Dear Kid,

As the song says, there are some things you just don’t do. You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask of the Lone Ranger.

And you don’t pour water on the heating element of a sauna when other people are expecting a dry sauna experience.

It turns out that some people (me) thought you should save water for a steam room and never ever pour water on the “coals” of a sauna. It further turns out that the experts on the internet are quite comfortable with the idea of a wet sauna experience in which one adds water and keeps the temperature at a lower level.

Hey! Guess what happened at the gym the other day? Jenelle and I went into the sauna expecting dry heat and this chick kept pouring water on the rocks. We were not amused.

If we’d wanted steam we’d have gotten nice hot beverages. We wanted dry heat.

Not having consulted My Friend the Internet, I was convinced that the chick was a heathen and going to break the sauna and electrocute us all. Turns out I was wwwwrong, but facts are not the point here. The point is that it’s a public place and you follow public etiquette in a public place.

Why didn’t we say anything?

We tried the subtle method of delicate commenting, but she had headphones on and her music was cranked loud enough for the entire city so I’m pretty sure she didn’t hear us.

More importantly, she looked like she could kick our butts without breaking a sweat.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

As you may have heard, we’re in the midst of March Madness.

This means that some people are spending 20 hours a day watching basketballs on multiple screens (hmm…who could that be?) and others are blinking in confusion (either because they know nothing about basketball or because they are too busy drinking green beer to care).

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

So it turns out that lots and lots of people care about basketball. A lot.

Even those that don’t care all that much seem to find it necessary to flip back and forth between channels if there is only one screen (like in our family room, but I’m not naming names).

So far (in March Madness), there have been upsets, questionable calls, kind of ho-hum games, and knuckle-biters. This was entirely predictable.

Coming up, there will be upsets, questionable calls, ho-hum games, and knuckle-biters. This is entirely predictable—I just predicted it.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Turns out I have a piriformis. But you knew that. 

Just in case you were sleeping the day they talked about it, the piriformis is the muscle that keeps your hips from falling off. It’s located behind one’s behind and helps one stand on  one leg without falling over.

At least that’s what most people use their piriformis for.

Some people use their piriformis to cause piriformis syndrome which means (more or less) pain in the back. This is not a recommended use for said muscle because it hurts (and can cause other problems which allow doctors to send their children on wildly expensive educational jaunts).

Not to worry. I don’t have piriformis syndrome, and my piriformis muscle is not causing me any pain.

It seems my piriformis is more or less a freeloader, just hanging around for the good times but not doing any actual work. Which means that while I have no pain (yay) I also have pretty much no stability (we knew that a long time ago).

I discovered this because a very nice Physical Therapist (and we know what I think of physical therapists) named Julie set up a table at the gym and (gratis-for-free) examined people in the name of Injury Prevention. I like preventing injuries as much as the next person, so I volunteered to have her poke around my muscles.

She found the spots that hurt. (See: Beliefs about physical therapists, above.)

Her first thought was that my hamstrings were too tight. Then she started bending my legs around, discovered that I take after Gumby, and moved on to jabbing her thumbs into my hitherto napping piriformis (at which point I moved on to jumping 6 inches off the table).

She enjoyed that so much that she did it again on the other side which only caused me to spasm and question whether she’d gotten her degrees at the Université de Marquis de Sade.

She gave me some exercises to do on a daily basis (and by daily basis I assume she meant every month or so during daylight hours). I’ve done them twice. At least I’ve done the ones I remember twice. If I remember correctly.

It’s not that I think she’s wrong. It’s just very hard to find time to do them (and by “very hard to find time” I mean I just don’t really want to).

You might wish to study up on the piriformis and how to strengthen it. I hear it’s lots of fun to torture your mother in the name of good health and stability.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I have started sauna-ing.

Sitting in the sauna is what you do after you’ve been exercising hard and want to relax your muscles.

It’s also what you do if you haven’t been exercising hard enough and want to sweat anyway.

Sometimes sitting in the sauna is a time for quiet (and warm) reflection.

Other times, it’s an interesting conversation with people you might never meet anywhere else.

I mean how often do you go up to someone who is working out and randomly start chatting? OK, in my world it happens more often than you might think, given that I seem to have a way of introducing myself. And when J and I are at the gym together, you can imagine that we manage to meet all sorts of interesting people.

Last night (after our very intense workout), we were in the sauna, solving all the world’s problems, when we got into an interesting conversation with a woman who is approximately your age (and by “approximately” I mean exactly give or take a few months).

We started talking about the movie Twilight (which I have not seen, but I read one of the books a long time ago). This very insightful woman was saying how she’d rewatched the movie recently and started noticing how the relationship was a very abusive one (emotionally speaking). Which got all of us talking about why women do some of the things we do and enter into some of the relationships we enter into.

Many people (more knowledgeable than I) have written (much better than I possibly could) about the insidious little steps that seem (more or less) harmless at the time but in reality lead to the next one and the next one and…

We (and I mean all of us) have a responsibility to watch for subtle signs and signposts. To watch over our friends, our family, people we care about, people who are only on the edge of our awareness. To reinforce the “rightness” of standing up for ourselves. To give women permission to listen to that little warning voice we so often ignore. To insist that they respect themselves.

I’ve been obsessing over MILCK and I Can’t Keep Quiet. Hopefully, you’ve heard it already. If not, here it is.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

A Perfect Sunday (obviously) starts with the night before. Last night Dad took me to see the North College Hill Community Theater production of The Real Inspector Hound. The accents came and went a bit, but it was delightful (I LOVE Tom Stoppard [the author]) and a nice little space. The only thing that could have improved it would have been to tie it with another of Stoppard’s one act plays. On the flip side, with only one act we got home before bedtime.

Also last night the Puppy slept through the night. Which was a Big Freakin’ Deal. We are quite hopeful that this is a sign that the 4am barking phase is over and done with.

Today, I hope to get to the gym early and be home in time for the most important event of the year. You got it: the Puppy Bowl.

This year they’ve included several “disabled” dogs. Um, “differently-abled” please. The really wonderful news is that all these pups are from shelters and have now been adopted. Big cheer from the endzone if you ask me.

Also, flippin’ cute.

Then there’s football.

I really hope it’s a good game. It’s the last one of the season and I hope, hope, hope it provides 100% in the way of entertainment and sport and 0% in the way of scandal. We, the People, need that.

Meanwhile, the sun is shining, the streets are clear, and the coffee is hot.

This is shaping up to be a perfect Sunday.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Have. You. Heard. The. News.

Big news.

Colossal news.

News to make the fur stand up on the back of your neck. At the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Westminster? The show is in New York. Westminster is not. Actually, it turns out that the WKC is not named after the Westminster in England. It was named after a hotel in Manhattan where (and I quote) “sporting gentlemen used to meet in the bar to drink and lie about their shooting accomplishments. Eventually they formed a club and bought a training area and kennel. They kept their dogs there and hired a trainer.”

The WKC Dog Show has been around for a long time (and by “long time” I mean has been in all four Madison Square Gardens. Madisons Square Garden? Madison Squared Garden?).

There are always new things in shows like this. New sponsors, new rules, new hosts, new judges. This year, “new” is going a step further. Not only are there new breed being shown (including Ewok), but for the first time the show includes cats.

As in Meow.

As in the big Dog Show (the one with “Dog Show” in its name) is including cats.

Don’t get me wrong—I like cats. I love that they know they’re smarter than everyone around them. And I am not a member of the WKC, so I have no emotional attachment to their traditions.

But I’m having a little trouble reconciling cats at a dog show. I always thought cats were more evolved than that, more into ruling by power than by beauty pageant pomp and ceremony.

Maybe I just need to get with the times. To recognize that how an animal self-identifies is more important than the species he or she was born with.

To be fair, the cats are not going compete or parade around the ring. They are going to be on display in their booths. Where they can be cats.

At the Dog Show.

2017 is shaping up to be a weird year.

Love, Mom