The Back Yard Olympics (II)

Two guiding principles of my life are:
1) you have to leave room in your life for a lot of whimsy, the more whimsy the better. It's a water-soluble vitamin and if you get too much of it your system just flushes it out.
2) little things don't matter, and it's extraordinary to discover the wide range of things that are far more little than you think. It's better to just go to plan B, and chances are plan B winds up being a far greater thing than Plan A ever dreamed of being, Like the Backyard Olympics.

After Kourtney and I had our smoothies and a grandpa-to-granddaughter chat, we walked across the street to Selah's only fitness business to exercise. At the street corner we had a contest. Kourtney got to have her choice of crosswalks and it was a race to see who would arrive more quickly at our cat-a-corner target. Jaywalking wasn't allowed. Kourtney, being an A student in advanced math and a master of logic, argument and deduction, chose north for her starting crosswalk and won easily, doing a victory dance at the cat-a-corner while I was still waiting for my light to change. In small contests with children, excessive celebration is allowed and encouraged. That's the trophy and the prize, the opportunity to celebrate your own greatness, a much larger thing than we ordinarily think.

At the gym the counter clerk looked at Kourtney and frowned. Why would anyone do that? She's a stunning young beauty at 10, smart as a whip, with the energy and resourcefulness of three platoons of Marines. She should be greeted everywhere with, "Good morning child," which in the language of the global village roughly translates as "you are glorious vision of God's handiwork. It is a joy to behold you today." I often use phrases like this when I meet strangers, and occasionally it backfires. Leave room in your life for a few glorious failures. Make some deliberate mistakes. It will give your critics something to carp about and increase your fame. If you are playing golf with a dear good friend and you don't want your ridiculous male competitiveness to get in the way, deliberately aim your first shot into the marsh, and maybe one or two more. You have surrendered the match and won the great victory of two unencumbered hours with your precious friend, and the exact score no longer matters, for you are now playing a far richer game for a much larger trophy. Occasionally this strategy will backfire and this mis-aimed shot will go dead down the middle, rising like a missle and soaring like a bird, and in that happy accident just accept your destiny and enjoy the round of your life. God wants to bless you today with enormous good fortune and every putt on the lip is going to roll in. Just accept it and laugh like hell at every moment of your ridiculous good luck. Laugh like hell a lot of the time. There's probably a reason you haven't discovered yet. (Okay I swore. That's nothing. I'm glad you don't hear me when I misplace my car keys, which happens a minimum of two times a day.) I am full of words and stories these days; they have waited 52 years to come out and are coming out in a tumble. I can't start one story without interrupting it with two others. The blog is a first draft and it will be big and sloppy. Just hit your first shot into the swamp and enjoy the visit.

"The minimum age to work out at the club is 14," the clerk said. What was the harm, I thought, the gym was nearly empty and a treadmill is no match for Kourtney. Like all ten year olds she is a master of electronic devices large and small and in better shape, after dance class and soccer practice and general running around, than an entire platoon of aerobics instructors. She is an honored member of the 15-mile club. There is a cheerful poster that proclaims so on the bulletin board at Java Jitters cat-a-corner from here, all of the kids squatted together on the lawn outside John Campbell school in bright yellow tee shirts. Lori's daughter missed the picture but she ran 25 miles. Cool things like this should be in the window or on the bulletin board of every business. It is another wonderful duty in the global village.

But some people live by the rule, "I have as little authority as anyone, and I'm going to use every bit of it." They tell perfectly safe parked cars to move, and turn robustly healthy 10 year-olds away at the door of the inn. "This is very displeasing to me." I actually said that to the clerk, in just that way. "I'm sorry." she said, not sorry at all. Kourtney and I shook the dust of our feet from the door of this inhospitable place and returned to the other joys of our top down day. Always be ready with a plan B, and don't be afraid to form it on the fly. Kids know this--they are master of do-overs and just start the whole game over if it isn't any fun, or abandon it all together to have graham crackers dipped in milk. On the way to our beautiful cool shiny white streamlined convertible, the 2004 Chrysler Sebring that has too much stuff in the back seat, I told Kourtney, "It's okay, we'll go home and have the Backyard Olympics."

At the Applegate estate Stephanie immediately embraced the new idea and fleshed it out beautifully. In no time she and Kourtney laid out a course. The first event was horseshoes, along the fence behind Tom and Stephanie's bedroom. The second was entitled "Bend It Like Beckham", a soccer goal kick from the corner of the patio into a small portable soccer goal placed at the corner of the fence. The third event was golf on the treacherous first three holes of the 36-yard Applegate Country Club, then bocci ball along the north fence line that borders Hannah's old house. Hannah, Kourtney's first best friend, has moved away to Yakima so the family could be closer to their restaurant. Already Kourtney knows some of the ultimate sorrow that finds everyone. After bocci ball came badminton on the front lawn. Actually I made a mistake. The first event was the assembly of the badminton net, a team event which was the most challenging and grueling event for our branch of the family where the most terrifying phrase in the English language is "some assembly required." Tom dismantles bombs for a living; he can fix anything in five minutes, but he was 3000 miles away, so the rest of us have to soldier on. Steff called him during the Backyard Games and he was immediately bummed to have missed them; at the post-victory dinner we decided to rename this the Pan American games and schedule the actual Backyard Olympics for August during Beijing Olympics on a weekend Tom is home. Marie called me Saturday night and found my phone--it was in one of the green recycling bags with my notes, the last place I hadn't thought to look. I invited her to the games and she immediately accepted; she has a wonderful spirit of play and that athlete's body, a swimmer, gymnast and district sprint champion in high school. I wish I had time to tell you about the joy of watching her bowl, watching that lithe body stride down the line and wriggle a little dance when she completes a spare. The Applegate games will have to be expanded to two days and will have to include bowling, I've decided. I love to watch her bowl. Bowling is a great game for families, it's enjoyable to all skill levels and there are lots of wonderful opportunities for commiserating, excessive celebration, hugs, fist bumps, high fives and the wiggling of little victory dances.

We assembled the net, without the aid of the instructions we couldn't find, and no where-are-my--zxw##%-words. We found a roll of Tom's electrical tape in the garage and jury-rgged the whole thing together in a way that made perfect sense to us. Tom would have laughed all the way from Pennsylvania. This was the first event, the assembly of the net, and we all won a gold medal. Kourtney had laid actual medals and ribbons from her collection on the picnic table for the awards ceremony. The last event would be the March of Death, a race up the tall hill of their cul-de-sac, Crestwood Drive, about a 300-foot descent followed by a 300-foot climb. That event didn't take place Saturday-- we ran out of time before dinner. And now I have run out of time before breakfast; Kourtney is up and her Rice Krispies smell like the best meal ever served. In Don Quixote Sancho Panza says "hunger is the best sauce." I'll post the results and play-by-play of the Backyard Games a little later, but I did win gold in the golf event with a spectacular pitch to within 2 feet of the hole (the lid to a kitty litter bucket) on the final shot of the round, and Stephanie won "Bend It Like Beckham" with a pressure-packed dead center goal in the second round of a sudden death goaloff. Excessive celebration was required. If you think about it, it ought to be required every day. Find a reason to raise both fists high in the air and scream "yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" today and wiggle a victory dance. Don't leave all the fist pumping to Tiger Woods, although that was an AMAZING putt, 80 feet from the fringe in the third round of the U.S. Open, treacherously downhill and trailing by 3 shots. The exact statistics do not matter. I used to root against him; he's the Barbie of golfers and has everything, but he's won me over. How can you deny that will and exuberance and historic fierce warrior heart? He's an Abby among men. I wish Abby could come to the Backyard Olympics. But right now I've got to go eat and say good morning to my smart funny and beautiful daughter and her beautiful new son. Excessive celebration will be allowed, and I encourage it at your house too.