On Showing Off

On Saturday evening, we met three adorable children in a playground who showed us all kinds of jungle gym-related tricks.  The oldest kid started a group chant--- "back it up, back, back it UP"--- and the two younger ones demonstrated some fairly complicated break-dancing moves.  We joined the chant and went wild with applause.  In case you're wondering where the kids' parents were when these hijinx were occurring, they were sitting at a bench nearby, not paying much attention, indeed, paying no attention because they were making out with each other pretty intensely.  We all tried out the kids' Razor scooter, and Jenny and I turned some cartwheels before we moved on and left the kids to their jungle gym.

I continued the experimental gymnastics later in the night and, sadly, had not much success.  I fell pretty hard and skinned my knee while trying to do a handstand in Tim's kitchen.  I couldn't really get the momentum I needed, so I think perhaps my efforts would have turned out better had the kitchen been just a tad bigger.  I felt a little vindicated when the next person to try a handstand not only fell, but in falling accidentally pulled the toaster cord, causing the toaster to fall onto him from the top of the refrigerator.  There's really nothing like another's (nearly literal) crashing and burning to make my own failures of coordination a bit more palatable!