Tag: Silly

Obsessions

On By DGThomaIn Exercise, Friends, Humor/Light Hearted, Writing1 Comment

Obsessions, everyone has a few.  They may be mild or they may be extreme.  Mine fall somewhere in the middle.   I call them “my crazies”.  People may say they don’t have obsessions, but I don’t believe it.  Even Superman has Lois Lane.  If you must have crazies, pick something you enjoy.

My current crazy is easy to recognize.  Visit any of my social media accounts where threads of running related anecdotes litter the posts.  Most days between 4:30 PM and 6:30 PM, I’m dressed in spandex and Asics running shoes ready to exercise.

My number one addiction is running.  I find it social, meditative and energizing.  It can be a much-needed tension reliever and in my group, filled with laughter.  We have christened ourselves, the fun group.

As a young naïve employee, I smirked watching my 50+ co-workers lace their Keds ready to spend the lunch break in a brisk walk.  I lounged inside, enjoying the air conditioning.  If I walked, I never wore tennis shoes and a dress!

Well, how silly was that?  Who cares what I wear during a lunch walk? If they do, that’s their problem not mine.  My mature self knows better.  Most days I eat, then slip a favorite pair of athletic shoes on anxious feet, anticipating spending half an hour in the fresh air and sunshine.

My younger clueless self missed much enjoyment, choosing safety behind the glass while she could have meandered through the tree lined paths on the other side of the pane.

This current obsession has enjoyed a longer life span than former ones.  With 18 marathons, over 20 half marathons and  countless 5 and 10 K runs completed, I hope this one doesn’t end.  And there I go again, letting crazy spill out.

If I run 100 marathons when I’m eighty, that’s my crazy.  Well not that I’m 80 but I will be someday.   I resolve to be diverse in choosing topics to tweet, post or blog, but for today, here is one more on my current obsession.

 

Pretending

On By DGThomaIn Family, Humor/Light Hearted, Musings, Travel, WritingLeave a comment

When my children were young, we would often launch into spontaneous nonsensical conversations.  It might be a perfectly innocent comment that became a springboard.  A wondrous adventure would unfold as we each added our own spin. We would slip into role play effortlessly, becoming princesses, elves or ogres depending upon the trigger.

We had fun pretending our way through a diversity of situations without the benefit of any props other than our imagination.

Often, I still go off of imaginative tangents.  When I’m on a road trip anything can become fodder for a rambling conversation that the casual observer would find perplexing.  Recently, heading toward the town of Stephenville I forgot the name of the next town we would pass through.  I asked my husband “Are we almost to Benjamin?”

And my husband replied no, Benjamin is the town we go through on our way to Lubbock.  Undeterred, I replied, “Well if we get to Benjamin we’ve gone too far!”  Considering Benjamin was about 6 hours beyond where we were headed, that may have been a slight understatement.

A few days later we were driving toward the airport after a long weekend and my husband said something about Timbuktu and I said or Kalamazoo, which made no sense at all.  After all Timbuktu is a city in the West African nation of Mali and Kalamazoo is a city in the state of Michigan and there was no reason to discuss either of them.  But for no reason at all it made us laugh and laughter is a wonderful thing.

Our car talk is not always so off the wall, but every road trip is an opportunity for slipping into inane conversations and we rarely pass up the opportunity.

In search of a Piñata…..

On By DGThomaIn Family, Friends, Humor/Light Hearted, Musings, Writing1 Comment

Sometimes there just isn’t enough silly in the world.

When I found out my adult children were both going to be home (in my home) for their birthdays, I decided to create a party reminiscent of one of their childhood celebrations. My son and daughter were born 2 years and 5 days apart. Until the age of 11 and 13, they always shared a birthday party.  One year the party was a Sesame street theme, and another year it was a skating party. No matter what the theme, we always had a great family celebration and lots of fun.

I enlisted my granddaughter, Jill and her mother to help with the planning. We set off to our local big box store to buy some party favors.  As we filled our cart with bubbles, noise makers and more party favors, Jill looked up and said “We have to get a piñata!” There were several piñatas on the shelf; a traditional donkey, a Teen-aged Mutant Ninja Turtle (the new version) and a few miscellaneous others.

But, hanging from a wire overhead, there were a dozen or more colorful piñatas. Right in the center was a brightly colored bull piñata. It was perfect and exactly what we wanted. My daughter, Kat, went to find a sales associate to assist us in retrieving the piñata. 20140730_184047

Kat returned with an associate who informed us Martha was on the way. Ten minutes later we were debating how to make a human pyramid so we could get the piñata ourselves. We couldn’t agree who should be the base of the pyramid or we might have attempted it. My vote was to stand in the cart and try to reach for it. I was vetoed for safety reasons.

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About this time Martha showed up and started rummaging around at the ends of the aisles. Grumbling and frowning, she mumbled something about a piñata stick. She continued to pace back and forth, up and down the aisle as if the infamous piñata stick might appear by osmosis. We on the other hand were still planning a pyramid strategy when she left the aisle.

Suddenly, over the loud speaker we heard “Who has taken the piñata stick? Someone please return the piñata stick immediately”. By now, I had started to bounce on my feet a bit wondering if I could jump up and knock the piñata down. A manager wandered by and I launched into the quandary of the missing piñata stick and explained that I was thinking I could almost reach it if I jumped up.  Now the manager looked up and I could tell he was wondering if he could jump up and grab the piñata, but instead he said he would go find Penny, because she could fix anything.

Now another 10 minutes went by before the manager and Penny returned. The manager smiled and told us we were in good hands as he wandered away. Martha returned and continued walking aimlessly up and down while Penny searched secret hideaways behind the end-caps. Still no one had recovered the elusive piñata stick. Penny left and I’m thinking “Who needs a piñata anyway”, when suddenly she returned triumphantly holding the piñata stick. The entire aisle broke into cheers, (even though it was only the three of us and the returning manager), it was still awesome.

One manager, and three associates later, we had a Piñata in hand and were off to plan a birthday party!2014-09-07 20.30.42