Children and the unbearable-pain laugh reflex

All I can say is: Sorry, pop. You go through life having your parents tell you that one day you’ll understand. One day you will have kids and get it. One day you’ll know what they went through. You’ll know what you put them through, from heartache and shame down to simple little things like hopping on them and crushing life-necessary organs. Sorry, pop. Never understood why you walked funny. I finally had that first moment — that first realization of what they meant. That first grasping of the sacrifices a parent has to make. It struck me (literally!) as my daughter straddled my stomach and repeatedly slammed her full weight into my rib cage. It was like a truck dumping a load of bricks onto my mid-section over and over again. My spleen was ejected out of my body, and my snapped ribs concaved into my body, looking like the Grand Canyon. All I could think to say was, “Criminy!” I don’t even know what “criminy” means, or why I would say it. Maybe it’s that all of the good words I used to yell while in pain are now banned. “Criminy” is about all I have left. So I’m lying on the floor screaming, “criminy” as she plays jackhammer on my rib cage. And this 20-month-old thinks it’s funny. She thinks this is great fun, and more importantly, that I’m enjoying myself. Why? Because of the “unbearable-pain laugh reflex.” Ever heard of this? It comes in many forms. […]

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Remembering the Florida snow … while sweating bullets

Nothing cools the savage heat like visions of icicles past. My cool reminder came from a sheet of newsprint my father handed me. The Thompsons had ventured south to Tampa this past weekend. My grandmother, a little Cuban woman about yay tall, is under Hospice care now and things don’t look too good. We wanted to go down and see her, maybe for one last time. It was a somber occasion, yet joyous at the same time. My family has that way about us. Nothing gets us down too much, and we’ll find a way to see the bright side on the darkest of occasions. Or maybe the heat was too much for our brains to handle. We suffered. Tampa is not a place to visit in August. During Tampa summers, the heat gets so bad that the asphalt on the roads gets soupy like chocolate syrup. Popcorn kernels burst just sitting around in a jar. And in my mother’s house, where there isn’t air conditioning, it’s like being a rotisserie chicken. My mother has believed since the oil crisis of the Jimmy Carter years that air conditioning was just a passing fad, and that one day we’ll have to all give it up.

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Did I Really Sign Up for that Marathon?!?

Suddenly it doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. When did it? I’m having trouble thinking back to that time, trying to pin the blame on a moment, when I said to myself, “Sure, dopey, let’s go run 26.2 miles for fun, not because a bear is chasing you. For fun!” Rational people don’t say things like that, and rational people can’t really relate to why a sane human being would run a marathon again. Years after running my first, I’m now training for October’s Marine Corps Marathon in D.C. And I know there was moment, months ago, when this seemed like a good idea. I must have forgotten about all the pain, and just how grueling it can be. Memory is short, and common sense even shorter. So I signed up and stood around a lot in a Superman pose thumping my chest.

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The Brave New Microwaving World

The last hold-out is gone. The move into the 21st century is finally complete. We tried to repel that one piece of modern technology trying to push its way into our lives, but just couldn’t fight it anymore. The temptation was too great. Its power too strong. Its ascension inevitable. The Thompsons now own a microwave. Sure, that’s no big deal to you. And you’re probably amazed we’ve never had one in the first place. You’re probably judging us — wondering what’s wrong with us, how we could raise a child in this world without a microwave. Yes, there are people in parts of the world without electricity who still own microwaves. And yes, we know it’s the best way to make popcorn, and that it borders on un-American not to have one. It’s not that we don’t believe in technology. We have a dishwasher, high-speed Internet, XM satellite radio, a chain saw, a digital camera and a very fancy apple peeler that can also do trigonometry. But deep down, we’re simple people. If I wanted to heat up leftovers, I would go outside, build a fire and do it the old fashioned way. Or I would leave it out in the sun or the back seat of the car, which could take the chill off a pasta dish by about sundown. We never needed a microwave, or for that matter, never wanted one.

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