***
I took Gemma to a birthday party at the roller rink this weekend. I mentioned last winter that I took both kids often on Friday mornings for "Pixie class" where they could figure out how to stay up without swarming masses whizzing around them. Though it had been about a year since last we went to the rink, Gemma remembered enough to stay up most of the time.
I was among the swarming mass. I love roller skating. I'm not great. I can't stop myself without something to grab hold of. I can't skate backwards. I can't maintain speed while rounding the corners.
But I can dance a little as I go. Oh, I'm sorry, am I supposed to not dance when the "I Like To Move It, Move It" song comes on?
The song selection, the sound system, the disco ball and colored spot lights--there's so much to like about a roller rink. Thrown in there, too, is the quaint, slightly campy practice of "naming" each skate. There's the "speed skate," in which certain age groups are to skate at once. I do these--slowly, of course--as a public service to the one or two men who show up with roller blades and re-live their days of hockey glory. There are always a few of this type around and it's obvious how much they enjoy lapping me.
There's the "Downtown" skate where they play that song and every time the singer croons "downtown!" skaters are to do a deep knee bend. I do this one because it's good exercise.
There's the "Partner's Limbo," which I did with Gemma. The two speed skating men partnered up as well, and were right in front of us in line. I'm pretty sure they were friends who had brought their families together, if that makes you feel better about it. I know it helped me to realize that their sons knew each other and had partnered up as well.
They were self-conscious enough about it to turn to me and say, "We won't hold hands until the game actually starts--that would be weird."
I laughed. Said, "The two best skaters here should be partners!" And they both shrugged off the compliment in the way that shows they were, in fact, glad to have received it.
One said, "There's a big chance we're going to make fools of ourselves." He was not wrong. This was limbo-on-skates. . .
I said, "I'm just hoping I don't do anything that is going to show up on YouTube and go viral." There were many birthday parties there, far too many recording devices to count.
So we limboed. The men didn't even attempt the 3rd setting. Gemma and I did. She got through, I felt my hair bump it as I approached, so I stood up and said, "I touched!" and so was spared trying to go even lower now.
Gemma was somewhat annoyed with me, but it was nothing that the rest of the party couldn't make her forget.
***
About the birthday present: I suggested we get a littlel outfit for her friend's doll. Gemma liked this. And she determined that she wanted to make a tea set, too, out of colored modeling clay. We worked all week on it. (Hint to Mom and others who ever try Sculpey or Fimo: It works way better if you leave it in direct sunlight to warm up for a few hours before trying to kneed it.)
She was pretty determined to make 4 cups, 4 saucers and a teapot. Joshua helped, too, and made a serving tray. When assembling the completed pieces together, she placed the teapot on the tray Josh made.
He said, "Hey, Gemma, that's a serving tray."
Immediate response: "I know. And the tea needs to be served."
Cheeky!
***
Speaking of cheeky:
We have a phrase in our house, adopted from my friend, Xochitl's house, for when our children whine for something.
I say, "What does whining get you?"
And the answer, which they usually say grudgingly, is, "A whole lotta nothin'."
The other day, Josh was whining, I asked, "What does whining get you?"
Immediate response: "A whole lotta yes-stuff."
Get it? Opposite of "no-thing" = "yes-stuff."
But he still didn't get what he was whining for.
***
I mentioned fitness classes in Sanibel with my father-in-law, Pedro. He is quite the role model for physical health. He eats very, very carefully. And he works out on cardio-machines (when his ear is troubling him) or brisk, long walks on the beach (when it's not) and at yoga several times a week (though he pronounces it "joga," which I love).
I've kind of become an avid exercise-er myself. I never thought I'd be one of those people who does not feel right if I go more than 2 days without a work-out. But. Well. I have. There's an entire book to be written about how this happened.
So there we were, Pedro and I, comparing notes on what specific exercises we do for which muscles. At one point, we were taking turns on the floor demonstrating different ab moves--he, from what he's learned in joga, I, from what I've learned from Pilates. Am I too proud to be getting fitness tips from an 83 year old man? Why should I be?
There is a terrific rec center on the island that we get a weekly membership to when we visit. I did several of the classes there. (BOSU! I hate the BOSU. And yet, I love the BOSU. Nothing has ever made my muscles work harder.)
Then Pedro invited me to go "Zumba Gold" with him. "It is with Latin music," he said, his eyes bright with anticipation. Pedro loves to dance as much as I do.
Sure! I've seen Zumba on an X-Box commercial and the model doing that routine seemed to be getting a great workout.
As for the "Gold," I kind of thought it was the rec center's way of fiddling with the name so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the official Zumba people.
Uh, no. "Gold," I realized as our class mates filed into the gym, is a euphemism that translates roughly to, "For old people."
Zumba For Old People. That's the class I was standing in with my 83-year-old father-in-law, and we were standing in the front row.
Then the teacher walked in. She was shocking. Or maybe it's just that I was shocked. Pedro turned to me and with a wry half-smile said, "I'm not sure how much work this class will be. That teacher is. . .a little overweight."
Folks, there's no way she was an ounce under 200 pounds. And she was shorter than I am, which is 5'4". It wasn't a big-hips thing, or a "meaty" look. She was obese. If she were taking the class, I would not have thought a thing of it. Other than, maybe, "Good for you, girl!"
But leading a fitness class? I think I was. . .annoyed. Like the heart surgeon who smokes cigarettes or the financial advisor who's swimming in debt or the teacher who walks around saying, 'I hate reading!' (I worked with one of those once. . .) -- I was annoyed to be looking at an obese fitness instructor.
I'm not proud of that, you know. I don't know if that reaction comes from being an avid exerciser. I know it wasn't a judgement of beauty or appearance--come on, now, I was standing there with no breasts!--it was just shocking.
Then she took her sweatshirt off and Pedro turned to me again to say, "She looks like a wrestler."
So I think he was worse than I. Right? Right?
The class began. She led us in a simple choreography for each song and she clearly was loving every minutes of the music. I'm sure it was perfect for the golden people behind us.
For my part, I added as many modifications as I could. "Modifications." This is when you do an extra move or a jumpier move or a deeper bend or something else that fits in with the routine and makes your muscles work harder than the regular move. Parin and I used to hate "modifications" when we did classes together back in Korea. Her words, I think, were, "Enough with the modifications! Stop showing off and just do the routine." And she was right.
But I promise you that I wasn't trying to show off. I really just wanted to get my heart rate up. Now and then, I looked over at Pedro and not once did I see him ever actually doing the routine. He was just dancing.
There was a guy in a treadmill on the other side of the glass wall who was looking in on our class as he ran. And he was laughing most of the time, with good-natured happiness, I think, to see that old guy dance and to heck with the instructor.
Her own health notwithstanding, she led a great class.
Afterwards, she came up to Pedro, and I was standing right next to him. She came with a big smile, wanted to know how old he was, and then started up a very condescending speech for him about how he "just has to keep moving," and "how good that you move so much at this age."
This is the thing about Pedro: He looks and sounds like a sweet, simple man with a sweet, simple mind. And he plays his cards close to his chest so that at moments like these, when I found myself becoming defensive on his behalf, he is just laughing on the inside about how this woman is underestimating him. Because, in reality, he is actually a mental giant. And he had said she looked like a "wrestler," so, really, how sweet can he be?
But he smiled and nodded and then said something about how much he enjoyed her class and the music. Then she asked me if I had "Zumbad" before.
No, this was my first time and I had really enjoyed it, too.
Well, she went on, Zumba is all over the world now and there are DVD's and X-Box games and I could do it anywhere! Then this: "You burn 1000 calories every time you dance."
And I thought, "That is not correct. But your belief in those numbers does explain a lot."
She had moved on to asking where Pedro was from. To me she said, "You're not Hispanic, so you are not his daughter. . ."
I feigned shock, "What do you mean 'I'm not Hispanic?' How do you know that?"
She rolled her eyes and shooed her hand at me and said, "I can tell."
You know how she could tell? In her routine, there were several times when we were to shake/gyrate our hips really fast. I couldn't do it.
The irony, I think, is that if Bryan had been standing there and she had been told to choose which of us was Pedro's biological, Hispanic child, she would have chosen me, hips or not.
Zumba Gold with Pedro: Priceless.
***
I turned 36 this past Wednesday. Our homeschool co-op was here and the ladies very sweetly put together an organic-sugar brownie and ice cream celebration for me, candles and all.
I think I look a LOT better at age 36 than I did at 35. (Get it? Because last birthday I was bald, and burned on one side and walking around with just one sad, doomed breast?) But now. . . the burned skin isn't even a shade darker. My hair came back in, reached an un-ruly stage, I cut it (clipped it, actually) back down to one inch and now it's grown back in again. (I can't decide whether to keep it short or grow it out again. But it now feels like my hair, and not like a post-chemo hair-do.)
A year ago feels like a lifetime ago.
***
A sign that 36 is "middle age" is that I actually wanted to stay in that evening, have dinner at home with my family, play a game of "Sorry!"
(What a great game! There aren't many out there that a 4 year old can play and enjoy AND that Bryan and I can enjoy, too. Josh wins half the time. He's very shrewd. . . And at this game, when he drew a card he could not move on, he said, "A whole lotta nothin'!")
This is what "a good time" feels like for me. I'm glad to say.
***
The other sign that this is "middle age" is that the frequency of my doing my mother's thing has been going way up. To whit: Our fridge was full of left-overs. One serving of this, two of that. Dishes that do not belong on the same palate. But food that should not be thrown away. Food that didn't need to be cooked, only re-heated.
That was lunch and dinner tonight: A bit of this and that, heated, set on the table with the declaration, "None of this is going back into the fridge."
Bryan surveyed the table and declared, "It's a smorgasborg, kids!" with great delight, and so they were delighted, too.
Kind of nice, though, for variety, when I offer a bit of this and a bit of that--all these left-overs that may not go together, but go well enough.
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