We just got back from a successful trip south and are settling back into things at home. After a brutal stretch of heat in Mass, we returned to spring in Halifax, with temps in the mid to high 60s. I have to admit, it's a bit of a relief to be able to go outside without sweating profusely.
After securing our house and making several trips to RI for various meetings and a nice bbq hosted by one of the members of the department so that we could meet everyone, we had some time just to catch up with family. The time flew though and we did not get a chance to see even half of the people we had hoped to, but we knew that it won't be long before we will have the time to do that on a regular basis and not in short visits.
In any case, I was afforded the opportunity to check on my parental instincts, just to make sure they were firing. We spent a decent amount of time on Megan's parent's deck while we were at their house. We even set up Riley's bathtub as a mini pool for her to splash around in. Being a responsible parent, I thought it would be a good idea to move her into the tub one hot afternoon and picked her up to do just that. Despite my familiarity with the deck, I momentarily forgot that it is multi-level and as I turned with Riley to place her in the tub, my foot found no purchase since it was extended over the lower portion of the deck, whereas the rest of me was comfortable on the higher part of the deck. Suddenly I was falling sideways, offspring clutched between my two hands, and heading for a flight of stairs that end on a concrete pool deck. Somehow I managed to hold Riley sky-ward, land on the deck with my back and contort so as to avoid the stairs-swandive (which the Russian judge would have under-scored me for anyway). Staring up at Riley, dangling in my extended arms, I saw only mild surprise at the unexpected ride, but she was hardly bothered by the experience and with only a few patches of skin sacrificed to the porch, I was happy with the end result. Since I am generally lanky and lacking in coordination, I'm sure I will find other ways to endanger her in the future, but its good to get one under the belt with doing too much damage, just as a test-drive of the parental emergency systems. Everything checks out.
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In a true display of irony, the Mass heat wave ended right after you left and its been fine since. I think it was playing a "Darwin-esque" trick on you to make sure you're strong enough to survive in the big, bad, unpredictable Boston weather.
In the words of Lewis Black:
I knew we were in trouble 12 years ago when I was in Boston, MA and in 4 days in February, I experienced 5 seasons. It was 30, it was 60, it was 90 and it was 12. And on the last day, there was thunder, lightning and snow together. And I had not done drugs.
Cause when you're lying in bed, you hear thunder outside, and you get up to look, you have an expectation. And it's not snow with lightning behind it. That's not right.
They don't even write about that kind of weather in the bible. And I imagine if a prophet had seen that kind of weather, after he wiped the poop out of his pants, he'd have told us about it. I was supposed to work that night, I said I'm not coming in. I'm scared to death, cause I know what the next season's going to be....locusts."
Kick save- and a beauty!
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