Yo-Yo Caper

I have wanted to take the Friday morning “spinning” class these last two weeks. Last week I didn’t get up early enough and as it turned out the class was cancelled because the instructor was sick. This week once again I woke up a few minutes later than needed and didn’t make it; however; just like last week I created my own “spinning” session on the exercise bicycle. I have read a great deal on exercising over the years and I have my own experiences with running and cycling.

Lance Armstrong stated that running 26.2 miles was the hardest thing he had ever done after completing his first New York City Marathon a few years ago. That is a very impressive statement coming from the “fittest person on the planet” and someone who has 7 Tour de France titles. I have run 8 marathons and yes, it is grueling but I don’t know how a person can cycle over 1,000 miles in such a short time and call running 26.2 miles the hardest thing he had ever done. I guess it all goes to training and what experiences a person brings to the table.

Lance is an incredible athlete and what he has done over the years is nothing short of miraculous and not to mention awe inspiring. In my experience I would swear the bicycle is much harder than running. I should never be mentioned in the same sentence as Lance Armstrong and it still gives me goose bumps when I think about what he has accomplished. I do know my own strengths and weaknesses and riding the bicycle kicks my ass!! (Sorry about that!!) I did create my own spinning session this morning and had run out of gas halfway through my intended routine.

I had to scale way down on the intensity in that second half of the routine because there was no way I could keep up that intensity. I seem to work much harder on the bicycle than I do when I am running. My lungs were burning which rarely happens when I run. I think I can get a much higher level of an aerobic workout on the bicycle than I can when running because running is much more punishing on my body as opposed to cycling. Whatever the case I was pretty much “toast” this morning after my spinning session.

My day went well and it was a rainy cold day so I picked up our children from school. My daughter was sensible because when I picked her up she had her umbrella out and jacket on. My son wasn’t as sensible because he had his umbrella in his backpack along with his jacket so he was soaked but he didn’t seem to mind. They got in the car and I asked them how their day went. My daughter was very quiet and didn’t want to talk much. My son told me a story about he obtained a yo-yo. A little backdrop on this; this morning my son took $3.50 to purchase a yo-yo; however; the yo-yo’s cost $6.50 so I was a little perplexed how he got the yo-yo.

This is where his story comes in; he realized he didn’t have enough money to purchase the yo-yo and a fellow classmate also was short on purchasing the yo-yo. The fellow classmate gave his $5 to my son to purchase a yo-yo for him. Now this doesn’t make sense why the classmate would give the $5 to my son when my son should have given him the $1.50 to purchase the yo-yo. (More on that later.) My son takes the $5 and with his money purchases the yo-yo. He goes over to his classmate and promptly tells his classmate that he wants to keep the yo-yo so the classmate starts to cry. My son gives the yo-yo to his classmate and somehow goes back up to the place where the yo-yo’s sold and tells the very nice lady what happened. The very nice lady then gives my son $4.50 out of her own pocket so my son can purchase a yo-yo. I realize this story doesn’t make much sense and believe me it took me at least 4 times of asking my son to finally figure out everything. This wasn’t the first rendition of the story and after hearing it I had to say that doesn’t sound right and I thought my son was pulling a scam with his friend but my son was really taking advantage of a situation.

The story grows even further because after hearing the story the telephone rings and it is my son’s teacher to give us some more insight on the “yo-yo caper”. Apparently his teacher had just spoken with the other classmate’s mother and that classmate had taken the $5 without asking the mother. My son’s teacher thought my son was being honorable by giving away his yo-yo to the crying classmate but that wasn’t the case and the fact that the classmate had taken the money without permission made things worse. All in all I thought there was some type of collusion going on but that wasn’t the case it was just two children making some very bad decisions. After learning all of this my son promptly lost his yo-yo and will give $4.50 of his own money to the nice lady who gave him that money in the first place. I am fairly amazed how “creative” my son was in this matter but I wanted to teach my son a lesson that refutes the statement of “the ends justify the means.” I’m not sure he understood all of this but he no longer has the yo-yo and will have to earn that yo-yo back once it is paid for by him.

My daughter was very quiet for a reason. She along with two other friends had tried out for the school’s talent show earlier in the week. Today the list for the children who earned a spot in the talent show was posted and unfortunately my daughter along with her two friends was not on that list. My daughter showed me the note she received and started to cry. The note was very nice stating that she didn’t make it but there is always next year. That is not entirely true because next year my daughter along with her friends will be in Middle School so there won’t be the Elementary School Talent Show. I tried my best to console my daughter telling her that these are the moments that go along with making that perfect softball pitch or getting a hit at the right time. Bad things do happen in life but that makes the good things all that much better. She didn’t linger in the sadness and seemed to process the setback very well. Wow it was quite an afternoon!!