Tales
Fascination with jails and shiny objects
This month started with a long-promised trip to Alcatraz Island, which Koda requested as a marble treat she earned over six ago. It was a chilly walk through the old prison, which was fortunately not affected by the President’s pointless, egotistically-driven government shutdown. Koda was particularly interested in the jailbreaks, but the audio tour dramatization was a little frightening. (We don’t really do TV at our house, so sounds of fist fights, guns, and stabbings was intense.)
The rest of the month was spent at meets. Although soccer has slowed down, swim and gymnastic meets are in full force. Winter swim meets in N. California always have additional elements to challenge the participants: the elements themselves. It’s often 45 degrees and sometimes with intermittent rain. Between races, the girls try to stay warm and find the pool water more inviting than the rain around it. Building grit?
Gymnastic meets are a medal-fest. They divide the girls into such small age groups and have podiums that go out past 10th place, it seems like everyone gets a medal. As Po Po’s friend says, it seems like everyone is an olympian. It’s a good tactic by the industry to entice kids with shiny objects.
Well, if it gets them to actually stretch and do strength conditioning every week the way they painfully do, perhaps the shiny objects distraction is worth something.
