AND THAT’S WHY WE ROW DEAR             

“Hey Momma, how did you and Daddy meet?”

Well, dear. The answer to your question happened a long time ago.  When your Daddy was a Junior at Lafayette College, his sister encouraged him to join the Crew Team.  Because he joined the Crew Team in college, he found the Baltimore Rowing Club after college.  He was lost, lonely and looking for friends.  And that’s where I come in.  I was lost, lonely and looking for friends too and joined the BRC for the same reasons Daddy did - to get a little exercise. 

Daddy’s and my relationship started with a word: Nerd-Alert.  You see, I was sitting on a log next to my roommate Sheila, who was also learning to row, when her boyfriend Will walked by.  I teased the heck out of Will all the time and on this particular occasion I called him “Nerd-Alert.” As it so happens, your Daddy was walking alongside Will at the same time.  He stopped short, looked around, then saw me.  He thought I called him “Nerd-Alert.”  What can I say; it was love at first sight.

Later that season, when I failed miserably as a bowman, the team threw me into the coxswain seat and told me to steer the boat.  They didn’t bother giving me a cox box because even spectators on the shore could hear me shout, “give me ten.”

We had so much fun rowing, your Daddy and me.  Daddy taught me how to steer the boat and made it possible for me to compete at The Head of Charles as a coxswain.  By the way, did I ever tell you about the day Robert Redford showed up at the boathouse?  It’s true!  In 1988, Robert Redford campaigned for Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis on the shores of the Middle Branch River and I was there! (What do you mean you don’t know who Robert Redford is?)

Anyway, Daddy and I don’t row anymore because we have you, Ape.  Bobby joined the WJ Crew Team the second week of his Freshman year.  It took a little convincing on my part but in the end Bobby realized I was right.  And today he’s a Nationals Petit Finalist!  Next year, Tommy will discover I am right too when he learns to row.  Then, in seven years’ time, you will benefit from the wealth of my wisdom when you discover there is money for college for women who row. 

And so dear, because of Crew, I have you.  And that’s why we Voits row.

  

REVENGE IS SWEET    

    

Having the last laugh is the best revenge, isn’t it? 

Today, after being away for nearly 2 weeks, Eric is tired, slow to motivate, and he wants me to cheer him up.  To do that I must sit on him, literally, and talk to him.  I can talk about anything I want; he just wants me to help him take his mind off of work for a few minutes.  That’s not such a tall order.  However, I have a lot on my plate this morning and I want to get on with it which means now I am irritated. But I sit there anyway and begin to tell him a story-

“Last week the cleaning lady pissed me off.  She knew I was running behind schedule; I told her so when she arrived.  You know I love her but she wouldn’t leave me alone about your soap.  She chased me around the house telling me that I had to stop using bar soap in the shower.  I told her it was yours but she wouldn’t let it go.  So you know what I've been doing this week?  I’ve been steam cleaning the entire house so that when she returns in next week, she’ll have nothing to do.  How’s that for getting even!”

Eric says, “I hope you don’t get mad at me, do you?

“Well yes, I do get mad at you.  And I used to try and get even with you too – at least until you hurt your foot.  I purposely moved stuff in your way like the settee at the end of our bed so you would bang your big toe on it when you came in our room late at night.  You’re always waking me up.  And that’s why I did it; so you would feel my pain.”

After that Eric released me. Within an hour, he was back and hovering as usual.  I reminded him that blue-balls is another form of revenge.  With that, I walked out of the room to flip the bacon.  When I turned around, he scared the be-jesus out of me because I didn’t hear him follow me into the kitchen.    And then he laughed and said:

“Is that a masque on your face?  SWEET!”

CIRCLE OF LOVE

I’ve lost track of the original words that precede this scribbling but it was private and it should probably remain that way.  The sentiment that follows is an echo of the run-around in my head I enjoyed so much. 

CIRCLE OF LOVE

It starts with

2 points

on a circle:

Woman rounds bend

Chasing man

Until woman; I am she

Catches him.

Circle of love

1 is a son

2 is a son too

3 is a daughter I name after me.

1 stretches  me;

2 baffles me;

3 puzzles me even more.

1 leads the way;

2 embarks too;

3 brings us all back together again.

In a circle

No one leads

Unless someone says, “Catch me;

You’re it.”

To Man and Superman, GBS, you're it.  Thank you.

GEOLOGY 101

Note to reader:  The information put forthwith in this post are solely based on my limited understanding of what Professor Marx told me in class today ONLY if I managed to write down fast enough the slew of information he shared and got it right.  You may, should you choose to comment on my blog, tell me I am 100% wrong.  Then you, my dear reader, will be my teacher too.

At the near end of my first Geology class, my teacher Joe Marx explained Geology’s relatively new acceptance as a serious science by today’s standards.  The study of rocks being more than the evidence for creation-based observations began around the start of the 18^th century, give or take a few years depending on what country of origin you are from.  The reason being is when people stopped seeing rocks in an absolute way and  allowed for singular events like meteors hitting the earth to shake things up a bit, scientists began to take an interest in the many stories that those little and big pieces of metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary rocks have to tell us.

And at the very end of class today, my teacher digressed a bit and talked about the end of the planet as we know it.  Now mind you, I spent the entire time wide-eyed and mystified by what he said because my knowledge of rocks is based on throwing them in the water and counting the rings they make.   When he said, “the planet will end when the sun blows out and engulfs the earth,” he lifted his hands up, cupped his fingers as if holding a ball, and moved them outward in the air to show the sun grow the VERY SAME WAY my son Tommy did at dinner Tuesday night when he explained how the sun’s crust will turn red, expand and gobble up the earth.

It’s a sign I’m meant to take Geology and start looking at the environment in a whole new way.  And  I can’t wait to begin.

ANATOMY PRIMER ON THE BILLY GOAT A

I hate to admit it but the following is even too painful for me to read!

 

Saturday I took my first hike of the year with my family along the Billy Goat A Trail at Great Falls, MD.  Billy Goat A comes with lots of warning signs - Don't Swim, Don't Jump, Don't Bring Your Dog. But what they really need to post is a picture of the human musculoskeletal system with a list of possible injuries to beware.  So here's what I learned about this human body while hiking along last Saturday:

Hammer toes slip

Ankles twist

Meniscus tears groan

Adductor pulls

L-1 shifts

Deltoids cringe

And I am not alone with vintage injuries.  Eric discovered since straining the big phalange on his right foot and tearing the flexor digitorum longus tendon on his left foot, he's a bit slower too.

IN MEMORIUM

2012 is quickly drawing to a close and there are people I want to remember.  Brace yourself for some somber words.

Christmas is an odd time to think about the Grim Reaper but this season I cannot ignore what we all inevitably face.   I am no stranger to Death.  He knocked on my door when I was 7 and took my dad.  7 is too young to know that Daddy isn’t coming home.  He traveled a lot and so I thought one day he would be back.  Or so that is what my second grade teacher told my Mom when I started school again that Fall.

Last March, Death took my mother-in-law.  But unlike my Dad, she went on her own terms.  Kathryn lived with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) for 14 years.  When we got the call on February 26 from my Father-in-Law Gerry that Mom isn’t doing well, Eric, who was on a work trip in California at the time, returned home immediately.  I followed two days later after squaring the kids away with my mother and sister.  What I experienced for the next 3 days was Holy.  Kathryn was sick but her spirit was not.  She knew her time was near and so she hung in until she had seen all her children.  During that time, we learned once again that there are so many ways to communicate how we feel when our mouths no longer move.  A look, a smile, says it all. Kathryn died on March 8th in her home with her lover beside her.

What follows is one of my favorite passages from Willa Cather’s book, “Death Comes for the Archbishop.”  I turn to it when someone I know has passed away:

“In those days, even in European countries, death had a solemn social importance.  It was not regarded as a moment when certain bodily organs ceased to function, but as a dramatic climax, a moment when the soul made its entrance into the next world, passing in full consciousness through a lowly door to an unimaginable scene.  Among the watchers there was always the hope that the dying man might reveal something of what he alone could see;”

This Christmas season, my thoughts and prayers are with my friend Cathy, whose mother passed away unexpectedly on December 26^th.    To Robert Donato Pinto, Kathryn Regina HibbsVoit, Arlene Shaw, may God Bless you and keep you.  You are His now until we all meet again.

LISTENING IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

The last class I took at the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase was Animal Behavior.  The class was taught by Jane Huff, one of my all time favorite teachers.  By all time I mean since elementary school.  Maybe one day I will pay tribute to all the other teachers who touched my life but today I thank Jane.

At the time I took the class, I was going through some personal health issues and was a bit distracted.  It was hard to focus on the material even though what we were talking about is every animal lovers' favorite subject - animals.  And our homework?

Get out there people and observe animals!

Really.

Our final project was to report on some animal we watched, notice something about it and give a presentation in front of the class.

I didn't know what to do.  Jane, a horse lover and rider too, suggested some things for me to do at the barn but that didn't work out because I was too new a rider then to have any fun. When the day finally came to give a presentation, I was sick.  Maybe it was performance anxiety, maybe not, but Jane accepted  my YouTube video in my place.  (Commercial Break:  You can still see my final presentation on YouTube called at Feeding Stormy the Cornsnake as long as you don't mind watching a snake eat a live mouse.)

I digress.  The real point I want to make here is that suddenly watching animals do what animals do best wasn't fun anymore.  It was work.  School work.

It  may be hard to imagine but at my age school projects still cause me anxiety.  I might as well be back in HS.  Here's the thing though - that class has stayed with me ever since the way anything can have a lasting impression.  And the mark Jane's class left me with is something I never expected.  I think I am becoming more like the animals I have been watching: quiet.

Weird. I know.  But please bear with me a little longer.

I've told you about over coming fear on horseback and learning to trust  myself.  Here's another thing I have learned since hanging around the stall and riding in the ring.  Horses don't talk. (duh.)  But we human animals talk all the time.  In fact, there is so much talking there's hardly any listening going on at all.

Last Thursday my instructor worked me hard trotting Leroy, the gaited horse with the strange dressage saddle.  I did pretty good up there too if I do say so myself.  Yet I still kept doing it wrong and so my instructor kept yelling at me about what I needed to do right.  During past lessons I yelled right back. I didn't know I could be so agonistic but I figured I needed to stick up for myself and so I did.  But today was different.  Steve was yelling at me while I did my best and I did not yell back. Instead, I shut up.

Listening is an active skill, especially sitting in the saddle.  The horses have taught me that. Listening is also communication.  I am beginning to like not talking.  In fact, being quiet is serving me well.  I trotted longer and harder than I ever have before.

So, to Jane and Steve, thank you... for everything... I'm  listening still.