Xs and Os

My 2-year-old niece, Cora, learned to say “I love you” today. She called to tell me so. “I. Love. You. Aunt. Wobin” she said, and then she said it again, louder.
Cora’s sweet voice puts me in the best mood; it absolutely lights up my world, no matter how stressful my day’s been. The problem is that every time I hang up the phone with her, I cry. Every single time. It’s becoming a problem.
But anyway, right before the tears start to flow, she does this thing where, before she hands the phone back to my sister, she says “Bye!” and then kisses the receiver and hugs it. The girl gives me a hug and a kiss over the phone! She’s never even been prompted to do so; it’s just something she’s learned -- when you say goodbye to someone in my family, they get a hug and a kiss.
It’s a distant second to the real thing, but I love listening to her hug me. You can hear the muffled noises of her squeezing the phone, and she usually adds a little “ohhhmmmm” as she squeezes. To die for.
And then, the waterworks.

Bonus: Here are a couple of pics of Cora and her brother, Zayvius (the blond one) and their cousin, Tesher, taken last week when my older sister Kielynn and Tesher were in NY. Oh, how I wish I could have joined them.

Joined the club

I just signed off from my monthly online book club chat. I realize the previous sentence makes me sound like an enormous geek, but it is one of the most gratifying things I do, and I’m not ashamed to say that.

When you’re in college, keeping in touch with your friends is easy. They’re usually right there in the same room, the same party, or the same table as you. But when you graduate and scatter, it takes work. I don’t know what’s going on inside their heads anymore because I am no longer part of their surroundings; I can’t see how they’re reacting to the big and small changes in their lives. And this sucks.

But that’s what makes the book club I have with my girlfriends so cool. By all reading the same book, we can step into the same surroundings for just a little while. Whether I love the book or hate it, I always leave it feeling closer to them. Plus, it gives us an excuse (not that we need one) to catch up. We leave plenty of time during our online chats to discuss important non-book-related issues, like dates and jobs and kids and old college crushes that just won’t die. This past chat was on Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down.” Hornby, who wrote “About a Boy” and “High Fidelity,” wrote this little tale about suicide. And still, I left the chat with a smile on my face that won’t fade.

Anderson Cooper’s “Dispatches From the Edge” is up next, and I’m the moderator, which means I have to come up with questions for the group, such as “Did your opinion of how the federal government responded to the Gulf Coast’s needs post-Katrina change after reading Cooper’s recollections of covering that event?” and “Do you think Anderson Cooper is hot?”

Should be fun.

The great outdoors (Seriously, it's great!)

I think I've made it clear that I've been working a lot. Among other things, my fitness routine has suffered — as in, it's been virtually nonexistent. So in the spirit of getting more active on the weekends, and trying new things, I recently agreed to try one of Chris' many hobbies -- kayaking. I had been reluctant to try this before because, well, there are gators in the water here. Gators. And for all the reassurances from other kayakers that "The gators are more afraid of you" and "If they see you they just dive below the surface of the water and disappear" (THIS IS A GOOD THING?!), I had thus far shunned all kayaking invitations.
Until now.

The first 10 minutes were excruciating for both me and Chris, and not because of any gators (he took me to a lagoon where there are none). I am the type who gets frustrated easily if I'm not excelling. So when I started paddling (against an incoming tide, mind you) I couldn't understand why my shoulders and back already were feeling fatigued. I know tons of people way less fit than I who do this and love it, I kept thinking. What is my problem? This isn't fun at all!

But Chris watched my paddling technique and showed me what I was doing wrong. After some minor adjustments, I settled into the peace and quiet of the lagoon. It was beautiful! We paddled out to the ocean and pulled our kayaks up onto a secluded beach, where we swam for awhile and ate some snacks. Then we paddled back (with the tide this time -- much more enjoyable!) to our starting point. The whole trip wasn't much more than 4 miles, but it was fun. I just might do it again. Gators be damned.