Nostalgia Week (corrected)

Nostalgia has been kicking my ass this week, in a good way. But it's still always a little weird, especially when you don't feel like you're old enough to feel nostalgic about anything.

But then I remember that in 8 days or so, I'm turning 35, and think, "Dude, you are old enough."

The first thing that triggered was going to the Core Fitness course I'm taking at West Valley College. It's a class, so we're in a big group of about 36 people, and the woman who teaches is charismatic and tough, like the best coaches. It reminded me that I used to be a jock.

Wednesday was our first evaluation day, where we see how strong we are in the various basic moves or whatever. We had to see how long we could hold an elbow plank position (only my fat ass did the modified version), count how many push-ups we could do, and how long we could hold in a squat position.

It's the squat position that made me nostalgic for my jock days, when I was a high school basketball player, because it was it's a defensive stance. I'd hadn't really forgotten how much I loved this stuff, especially practice, but I hadn't actually remembered it, either, if you catch my drift.

The only way I can think to explain it is that this is a physical memory, you know what I mean? My body, in its soreness, definitely remembers what it was like to be athletic, and dedicated, and it wants to sing John Cougar Mellencamp songs.

But it wasn't just the exercise. We're moving, which means I had to have the argument with my wife about why I have a trunk full of shit that I hall around with me everywhere I go, filled with pictures and yearbooks and crap. Look, I'm not really going to go into that here, and besides, this guy rocks it, but anyway, I saw a bunch of pictures of me playing basketball when I was 17 and I felt somewhere between excited and nauseous.

The second thing that triggered this was a trip with my daughter to her new daycare/preschool the other day. I won't say its name or where it is, and in a minute you'll see why. But it was terrifying. Not because it's a bad school or because Lily was a wreck. But because I came to realize that I don't really like strange children. And this isn't really nostalgic, either, at least not yet. Maybe when Lily is bigger it will be.

Anyway, so I'm there because she doesn't start until next week, but we're required to make two visits, with a parent accompanying the child. Ashley did the first one on Tuesday, and Thursday was my turn. So I'm sitting there in the classroom playing Tea party with my daughter when the other kids came up to introduce themselves and play with us. I was very impressed by this.

What I was less impressed by was some of the other kids. I made the mistake of pretending to smell the fake diaper of a baby doll and making the gas face and saying, "EWWW." Of course, this move killed, and these kids being under four wanted to see it again.

And again.

And again.

ad infinitum.

At first I freaked out, looking at the teachers, thinking get these fucking kids off me, because they went and found more doll diapers and were shoving them in my face and draping them over my shoulders.

Then I remembered that I'm 6'3", and weigh 250-ish lbs, and so I put a little bass in my voice and said, "Stop putting diapers on me."

And it worked! It was quite an epiphany, realizing I'm a grownup and these are just little ass kids.

There was another weird thing that happened. There were two other little girls there, with parents, visiting the school to see if they wanted to go there. One was with her mother and father, and she seemed like a perfectly nice little girl, but her parents were lame. They kept walking around, picking stuff up, like a little tart pan that the kids use to play cooking, and saying things like, "This is sharp. Totally unsafe." And another little girl, older than their daughter, and who was also being really friendly to Lily, was jumping off of a chair. "That's not safe!" said mother, like she was Tipper Gore at a record store or something. Me, I just figure that the people running that school are trained professionals, and if they think it's safe, who the hell am I to go telling them their (Thanks, Brooke!) they're wrong?

The other little girl was there with her mother and two older brothers. At one point, she was riding a tricycle, and this little boy, about 2 1/2 or three, decided he wanted the tricycle. As kids at that age will do, especially spoiled little fuckers with no parental supervision, as this little bastard obviously is, went over, took a swing at the girl, pushed her over, and then tried pull the girl off of the tricycle.

By grabbing her pig tails.

Luckily for him, the teachers were on the situation quickly, because the little girl's older brothers, aged about 8 and 11, were on their way across the playground.

And the expressions on their faces suggested that three years old or not, that little bastard was going to regret doing that to their sister. They were going to fuck him up.

Funny thing was, though, about 30 minutes later, when their visit was up, the little girl threw a fit because she didn't want to leave.

Still, I think I'm going to enroll Lily in some MMA classes.

And if some little fucker tries to pull her off her tricycle, she can break his ass off.