Sprung

Over the next four days, we'll be experiencing quite a harmonic convergence, as it were. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring, followed by Benito Juarez's birthday and then Mothering Sunday (UK). Many years ago, in fact the day the war in Iraq started, we were in England and got to honor Robyn on Mothering Day. Many years ago, the year we started the Iraq war, we were in England for Mothering Day. We honored Robyn for her mothering. British Mother's day is understated, compared with ours. More a smile and an approving nod. I think we ought to celebrate this fine combination of holidays. Benito loved a party. Wasn't he the father of Mexican something?

Walker and I are ready to kayak. I've started to run (stumble, gasp) again. Jeff's going to tune up my bike. We sense the faintest stirrings of something. It's brown as far as you can see, but in the squishy cold muck underfoot roots stretch and grubs stir. Inside my head the chill fog clears. I stop counting cost and smell the air.

I'm going to go rouse Robyn. Go look out the window!

An heroic exit!

I always said that I want to die rescuing a child from a burning bus. This is no longer true.

In my youth, Verne Gagne was a famous pro wrestler ("rassler"), the master of the "sleeper hold." He was one of the original pro wrestlers who made it big with the advent of black and white televisions all over blue collar suburban America. The sweaty burly drama fit well on a flickering black and white screen, and featured black and white morality plays perfect for the concrete understanding of 10 year old boys.

Vern has Alzheimer's disease and like my Mom, lives in the present, and in a memory care unit somewhere. Somewhere new, now, poor fella. It seems at the last place he was staying, he took it into his head to pick up a 97 year old companion and body slam him.

The un-named 97 year old gentleman suffered a broken hip and did not survive the shock of the injury. He would have died faster had Vern remembered the sleeper hold, but Vern hasn't wrestled professionally in some time and was probably somewhat rusty.

If I am 97 years old, living in a memory care unit someplace, I beg you: Please send a demented pro wrestler to body slam me into the Great Beyond. If the body slam does not do the trick and I am still kicking, please apply the sleeper hold and the iron claw. Please have him climb the ropes and teeter, sweaty and intent, soaking in the jeers and yells of the other residents and staff, before dropping on my ribcage in a perfect pike position.

No tag team allowed. Drop kick me, Jesus!