Dear Kid,

Dad is at it again.

Or perhaps I should say the squirrels are at it again.

Either way, someone is at it, and “it” involves birdseed and removing tree limbs.

Dad was convinced that the squirrels couldn’t reach the birdfeeder, or that the one clever squirrel had reached the end of his time here on planet earth and was stalking birdfeeders in squirrel heaven.

And so he (Dad) happily went about his business.

Until I refilled the birdfeeders and Dad happened to look outside.

(Insert stabbing music from Psycho.)

What followed next was something out of a scene from Caddy Shack. A scene that hit the cutting room floor, but a scene nonetheless.

Dad raced out of the house, shouting at the squirrel to mind his (the squirrel’s) own species, and inviting plagues of curses upon the house of said rodent. The threat of his lineage being cursed didn’t seem to upset the squirrel in the least. The threat of a crazy man descending upon him waving a cell phone made him reconsider hanging out on the birdfeeder.

Once the birdfeeder was squirrel-free (temporarily), Dad went about assessing the situation to make it squirrel-free (permanently).

Saws, loppers, dynamite, drones, schematics, ladders, a laser pointer, and eye of newt were all involved.

In short, one of the nearby trees had its bangs trimmed. And the squirrels seem unable (or unwilling) to leap from the branches to the birdfeeders.

But the hand shears are still on the porch so that Dad can race out and prune away if the need should arise.

Perhaps this should be an Olympic sport.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

The Tour de France begins soon and (obviously) so do the allegations.

Actually, the allegations have already begun (does that make them pre-allegations? Prallegations?). And this year, we have New and Improved Prallegations.

There are the standard allegations about cyclists doping (old news). And New-This-Year, we’ve introduced Motorized Doping Allegations.

When I first heard about Motorized Doping I thought it was a speedier way to ingest banned substances (it’s not). Then I thought it was a different kind of drug cyclists were taking (it’s not). Then I stopped guessing.

Turns out Motorized Doping is about doping the bikes!

Yes, someone has taught the bicycles to take steroids!

No, that’s not it. Someone has figured out how to get the bicycles to swallow small but powerful motors.

Yes, the point is that somehow elite cyclists have found a new way to cheat in the Tour. They have little motors (I am not making this up) hidden in the bikes that are somehow connected through buttons and/or blue tooth to make the bikes go faster/stronger (We can rebuild him! [Extra points if you get the reference]).

This is such a big deal thing that even NPR did a story on motorized doping.

Le Tour officials were going to scan bikes to check for motors or batteries, but then they were shamed into taking this much more seriously. They’ve decided to set up heat scan sensors along the route at random and unannounced places to check bikes for hidden mechanical assistance.

Or maybe mechanical assistants if there are mini robots involved.

In any case, we now have a new scandal to worry about.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

We’re headed toward the Olympics and Rio isn’t Ready.

Haven’t we been here before? Russia wasn’t ready and yet somehow pulled it off.

But Rio has some issues Russia never even thought of.

Like the Zika virus.

So far several athletes (and by “several athletes” I mean several athletes that you’ve heard of) have decided not to attend the Olympics.

Interestingly, they are all male and none of them are pregnant. (Rory McIlryoy, Tejay van Garderern, and Greg Rutherford are the athletes in question. OK, maybe you haven’t heard of them. You’re not likely to hear about them any time soon because they won’t be winning in Rio since they won’t be there.)

Brazilian officials are responding by saying the athletes in question are just big babies and teaching mosquitoes a synchronized dance for the opening ceremonies.

The other big scandal (in case you haven’t been keeping up with these things) is that the Rio de Janeiro anti-doping lab has been suspended for “wrongly interpreting” test results. Meaning they “oopsed” a few times too many and “produced false positives.”

This of course led to a whole lot of he said/they said and tastes-great-less-filling controversies which are never good for smooth Olympics. It is unclear if the lab will be, um, fixed in time for the games which are—wait for it—only 6 weeks away.

Bottom line? Who the heck knows, but it will be interesting.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Anyone who says that men and women are identical in all things has never experienced the joy of a sports bra.

A well-crafted sports bra is all about, um, restraint, and is built with more attention to engineering than the space station.

A sports bra “fits” if it is 4 sizes smaller than that which it is trying to contain. Wriggling in and out of a good sports bra involves the grace of a drunk water buffalo and the agility of a contortionist. Scientists have determined that more calories are burned dressing and undressing than during most workouts.

You think Game of Thrones contains battles? Ha! That’s nothing compared to the Battle of the Sports Bra.

Yesterday I almost lost the battle. The particular garment in question has a clip thing (no problem) AND a zipper (big problem). To correctly fasten the zipper you have to exert 2 billion pounds of force to bring the two sides together and then zip the zipper. While you hold the edges still. This works better if you’re an octopus. Having only standard issue limbs, I struggled.

Somehow, the zipper misaligned and I found myself in the grip of industrial strength elastic. The zipper would neither zip nor move down. The elastic tried to simultaneously strangle me and pull apart the entire contraption.

I tugged, I tweaked, I coaxed, I cajoled, I pulled, I lost. I tried holding part of the zipper in my teeth. (Yes, mom, even after all that orthodonture.) I was mere moments away from calling the rescue team to bring a pair of scissors to cut me free when I finally (finally!) muttered the proper curse and got unzipped.

After I got the whole thing refastened, I hit the gym floor. It seemed like a lot of effort to stroll once around the track. (I’m kidding. I strolled several times around.)

Equality, my Aunt Fanny.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Wow.

You read that right. Wow. Just wow.

By not watching TV last night (I’m assuming you didn’t) you missed American Ninja Warrior. And by missing this episode of ANW, you missed Wow.

Like some of the incredible athletes (incrediletes) in past seasons (read here and here and here), this episode featured someone we’ve never heard of and now will not stop talking about: Zach Gowan.

When Zach was 8 he was diagnosed with cancer and had his leg amputated. He became a professional wrestler for a while, and last night he competed on American Ninja Warrior.

Think about this for a moment—most people can’t get through the course with two legs. Zach attempted it with only one.

He made it through the first several obstacles, including the floating steps (are you kidding me???!) but his hands slipped on the third challenge.

Not completing the qualifying course isn’t relevant (I’m sure it is to him on some level); competing is. That he gets up and trains and put himself out there to try this crazy sport is amazing.

To put this in perspective, several of the Indianapolis 500 drivers competed and didn’t get as far as Zach did.

In other Wow news, Megan Martin became the first woman to qualify three years in a row. She is a rock star, and not just because she’s a professional rock climber IRL.

Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge premiered last night (it was a heck of a night for non-traditional sports). The coverage left something to be desired (what did the team have to do when the log thing dropped before it was supposed to?), but I have to say I’m not sure I see the “fun” in the sport. I get that the competitors are crazy athletic, but I don’t see the fun in crawling through freezing cold mud under barbed wire. Almost as much fun as having someone step on your head make it to the top of a wall. But that’s me.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, there weren’t any triathlons.

Now there are.

Amazingly, triathlons did not begin in Greece.

Triathlons were invented in France in the 1920, with competitors crossing the Marne channel (via swimming), completing a 12K bike ride (via pedal power), and a 3K run (via ped).

Did you know this is the Olympic symbol for the Triathlon? Now you do.

Tri-sportage came to the US in the 1970s, the first of which was (probably) in San Diego in 1974 and is notable for measuring things in yards and miles rather than channels and Ks.

Today, most triathlons (like the one in the Olympics) include a swim (.93 miles), a bike leg (24.8 miles), a run (6.2 miles), and finishing (priceless). The distances sound better in metric: 1.5K, 40K, 10K.

In 1978, the Ironman Triathlon was created for people with questionable sanity. The trademark line Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life“, pretty much sums up the insanity.

Many people think that the swim-bike-run or kayak-bike-run formats are the main form of the modern triathlon. However, they are overlooking the sister-sport: Momathlon.

Momathlons consist of three individual events also.

Swim-through-the-chaos. This event consists of herding 3 toddlers through a gauntlet of grocery shopping, missed nap time, and individual haircuts. Extra points for carrying all three children at once.

Bite-on involves creating one meal that will satisfy a picky 6 year old, a vegetarian teen, and a paleo millennial.

Run-interference. Because this is an endurance event, Moms are exhausted by this point in the competition. Yet strong competitors press on to simultaneous prevent twins from fighting, apologize to the neighbors for running over their azaleas, and bake 36 cupcakes for the bake sale.

Makes an Ironman look like child’s play.

Good luck on your first triathlon, Pi! We’ll be cheering you on.

Love, Mom