What we do for love

I can’t tell you how many games of Simon Says, 52-card pick-up, and War I’ve intentionally lost while teaching children, and now grandchildren, the ropes of favorite games.  I have to admit it’s not as difficult losing these days as it once was, especially at Pick-Up, renamed more glamorously as “The Game of Concentration.”  At this age, I don’t have too much of that focus factor left.  I flip a card up, then turn it back down when it doesn’t match, and it’s as though I wasn’t even present in the room.

As a mother, I’ve abdicated my rights to sitting shotgun in the car, sitting by the window on a plane, and even claiming the last ice cream bar.  Last week I tearfully gave away my last bite of carrot cake, and bit my nails, as I entrusted the television remote to my husband.

This sacrificing attitude is spreading to my small group of yoga enthusiasts.  Once given access to spacious conference rooms, we are tucked away into a tiny barracks-green walled area with no windows and bright interrogating lights overhead for our weekly perk.  Undaunted, we have made do with very little complaining.  We have even managed to grow in numbers, which makes the arrangement even more precarious.  Last one there gets atop the conference room table, even worse, underneath it, which by the way pretty much ensures promptness.  (Just in case anyone from work is reading this, I’m kidding about exercising atop the conference room table.  Wink.)

To avoid squatters, last week, Janice, more bendy than the rest of us, and now I’m thinkin’ a bit more anal, sent us this patchwork layout email for our yoga class.  Andree, as usual, has an exit strategy — just in case one of our moves brings down the house, and Michael gets to be the center of attention.  I wonder if Janice put him in the middle so we, ladies (used loosely), can stare at his flat abs and big muscles.  Of course, I haven’t noticed — I’m married. Right, married, but not dead.  The rest of us are relegated to stick figures, but, please note, happy stick figures.

Last class I still had remnants of a cough, but it would take more than a bark to keep me from my favorite pastime.  Still, I know coughing could be a distraction to say the least.  To accommodate the peaceful chants, I did every move in the class with a lemon lollipop stuck in my mouth.  I stuck my poses.  Janice, wearing pricey titanium earrings for balance, wobbled.  She admitted the ad had been for bracelets, but titanium is titanium, right?  Balancing moves came easier for me than they had in months.   Fruit flavored balancing sticks may catch on, and are certainly cheaper than shiny balancing jewelry.

But we are a happy sixsome.  (Can’t leave out Dawn, our instructor.)  Until we grow to seven.  Then it could get ugly.

What we do for love!

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1. The younger generation
2. My dad wore shorts