Belly Laughs

A few years, okay quite a few years, ago my husband and I were on a doubles bowling team with another couple. The man had been hubby's friend for about 15 years and had recently become a shirttail relative when his brother married hubby's sister. These two guys were close. You'd think they were close enough and knew one another well enough to make the following almost impossible to happen.

All evening long hubby had been giving me unwanted and unasked for "tips" on how to bowl. Don't take so many steps, don't take such short steps, fully extend your arm, keep your elbow in. I gave him "the look" which he ignored and kept up his "helpful" hints. With each hint I'd bowl a little worse which sent him into peals of laughter. "Honey, stay focused. Think about what your doing." I would glare at him and through gritted teeth say, "Thanks dear! Thanks ever so much!"

He acted oblivious to my dagger looks and would just write down the score. This was back in the day where we wrote the score down ourselves, no machines. Sometimes the women would claim the the two front seats but most often the guys would, so they could "help" us with their "helpful" hints.

"Good try hun," my husband chuckled as I walked past him to sulk, after I bowled right in between a 7-10 split. As I leaned against the counter and watched him shake his head back and forth, bemused by my lack of ability, I got a little ticked. He was leaning forward resting his face in his hands with both elbows up on the table. Bowling balls were crashing around throughout the lanes and if I wanted to get his attention so I could give him a good, mouthed, word or two, I would have to do something aside from yell.

I walked up behind him, reached under his arm and pinched him right on the tit and backed up, waiting for him to quickly turn around. Not a movement. I was puzzled. I knew I had given him a good, hard pinch. What the heck? I started forward again when all of a sudden I heard hubby say, "Ya' weirdo!" The guy sitting next to him, his friend for nigh onto fifteen years says, "What?" My hubby replies, "You heard me, I called you a weirdo."

Oh my god! This is better then I could have ever planned. I take a step back, holding my hand over my mouth. Tears already springing to my eyes.

Friend: What are you talking about?
Hubby: Didn't you, well, did you just touch me?
Friend: What in the hell are you talking about?

About now I can't hold it in. I have to breath and I gasp out loud. Friend's wife is coming off the lane and asks what's happening? I can't talk. My husband whips his head around and says, "It was YOU, you touched me?" In reply I only laugh harder and harder. Friend looks puzzled back and forth between us.

Friend: What's going on? What are you talking about?
Hubby: Welllll, um, see, someone pinched me.
Friend: So?
Hubby: Well, your the only one sitting here.
Friend: Pinched you? Pinched you where?
Hubby: Well, um, I guess maybe on the tit?
Friend: WHAT? WHAT? Why would you think it was ME?
Hubby: Your the only one sitting here! And I wasn't even going to say anything, but then I thought you'd think I liked it, and then you might pinch me again, and then you'd wonder why I hadn't said anything the first time but got all bothered the second time. So, finally, I decided to say something just to let you know I didn't appreciate the pinch. See?
Friend: No, I don't see. You thought I was gay? After all these years you thought I was gay? IF I were gay, IF I was coming out of the closet, WHY would I choose the bowling alley in front of our wives to make a pass at you? WHY?
Hubby: I don't know, that thought sort of ran through my mind, too. But hey, I'm not gay and I don't know what happens when someone decides to come out.

At this point he turns on me. I am laughing so hard I am rocking back and forth on the floor. I know I will have to do the peepee dance all the way to the ladies' room. "I hope you pee your pants and I hope it happens RIGHT NOW," he announces. The teams in the next lane over were asking us what had happened. Friend's wife was laughing pretty hard by now but she was able to gasp out what had happened. The story trickled down the lanes. Kissy noises soon floated back.

My husband glared at me, "Happy now?" Yes, very, very happy! He and friend turned back in their seats, facing the bowling lanes. Casually they leaned away from one another with one choosing to relax leaning back with with his hands clasped behind his head. They take turns doing this posture so that they are not sitting at the same angle at the same time. After a little while when they returned from their turn bowling they casually picked other spots to sit at, choosing not to sit at the score table, together, for the rest of the evening. Nor, I am sure, the rest of the season. The "helpful" hints? They were gone for a time, as well. Whenever he started to tell me how to bowl I'd look at him and make a pinching motion with my fingers. He stopped talking about how to make me a bowler in his image.

Dinner 'n a Movie!

Blades of Glory showed up today in the mailbox. Thank-you Netflix! Nachos w/deer burgers and a movie tonight with the family, that's a great way to spend the evening! Will Ferrell is very, very funny and teamed up with Jon Heder the two just have me in stitches the whole way through. It had to be a hoot to be on set with these two and the sight gags just make you weep they are so dang funny. To even imagine such an out of condition body on the ice making those graceful moves that Ferrell is supposedly doing as Chazz Michael Michaels, the bad boy of ice skating, is really one of the key pieces of making this film so enjoyable for me. My grandson really got into the rock music Michaels is supposedly skating to. Heder is exquisite as Jimmy MacElroy, the perfect skating artist who doesn't know what real life is. In the opening scene, where it shows MacElroy skating as a four year old, my grandson pipes up, "Oh, that's big boy (his name for himself) having fun!" Sappy maybe but it added to the good time.

Went to Ratatouille at the Columbian Sunday night with the eldest, the middle, the boy and the hubby and laughed the evening away. I like the set up at the Columbian and you can't beat the price for a night out. The movie was cute and funny and one I'll probably end up buying for the home archives. Saturday I bought Whale Rider, a great movie about a Maori girl who must ride a whale to prove to her grandfather she is the rightful next chief. It is done almost, but not quite, documentary style with a mix-in of oral tradition.

Last night's in house movie was Shooter which was good but depressing. I want to stay naive and feeling like that sort of thing doesn't happen. Oswald acted alone, no one is left behind in battles, we don't fight wars for oil and politicians only run for office because they want to contribute back to their community.

Friday night Bart and I went to Coaster Theater to see Wally's Cafe. While the "reviews" promised a lot of laughs we only had a chuckle or two. Darn it! We really like the theater, too and loved See How They Run. This cast just didn't seem to be enjoying their roles, or it just wasn't meshing together for me. Maybe my imagination was just off but I couldn't get past the feeling that they were just actors acting in roles. In See How They Run you forgot they were actors, or at least I did. Wally's Cafe and River Theater's 12th Night both just seemed forced (although Patrick Webb does make you forget he is anything but Malvolio).

And that's what our week in the movies has been! Who needs stinking movie channels? I know we don't!

Double messages

I was reading a catalog that I got through the mail. As I took a closer look at the cover I was amused at the two stickers on the front. One said, "You were specially picked to receive this catalog." Having a degree in Business Admin I've picked up the habit of looking at advertising. This one was supposed to give me a feeling that I was special, a part of an elite group of people. Then the second sticker, "Last chance, this may be your final catalog if we don't receive an order from you soon." Smaller print went on to say they didn't want to bother me with catalogs that I wasn't going to use.

The double message here amused me. Am I part of an elite group of ne'er do wells? We almost are appreciated but not quite? Its up to me whether I want to be part of an elite group again and receive another catalog, specially picked for me? Is this a catalog from Saks? Oh-no! Its from Seventh Avenue, how many steps up is that from Finger Hut?

It seems to me we get so many double messages and we turn around and give them to our kids who probably turn around and give them to the hamsters. "Don't hit!" we admonish as we paddle their bottoms. "Say please when you want something," we demand and don't follow our own counsel. "Shut up," we screech! Then we kvetch with our friends about where the teens get their addictions as we down our third latte, beer, wine or light up.

Will we ever get over this obsession we seem to have with giving out double messages? Don't look at me. I'm still waiting for my husband to tell me if these jeans make my butt look big.

One month later ...

When I was nine years old my father taught me to play chess. He noticed a rather impatient child, eager to get on with life, eager to stay ahead of the pack (four siblings, four cousins living next door and a neighborhood full of kids) and thought learning patience would be a good thing.

My father also loved to plot. All the way to the end I would think I was winning and suddenly I would be blindsided as a triumphant, "Checkmate" was whispered in my ear. These games would start after dinner and often run to bed time and carry over to the next evening and even the evening after that. When I won it was a true win, my father never, ever, "let" us kids win at anything. I became well schooled in looking at the board from all angles, from thinking like my opponent and not only looking at what my own moves were but what were his probable responses, what were the logical responses and what would be the "hail mary" responses?

As I became better he wasn't past moving pieces during the night so I would have to memorize the board. There were no policemen to cry out "Cheater!" to, no judges to appeal to, no higher authority than him. I had to figure out on my own what to do, how to counter his maneuvers, how to retaliate. He would chuckle to find the pieces back to their original spot after he had moved them (or sometimes removed them) and was surprised and finally laughed when I moved them myself (I think I expected a bolt of lightening from the chess gods to hit). I learned to read his face for grimaces and then to read it for fake grimaces. I learned to trust my own gut instincts. I learned how to plot a strategy but even more valuable I learned how to change that strategy mid-stream when it was apparent that my strategy wasn't working.

What else I learned is that I could get too enmeshed in what was, after all, just a game. I would dream the game, plot moves during school, daydream about what the board looked like on the bus ride home and check it frequently until my dad got home and dinner was over. I learned to like silence and to listen to one thought fall in line with another, but it was like all my other thoughts fell away and total focus was on one thing.

Soon, thank goodness, winter was over and spring brought about softball, the outdoors and the allure of the woods. Even so, I would find myself mulling over a move my father had tricked me with during his last win, wondering if a different strategy would have saved me from hearing the whispered, "Checkmate"?

When my ex-husband and I had nothing left of our marriage we still had chess. We would literally play from the time I put the children into bed at 7 pm until they woke at 6 or 7 am the next morning, often having to call it a draw. Games standing didn't stay upright to babies crawling and we didn't often have two nights in a row we wanted to stay in the same room together, even for chess.

My husband, my love, my best friend and I have never played chess. He chuckled when I asked him if he wanted to play the game with me. Having seen me play softball he said he couldn't imagine how but he was sure I could turn it into a painful contact sport for him!

It has occurred to me over this past month that the training I received at my father's knee has not been wasted. It is a resource I draw on repeatedly without even realizing it, a second nature. I'm not quite sure if it is a tournament I have entered or one long game but it is a challenge I have been trained to meet. It is one more thing to thank him for.