Saturday, January 21, 2012

Little Plastic Cars


There have been some sad doings in some of the annexes of 117 Hudson these last weeks. They aren't my stories to tell but I've been spending some energy trying to help people make themselves big enough to hold* their challenges. In the end, though, there isn't a ton I can do to help. I try to honor their philosophies by making forward motion. Yesterday alone I had a vocal coaching session, an hour with an accompanist, and I taught myself how to shoot in manual mode on my camera (hence these photos). That's quite enough self-improvement for one day, thanks.

The other thing I'm trying to do is laugh every day. Today, of course, it snowed and we went to the park. Dogs in snow is always good for at least one laugh, usually more. Seeing Ben's pure joy undiluted even when Mr. Smith took him out at the knees kept me going for a good, long time. There weren't any belly laughs, though, maybe the snow was in my eyes. Sometimes perhaps you need an element of surprise to light a fire under your cackler.


Tonight I did laundry**. When I got to the laundry room there was a father-son pair in there. At least I think it was a father and a son, they were so tightly bundled against the cold I could only guess. The father was sorting laundry and the son was playing with some plastic cars. As I loaded up a washer I could hear the little guy talking through his play but he was so muffled up I couldn't hear what he was saying except for the occasionally repeated, "Wahoo!" mumble mumble mumble mumble "Wahoo!" mumble mumble mumble "Wahoo!" mumble "Wahoo!" etc. I had to cover my giggles in a dirty sweater so as not to embarrass anyone. It was a great laugh, even when suppressed. Thanks, kid.

"Wahoo!"


*Remind me to tell you about that phrase some time.
**I know. Laundry on a Saturday night. I didn't want to make you jealous but it was integral to the story.

1 comment:

  1. Your Saturday night sounds like my exciting Friday night- we had a fair amount of snow that started around lunchtime Friday and amounted hard and fast then changed over to rain so was really heavy to shovel and made for very messy conditions, driving and otherwise. It had tapered off by 7ish so C thought that would be a good time to go grocery shopping. I really wanted to stay home with some hot chocolate, the fireplace on (it's electric) and my new mystery but... These are exciting lives we lead.

    Last night though we went out late to see Garry play musical theatre show tunes at the happening gay bar, which was loads of fun. We got to sing along and made lots of requests for old school musicals- Music Man, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Sound of Music (the lonely goatherd will never sound the same) before some young'ins came in and started requesting Wicked. Maybe we aren't quite so lame.

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