Alas, I was unable to complete the registration online. Up until midnight, the YMCA system was working fine. Right after midnight, it started crashing and getting stuck. I tried for twenty minutes but just couldn’t get through. So I went upstairs, set my alarm for 5 a.m., and went to sleep. Or at least tried to. Between my second p.m. cup of coffee and half-dreams about an impending zombie apocalypse (what, you don’t have dreams like that?), I had some trouble sleeping.
At 5:15, I tried the website again—no luck. So then I thought, “Maybe I should try registering by phone. Can’t hurt to try.” So I called, and a very nice man named Bill answered the phone. The YMCA had just opened, and he was the only person at the front desk, so he was pretty busy checking in swim team people and other early exercisers. But I was in no hurry—especially if it saved me the trouble of putting on go-out-in-public clothes and schlepping over there.
First he said, “Our printer isn’t working, so I can’t print up a receipt. Can you call back later?” When I explained to him that usually I wouldn’t mind doing that but this time I was feeling rather anxious because I was hoping to snag the one spot left in the class, he said he would see what he could do.
There were other complications: program members aren’t supposed to be allowed to register by phone, but he was kind enough to finagle the system so I could; their system showed Sylvia as simultaneously having an active program membership and not having one at all, so he had to poke around to figure out what was going on. I was on the phone for twenty minutes with him. But I managed to get Sylvia signed up for that swim class!
After all of this, if we show up at the first class and she starts saying she doesn’t want to be there…I am so grounding her for the rest of her life.
Sixty years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has been translated into 337 different languages, so you’re sure to find one you can read. Take a look at it.
It’s an extraordinary document whose main theme is basically “Be nice.” I think that’s a pretty good guide to life, and one that I try to life by myself (though my version sometimes takes the form of “Don’t be a jerk”).
No, it’s not the title of a newly discovered composition by John Cage.
It’s how long I could survive chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor.
I could survive for 1 minute, 3 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor
Find out your own time here. (You know what you want to know!)
In my house we are crazy for cheetahs and hedgehogs. I doubt there’s a lot of “cute cheetah” footage out there. But hedgehogs? Oh yeah.
This right here makes me want to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in person. Look what happened this morning:
(You know how much I love these things.)
In a previous post I mentioned the commute to Sylvia’s school. We were very lucky to find a great preschool (a Montessori school) right on the edge of our neighborhood. The school doesn’t have a proper parking lot—just enough spaces for the teachers. Outside the front door is a pull-through driveway, so parents pull up to the door, a teacher removes/replaces the kid from/into the car seat, and off they go.
At drop-off and pick-up times there’s a queue of at least a dozen vehicles. And about 90 percent of them are SUVs. (The other day, all the ones I saw were SUVs.) SUVs that are just sitting there, idling their gas-guzzling engines for five minutes (or even longer, since there are always parents who show up fifteen or more minutes early so they can be first).
So, yeah, I do feel a little self-righteous when I cruise up the driveway (it’s wide enough to accommodate two vehicles, so the half farthest from the door is wide open) on this setup, pick up Sylvia (the teachers bring her out as soon as I show up, probably because I’m easily recognizable as the only bicyclist), and zip on out of there in just a minute or two. We live just under half a mile from the school, and it takes me only five minutes to bike there, so unless the weather is truly horrid or we are running extremely late, I don’t see any reason why I can’t ride there.*
So far, Sylvia and I are really enjoying these little rides together. For some reason, getting her to school in the bike trailer feels a lot less rushed than getting her there in a car, so that’s helped a lot with the stop-playing-at-home-it’s-time-to-go-to-school transition. There’s something really nice about being outdoors early in the morning when it’s still pretty quiet out, too.
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*And I love my bike. It’s a 1992 Specialized Crossroads. It has a little bell and a wheel/human-powered light generator that I got at the Center for Appropriate Transport.
(From Toothpaste for Dinner. If you don’t already read this, you should.)
