Playing Like A Kid

Barbara: As you may have guessed from our copious posts here asking serious introspective questions (or sometimes, silly introspective questions), that I am quite curious (and—apparently—introspective) by nature. I like me some good, hearty questions, and I love the follow-through of the convoluted and shifting “answers”. It’s one of the reasons I find that subject matters for our blog come pretty effortlessly—there’s always something spinning around in here (points to noggin). However, I have spent the last few days playing, playing, and playing, and am so far out of my head that I haven’t asked a single question of my deep internal core, and can only share the recent fun I’ve had with you in the hopes it’ll inspire you as it did me, or that it’ll trigger your own questions that you can bring to our forum.

It’s been three days of adventure:

First, on day one, there was my niece/aunt special day. My youngest niece suggested we should go to The Ex, which is a fair that comes every year for two weeks to downtown Toronto. It’s a hundred year tradition, and a fun one, given the midway rides and action and the indoor shows. I am not one to do anything that triggers my fear of heights (or my fear of death). And—while I didn’t do all the stuff my niece did—I did follow her on a number of rides, including a huge, high-in-the-air swing that had me screaming from the moment the ride started to the moment it stopped. Later, at one of the indoor shows—the amazing and wonderful Superdogs—Emily even got picked out of the crowd to perform with the talented creatures. She was beside herself. I was beside myself! At the end of the day, we had to tear ourselves away, exhausted and spent, so we could get her home on time.

That's my youngest niece on the right!

Yeah, that would be my niece hanging upside down up there (she did this ride THREE TIMES!!)

On day two, a bunch of friends came in from out of town and we had a chance to really catch up after a long absence. Which may also have involved way too much eating and bit too much drink. Wish I had some photos to share with you of this night, but we were just so caught up with each other that we forgot to snap pix!

Then on day three, I took my other niece out for her special niece/aunt day—and she picked trampolining!! Yes, that was me making a fool of myself on the wall-to-wall trampolines at SkyZone yesterday. I haven’t been on a trampoline since I was a young’un, and I’d be lying if I didn’t have almost the same trepidation as I did for the super-high-in-the-sky swing at The Ex! But I LOVED it. First of all, it’s an amazing workout. We jumped for an hour (stopping several times to catch our breath and drink water), and I was sweaty and exhausted at the end. But, most importantly, there’s nothing like jumping around with wild abandon to make you feel like a little kid. We topped off our special day with a relaxing lunch and fancy manicures.

All in all, the last few days have been a grand way for me to get out of my head for a while, to be so immersed in the pleasures of life and the special people in it that all else pales for a moment.

Oh, so wait, I do have an introspective question for us: at the dinner with friends, one friend asked us what our “true names” would be if we were in a fantasy book (I guess “true names” figure large and are veeeeerrry important in fantasies). We played this game to our amusement and fascination. Of course, it’s interesting to name the people around you at a dinner party, but I’d like to share my own “true name” with you (dubbed, btw, by me and not my buddies): “Curiouser”. Because curiosity hasn’t—yet—killed this cat!

Deb: Wow, it’s too late at night for me to give my name (side note: this was posted at 11pm Thursday night...) because today it would be “Night Everyone” as I am spent. I have had a similar summer, Barb, with entertaining friends and summer city fun. Colin and I went today to Canada’s Wonderland and saw our nephew do his wonderful trampoline and diving show and it was fantastic. The look on his face when we came to see him was already worth the price of admission. 

Hmmmm, still don’t have my name. Maybe it would be “Flit”. Yeah. Flit. I like that.