So my friend Jeff travels a lot.  As in all the time.  He is always posting pictures of himself on Facebook at cafes around the world.  Were it not for the fact that he is posting pictures of himself on Facebook all over the world, I would suspect he’s an American version of James Bond.  I can’t picture James Bond posting selfies.

Frankly, I have no idea what the man does for a living, other than drink dark espresso in postcard perfect venues.  Can you make a living doing that?  How did I miss that boat?

Recently he posted that he was on his way to Paris.  Then he posted several pictures in Paris.  Then he posted that due to weather in the U.S., he was stuck in Paris.

I sent him a snarky comment that I’d better see some French Chocolate when he comes home as recompense for teasing us all thusly.  Or maybe I begged.  I can’t remember.

I was kidding.

But then he sent me this:

That is a gift bag he’d left at our firehouse.  In it I would find this:

French-honest-to-goodness-Chocolate.

In an Eiffel Tower tin, no less.

Lovingly wrapped in gold-foiled hearts.

Stuffed with chocolate-hazelnut ganache.

At this point, I don’t give a rat’s butt what Jeff does for a living.  I’m just glad he does it.

And I’m glad he shares!

Thank you so much, Jeff!  C’est Manifique!

Critter and his team have had a hard basketball season this year.  His team is young, both chronologically and in ability.  And all of the teams they played this year came from bigger towns, which means larger pools of talent to draw from.  This translated to Critter’s team getting walloped over and over and over.  But they went into this season knowing this would likely happen.  Coach Pat told them from the start that we would be at the bottom of the ladder, but encouraged them that we had to start somewhere, and that it wouldn’t always be this way.

But for this encouraging message to be heard throughout the season, he had to have the undivided attention of this motley crew of 11-year-old boys.  This, more than anything, was Pat’s true challenge all season long.   Just look at this shot of the team doing a hand pile.  Not a single kid is focused on the same thing.

I have no idea what Critter is looking at with his big, brown, soulful, melt-any-woman-of-any-age-he-looks-at eyes.  And God knows what he is thinking….on any given moment his thoughts range from “I wonder what would happen if…” to “Do Penguins have knees?”…to “I have to poop.”

Coach Mike, Pat’s Assistant Coach, did his best to corral the boys.  This was no easy feat.  Here he is at warm up during our last game.  I have to believe that man needs a deep-tissue massage, or a healthy shot of whiskey, after every practice and game.

My Critter is the smallest one on the team.  60 pounds, soaking wet, and easily a couple of heads shorter than any of the teams we played.

But what he lacks in physical stature, he well makes up for in speed and good looks.  Not that I’m biased or anything.

By the end of the season, both Coach Pat and Coach Mike had given their all.  The boys tried their best to keep it together.  And we even got them to pose for a serious team shot…..

but My Captain had a hard time keeping it all within the camera frame.  I don’t know if he blames the camera, or Pat’s freakishly long legs, but getting the bottoms of the boys, and the top of Pat’s head all in one shot proved difficult.

The boys couldn’t hold it together for long.  We had to take the pictures fast….

…before their true natures burst through….

We all figure if the boys persistently work hard, if they stay focused on learning the ins and outs of the sport, if they keep eating their vegetables and growing their muscles/coordination, things will get better as a team!  We’ll win a game or two, and maybe, just maybe, be able to pose for a group picture for more than a nanosecond.

But frankly, I think that is YEARS away….

Go Falcons!

My oldest friend is getting married tomorrow.

(And by oldest, I mean longest running.  Kristi isn’t OLD.  She’s my age!  And that is NOT old.  We might be, um, SEASONED, but we are most emphatically NOT old.

Just to be clear.)

Kristi lost her previous husband to an ugly, long and tortuous bout of cancer called Non Hodgkins Lymphoma.  He fought a valiant fight, but in the end, he died.  It was so damn sad.  She was so sad.  It was heartbreaking.

But here she is, my Kristi, picking up the pieces of her life, and better than that…finding a new and equally lasting love in her Tommy.  (She calls him “Sugar Butt”…how cute is that?)

It’s a wonderfully happy chapter to her story thus far.  And the only sad part?  I can’t go!  We have three (count them…3!) basketball games, one softball clinic, and My Captain has a retirement party he must attend for one of his oldest shift members.

(And by oldest, I mean longest running.  Doug isn’t old.  He’s our age!  And that is NOT old.  Seasoned, maybe, but most emphatically NOT old.

Just to be clear.)

Obviously My Captain needs me in attendance to the retirement party as arm candy…or at least to hold his beer.  So I’m going to miss Kristi’s wedding!  She lives 5 hours away…there is no way I can be all of these places at once.

I begged her to send pictures, and I’m sending happy thoughts and lots of love to her via the airways.

Would you like to see her when I knew her back in our childhood?

She is the princess on the right.  I’m the princess on the left.  I have no idea who the freaked out boy in the middle is, but I’ll bet he’s still scarred from this night.

Congratulations My Dear Kristi!  You’re still a gorgeous princess!

And I still love you!

Today I walked my first mile since my prosthetic knee was surgically implanted.  As I power-walked on the treadmill at Healthworks to Def Leppard’s “I Want To Be Your Hero,” I was in my twenties again, where I could exercise without excruciating arthritic pain.  I was on the treadmill facing the window, the sun was out, high school students were streaming in for their healthy lunch choices, people from all over the community were chatting and laughing….it was nothing short of awesome.

My knee was clicking audibly, but it didn’t hurt because it’s metal and has no nerves! How great is that?  I just tried to keep it in stride with the beat of the music….which got difficult when I hit Bon Jovi’s “Wild In The Streets.”  I even tried to jog a little, but ended up gallumping (I just made that word up) rather more like Frankenstein’s Igor,  than streamlined like Jesse Owens.   I envisioned myself running like Oscar Pistorious, the Bladerunner, sans murderous weapons.  I was unstoppable!

The kind staff and patrons of Healthworks politely averted their eyes and tried not to cringe every time my weak leg hit the tread with heavy thuds. They really are nice people.  It’s no wonder they are so popular with the entire town of Poolesville.

All was going swimmingly, as I finished the cardio portion of my workout and moved to my upper-body weight lifting, until I suffered a technical malfunction.  I’m borrowing My Captain’s Ipod, since my children have forbidden me from using my decades-old CD Walkman in public, but I have no place to put it when I’m doing Lat-pulls or Chest-presses.  So I slid the slim, bright-red Ipod under the shoulder strap of my super-heavy-duty-commercial-grade-Kevlar-lined-rebar-supported sports bra.  By the second set of Lat-pulls, it had slid through the strap, travelled through my arm pit, and was dangling perilously close to my second roll of fat.

Something had to be done. It wasn’t my Ipod, after all, and I didn’t want to have to explain to My Captain how I lost his music in the crevasses of my back lard.  Gloriously oblivious to the shocked and appalled workout peers around me, I thrust my left hand rather spastically into my shirt via the V-neck, and dug elbow-deep, until I found the wayward electronic device.  But when I pulled it out, it was all tangled up in my bra strap.  And rather than take the smart road, and unplug the earplugs from the Ipod to disentangle it, I worked both hands into my shirt to untangle the knot, which by this time was rivaling anything Rubik ever created.

THAT was a sight to behold, I assure you.

The good news is that I got it out, without any injuries to me or innocent bystanders, or damage to the unit itself, though it was a bit sweaty and smelled like Secret Asian Pear Deodorant.   And the bonus from this episode is that My Captain has already ordered me my very own special sports armband that holds his particular Ipod, which was nice of him.

So tomorrow when I go to Healthworks in Poolesville for my daily dose of community bonding and healthy exercise, I’ll look cooler than a soccer mom whose arms are elbow-deep down her shirt fishing for lost equipment, that’s for darn sure.

Which is nice.

I have a problem with my crack.

It’s growing.  I mean faster than I ever thought it would.  And if that isn’t bad enough, my crack is growing diagonally…rather almost sideways!  I think people are starting to notice.

And the cold….the cold weather has just made my crack go CRAZY.

My Captain’s crack started growing before mine, and his is way, way bigger, but I can’t help but feel like mine is worse somehow.  Like mine shouldn’t be so big, so fast.  Maybe it’s a double standard thing.  I don’t know.  I have no idea what I did to make my crack grow so fast, and so crookedly.

Obviously, we both need our cracks fixed.  And we will get them fixed, don’t you worry your pretty little heads about that!  I am just hoping our cracks don’t entirely explode before that can happen.

No one wants that!

Wait….why are you looking at me like that?  What do you think I’m talking about?  I’m talking about our windshields!

I can’t believe you guys.  Get your minds out of the gutter.

I mean, come ON.  If we were talking about those cracks, My Captain could never compete with me.

Word.