Angry Irishman

It is catch-up with the Ishes* today! I have no anger in me, not even the type supplied by the title: two parts Irish Whiskey (thanks, Slick), two parts Irish Cream, and some ice cubes. The last time I even made said drink of anger was for guests, some time ago.

But I'm kind of starting in the middle here, as first I want to share some random lyrics to set the tone. 

So I guess the party line is I followed you up here.
Well, I don’t know about that.
Mainly because knowing about that would involve knowing some pathetic, ridiculous, and absolutely true things about myself that I’d rather not admit to right now.
Woke up at 3 A.M. with the radio on, that Gladys Knight and the Pips song on
About how she’d rather live in his world with him
Than live in her own world alone
And I lay there, head spinning, trying to fall asleep
And I thought to myself: “Oh, Gladys, girl, I love you but, oh—get a life!” 

So the Ishes have been busy. I know, I know: we're just supposed to be busy writing humorous blog posts for your midweek entertainment while at work, but that's just not the case. Things have been happening. Big things. Things I'm not going to tell you about.

Instead, I'm going to ramble about children. You see, our audience is like 80% parents -- such is life at 30-something. (Or is that thirtysomething, one word, like the TV show?)  I can also tell you: none of my parent-friends (like warrior-poets, but with more throw-up on their shirts) like to link to my blog, because I write swear words like most people overuse commas. I'm on a record for nonusage right now, let's see what happens.

Anyway. Children. And swimming pools.

Kids get so completely psyched for going to the pool. You tell a child, "we're going to the pool," and regardless of age or gender or disposition, said child is going to scream like a wee little girl of four years (approximately) before running around flapping his or her arms like a chicken -- because chickens are somehow related to the fun of swimming. And keep in mind: this will happen even if the child can't swim, or it is snowing outside and would therefore be a terrible day to swim, or if the best thing you can offer as a "swimming pool" is a standing jacuzzi that hasn't been cleaned in nearly two years. Kids go nuts for swimming.

Which is why it amazes me to actually get to the pool...and proceed to watch every child there hang on their parent and/or otherwise refuse to "swim" without making sure, every two seconds, that every little splash of water is being viewed by you. In fact, to make the occurrence better, you should film it as your child pokes his/her feet in the water, then turns around to ask why you are sitting on a pool chair reading instead of swimming, and then comes to the chair next to you and proclaims, "I'll sit here too. How did you get the chair to lay back like that?"

All of that screaming and dancing for swimming amounts to nothing if you aren't going swimming with your child(ren)! Now, for multiple children, you have about 10 minutes of reading time before they get sick of each other and find you anyway -- so I mean, good job procreating more than once.

That was a digression. See, what makes things tricky of late is that the weather has been amazing for swimming this summer -- super hot, I've had three strokes, my car has no air conditioning -- but oh yeah I just had surgery and can't swim for most of the summer. Curses. Well it'd been a while since all that happened, and really, I just decided to go ahead and swim anyway since my shoulders are still killing me -- swimming isn't going to make anything worse here, so why not.

And with me going into the swimming pool finally, it became much easier for the excitable child to actually burn off the dancing, screaming explosion of being told about going to the pool by swimming. But it all kind of amazes me: kids get so excited about certain things -- like eating a "real burrito" from Pepe's -- that it really isn't excitement about what they are doing as much as it is excitement that you, the parent and cool person you might be, are likely doing it with them. 

Hopefully the water isn't as cold as it was this weekend: blue lips never looks good on kids. (But it is funny listening to them talk through chattering teeth!)

And now that I think of it, I didn't catch you up with the Ishes at all. Ah well.

* I am the Ish, she is a Sap, but see, for the sake of keeping it all in the family, as it were, we are collectively the Ishes, because I'm the author here, and I wrote it that way.