshoes and skates. It’s one county over, and a few miles higher in elevation, a short car ride although we’ve never been. I guess when you come from a landscape that was filled with snow and winter activities, the idea of actually paying for fun in the snow – snow that was mostly manufactured anyway – just wasn’t the same. And let’s face it, our knees are a bit rusty too. Still, watching athletes compete in Sochi…

I have to ask, what makes somebody want to hurtle themselves down an icy track at 60 miles per hour, face-down on a sled the size of an old iPad? The Skeleton, kinda crazy right? But it was one of those events, like car accidents, you can’t seem to stop watching. And the US beating Russia in Ice Hockey, brilliant! But Figure Skating left me switching over to House of Cards on Netflix. Now that was a rush, holey moley. Frank Underwood is the newest Soprano-like villain; a man you love to hate.  

I celebrated Valentine’s Day last night with my man, since he was working on Cupid’s night. He shoveled a path to the grill and we had an amazing dinner; some surf and turf, some cauliflower gobi with sourdough bread and of course Ben and Jerry played a supporting role at the end. We Virginians also celebrated a major victory in marriage equality. Our 2006 ban on same-sex marriage was struck down by a woman judge on Valentine’s eve: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/02/virginia-same-sex-marriage-ban-ruled-unconstitutional.html For a state that was supposed to be “For Lovers” and made its name in history by finally ruling that interracial marriage was in fact, constitutional, it was poetic justice.

Judge Allen began her opinion by quoting Mildred Loving, the plaintiff in the famous Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which declared bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional, and went on to quote Abraham Lincoln, who said, “It can not have failed to strike you that these men ask for just … the same thing—fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.” She then applied his message to same-sex couples: “The men and women, and the children too, whose voices join in noble harmony with Plaintiffs today, also ask for fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as it is in this Court’s power, they and all others shall have.”  

Thank you Judge Arenda Allen! VA joins the progressive march to freedom for lovers everywhere. Proving it’s not who you sleep with, but the slow, sleepwalking pace of justice that will win in the end. So there you go Putin.  

Image

 

Read Full Post »