Slapstick In Everyday Life

The funniest thing happened this evening! Just a little while ago, in fact. I was walking on the treadmill and reading a book as is my custom. Young'un came in to show me that he'd finished his paper for school and had everything together in a folder. After he showed it to me he tapped the end of the folder on the dashboard thingie in front of me. All of a sudden the treadmill took off like a striped-ass ape! It went ripping out from under my feet, and I was scrambling like crazy to keep up with it! Luckily I was holding on, so I never lost my balance; I just had to get my feet moving. I was squawking with surprise and dismay, and so was Young'un, and while I concentrated on not falling down he managed to hit the "off" button. The treadmill came to an abrupt halt, and I immediately started laughing like a maniac! He kept saying he was sorry, he didn't know how it happened, and worrying about me, but I wasn't hurt at all -- just hysterical! It must have looked so funny, like something that would happen to Lucille Ball or the Three Stooges.

I've Seen It!

Yesterday Young'un and I went to see "V for Vendetta". We loved it! I was spellbound, enthralled from beginning to end. Like some of my flist, I find the character V fascinating and compelling; Hugo Weaving does a magnificent job creating that character using only body language and his voice. Natalie Portman is breathtaking. It's serious, suspenseful business, but there's humor too -- notably a Benny Hill-like sequence that had me hysterical. The breakfast that was kind of a recurring theme brought back memories from my early teens. When I saw the piece of bread with a hole in the middle and an egg in the hole, cooked in the frying pan, I remembered how a friend's grandma used to make that for us when I stayed over. You never know what's going to bring back an old memory.

I just love this! Talk about wishful thinking. I got it from watertiger, who calls it "Bush gives one war speech too many":

Deeply Cosmic Basketball

Young'un and I had a great day yesterday. We were on our own, because Husband and Mother-in-law were on a road trip, so our day had a different structure than usual Saturdays. Young'un had baseball practice from 11:30 to 1:00, and we stopped at MIL's house on the way, to give her Chloe pug some food and a little outing. Chloe really tears into her food! She fills her entire mouth with it, then chews and chews and chews until she's got it all down.

In the afternoon Young'un took the basketball outside, to shoot some hoops in the great weather. He asked me if I'd come out and play too, and to his surprise I said yes! And out I went. Now I used to be pretty good at the whole driveway-basketball business, and (like riding a bicycle) it all came back to me. First I startled my son with my ability to sink free-throw after free-throw, shooting with one hand on either side of the ball in the old-fashioned way I learned from my dad. Then we shot from various angles, and I recalled how I'd always enjoyed the geometry of bank shots: where on the backboard the ball must hit in order for the bounce to send it through the rim. Happily I ran for loose balls, slung passes, and leaped for rebounds.

My boy expressed surprise at all this technique from Mama, and I said to him, "But don't you know? This is how I met your father, 40(!) years ago this very month. You're here because I can do this!" That really gave him something to think about. He knew the story of our living across the alley from each other, had even stood on the historic spot where we first met, but hadn't thought through the actual basketball part. As for me, I just soaked up the cosmicness of once again being outdoors in the fragrant warmth of a mid-March afternoon playing basketball with a 6'4" 15-year-old guy -- but this one is the son of me and the first one.