A Lesser Effort

Dear family (all) -

Yes, Dick, you are part of the family. My (and our) apologies for implying any exclusion, but if it is any consolation, brothers also initially left out sister (sorry sis) and still haven't properly improved on Mom's relegation to archival secretary (sorry mom).

I am right now in Columbus Ohio. No, not seeking out America's hotbed political capitals, although I did go to Madison last weekend and we did also drive through Indianapolis on the way here. Our reason for being here is the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic, a pretty big regional event with boxing, bodybuilding, wrestling and more, including, for our purposes, fencing. We will not dwell on the victory percentages today. Andrew did win one best of three match to feel good about his efforts, but the whole thing was pretty thrilling. Today Andrew's event was Y12 mixed, i.e foil fencing for 11 and 12 year old boys and girls combined. Tomorrow he has Y12 Men's Foil, i.e, 11 and 12 year old boys ("men") only, We were forewarned that we'd see another caliber at the larger regional events, but frankly I think the best kid that beat Andrew looked about 15 years old with maybe 10 years of experience. But we will not dwell. Andrew was told, by the way, that by attending this regional, he would automatically qualify for nationals this summer --- in Reno. I will slowly break it to him that a drive to Columbus will have to be our limit, especially if I'm skipping the Oregon reunion. I think he'll understand, just as I think he already has figured out that when the kids here were told that they may even get to see Arnold, it doesn't go much beyond "maybe."

Meanwhile, Kirsten is left home alone - or with friends for most of the weekend. She had school today (Andrew had a day off for parent teacher conferences, which I attended yesterday), and she also is on the tech crew for her school's talent show tonight and tomorrow night. I tried to talk her into joining us, but tech crew is apparently a bigger deal than driving 13 hours to watch a brother fence for 10 hours.

And meanwhile tonight I'm here in our Ohio hotel, rediscovering what my priorities ought to be. First, I had bought a Nook a month ago and intended to read Hamlet this weekend (in order to better understand a recent Dan poem), but I ended up leaving the Nook on the kitchen counter this morning. And now, we got to the hotel and found out that the TV isn't working, this on a night when, thanks to Arnold, hotel rooms are scarce. Oh well, at least we brought the laptop and have Wifi here. Andrew didn't stay awake long anyway, and I had this letter to write, and on top of that a "humor me" invitation to try another poem.

Mom, your latest water notes, following Dan's reminder of the 23rd Psalm tie-in, add to why I really like our Stillwater nomenclature. This is a rich metaphor. I had been thinking also about Herman Hesse's Siddharata - a very quick read if any of you haven't read it before.

Anyway, here's a lesser effort to caption Dick's photo.