Last Summer Days

On my ride this morning I saw them. Children. Children up early. Children standing with backpacks and fresh clean sneakers, waiting for the bus.

My kids don't go back to school until next Tuesday, and maybe it's for this reason I have been able to trick myself into believing that my summer days aren't actually dwindling. But there's no denying it now. At 5:30 am, upon rising, it's dark outside and cool. The streets of Ocean Park, once jammed with cars, are quiet and sleepy. When I'm finished with my morning workout, there isn't a line to get coffee and a paper at the tiny Ocean Park Grocery Store.

WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

I'm trying hard to relish these final days here.  I have my kids (and Alina's too!) all day, every day, right now. As much as I joke about looking forward to that yellow bus picking them up and taking them away, I also love having them with me as they fritter away time, screaming and stomping through the house, complaining that I won't let them spend their bottle can money on penny candy, bought at the local variety store.

Jordan is learning piano. She learns by ear for the most part, listening hard to a song and then mimicking it. I've been trying to teach her to read music. This morning we worked on Fur Elise.

Fingering is a problem. Also a problem is that Jordan memorizes sections instead of reading music. But she's getting it.... and I will miss these mornings during which if we feel like doing something, like learning a new piece, we instead have to move move MOVE! to get to the bus stop.

While I'm in uploading video mode, here is a quick shot of the ocean during Hurricane Irene. We just got the very edge of it. The storm really hit to the west of us, into Vermont and upstate New York. But still, the wind was crazy here, and the waves for the last few days have been super fun in which to play.

Yesterday I did an open water swim, though, and that wasn't so fun! Or it was... it just was very hard to actually swim. I spent the time swimming, then going under to miss a crashing wave, then stoppng, and riding a wave in, and then trying to swim again.

Alina's back to work, so I have all six kids on the beach the next few days, which is fine, since they really entertain themselves and leave me to read. I'm absorbed in Unbroken, a WWII biography about Louie Zampernini.  Have any of you read it? I'm still reeling after grasping  the statistic that 70% of deaths in aircrafts did not occur during combat. Those B-24s were deathtraps. I can't imagine the courage it took to go up in one each day, knowing that whether you were facing combat, a rescue mission, or just training in friendly skies, your chances of going down were gigantic. I had no idea... I just assumed that most death occurred during combat.  Reading about the POW camps also has wrankled me. One thing I love about reading is how it can yank me from my oh-so-minor problems and complaints and remind me how freaking good I have it. I am a female, and wouldn't have experienced the combat these boys did. And I have my husband, my son, my father... they are right here. My husband has never experienced those horrors, and hopefully my son will not, but who knows. My father has: he is a veteran of Vietnam. If he had not survived it, I would not exist. I'm a Nam baby... born in Fort Devens while my father was still enlisted.

Anyway.

I have been thinking about creating a few inventions for use during triathlon:

• A kit with breast pads that inflate to the size of your choice. 
• A barf bag that can be extracted and hung neatly between your bars if you get sick on the bike.
• Special mints that take away the special barf taste if you happen to blow chunks when riding or running
• A very tiny spray gun that can be put in your bento box. It would squirt noxious spray that you can squirt at a person who is passing you or about to pass you, or best of all, a person who won't stop drafting you. You could buy different flavors: sulfurous fart, dead mouse, rotting cheese... and so on. 
• Windshield wipers for sunglasses. This is one I have pined after for awhile now.
• Bike shorts with a pad that gradually dispenses paste into your most sensitive regions so that you don't ever chafe on the bike.  
• A helmet that plays music, so you don't have to wear headphones, but you can still hear music when riding. 
• A little salt pill dispenser that automatically slides out of the helmet and into your mouth when activated. It would place the salt your tongue so you never had to try to get/take salt from your Bento box.
• A piss collector. A contraption that would direct your pee (when you pee on the bike) into a little vial that you can remove from your bike shorts and spray at people if they piss you off (no pun intended!) during a race. I see this as a way to even things up between men and women. Men can just whip it out and do their bidding. Women, obviously, cannot.
• A very very very thin, absorbing shield that collects pee when a person is running instead of allowing the pee to drip down legs. (This for those of us who, after several rounds of childbirth, are left with stress incontinence.)

What do you think?
You can add to my list. It would make me happy.