Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I'm getting too old for...everything...

I'm back in Rhode Island! DC was awesome, but it's great to be home. Since being home, I've taken part in a few things that make me feel like I'm just a little bit over the hill:

-Shoveling snow. Since being home we've accumulated about 30-40 inches of snow. That might not seem like a lot to those of you living in Siberia or Antarctica, but for us North American folks - especially the ones with long driveways - each inch of snow translates into about an hour or two of back pain. I'm not even a good sport about it either, just a grumpy old man. Every time I see my happy dog blissfully frolicking in the snow I just want to hand her a shovel and ruin her fun.




-Sledding. I decided to try to enjoy myself in the snow because I was sick of resenting a weather pattern experienced by hundreds of millions of other people who don't seem to have any problem with it. So last week I went sledding with Josh and Jill (who, hilariously, "went up the hill" every time they wanted to sled back down). About 5 minutes into the ride to the sledding hill I asked if we might be getting too old for this. Jill candidly and rapidly responded with "definitely" as if she was expecting the question the whole time. Josh held out hope. Jill was right.


We got to the hill and for a second I thought we would be all alone. Then a car immediately pulled up behind us with a 7-year-old named Jeremy riding shotgun. I can only guess he was riding shotgun because he was the eldest of the two boys in the car, the other one being a tough 6-year-old named James. Jeremy and James were equipped with the latest sledding gear, including sleds that surely ran them a couple hundred bucks each and, get this, helmets. Josh, Jill and I were standing there with a pink circular plastic spool, a boogie board, and a yoga mat.

To say I felt inferior when it came to equipment would be an understatement, but performance on the hill is where the difference between us really stood out. Though James and Jeremy were each at least 15 years my junior, they were doing tricks off of the hill that I've never dreamed of doing. Jumps, spins, flips, the whole 9.

On our first run, Josh and I decided to be cool and "race" down the hill, but instead collided half way leaving me with my first bruise. Normally I would have packed it in then and there, but Jeremy and James calling me a girl in front of my friends as well as their mom motivated me to try again.

This time I tried to go over a jump and really impress everyone. I dragged my feet on the way toward the jump and screamed like Sarah Michelle Gellar in "I Know What You Did Last Summer," making for a run as unimpressive, if not more so, than the first.

After a couple more lackluster runs, long treks up the hill and heckling sessions from Evil Knievel's grandkids, I decided that I am officially retiring from sledding.



-Video Games. I really haven't been into video games since the PlayStation 2 was popular in the early 2000s, but recently Josh got on Nintendo Wii a revamped version of my favorite Super Nintendo game from my childhood - Super Mario World.


Yesterday at about 2pm I went to Josh's to play Mario, you know, for old time's sake, for an hour at most. Luckily my mom called to ask if I was going to be home for dinner. I had been at Josh's trying to beat Bowser for FOUR HOURS. How did I not realize that it had gotten dark out in the time that I had been playing? I had neglected my poor dog, who was at this point certainly standing at home with her legs crossed and starving.


That game, like all video games, is way too addicting. And honestly, I'm a little too old to be playing. So I'm retiring from video games too. At least that's what I'm going to say publicly.




That's all for now, everyone! Thanks for reading! Check back soon!

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