Word Count later, let me tell you about bowling first

I went bowling last night. With my daughter and my husband. What a hoot. We were going to go for a beer and to play some pool -- they are both pool sharks, and I was going to watch. I know my limitations, from past experience. I didn't learn pool as a kid -- but both of them did. I just don't get it. However, on the way over to pick up Jess, my husband suggested maybe bowling would be more inclusive. Nice of him, so we passed the idea past Jess. She jumped at the idea, and suggested Ed's.

Now, Ed's used to be Reds, at WEM. Reds has been at that Mall for a long time, but my husband and I had never been -- and we hadn't realized it had gone under, and then resurfaced under a different name. But the girl did. So, we decided to check it out.

It looks like a place that would just chip one letter off the old name to start a new business, but whatever. We went in, and that's when we found out it had ten pin bowling, not five pin.

I'd grown up with five pin bowling. Well, not really. Bowling was never really on my parent's list of places to take us for a night out or anything (if and when we went out as a family, it was to a relative's place, or for ice cream and occasionally we'd go to a drive in, all five kids mashed in the back of the Travelall, pajamas on, to watch the kid's show, then told to go to sleep when the adult movie came on. We knew how to have a good time!) None the less, the only bowling I'd ever done was five pin bowling, with the little ball, that fit nicely in the palm of my hand.

10 pin is not like that. 10 pin has a big, big ball, that weighs -- well, just about as much as you care to lift. I went with the lightest ball, and that was how I managed to loft a dayglo orange ball the wrong way, back toward my family, my second time up. THAT was how I learned you really have to squeeze your fingers hard, to hang on to the damned ball, until you're actually ready to launch it TOWARD the pins.

Other than that, it went OK. Scored over my age the first time (well over, thank the gods, but nowhere near triple digits) and then managed to break 100 the second time. The guys in the next lane -- the ones with their own balls -- ignored us, only sighing with relief when we finally gave it up and left.

Then my husband and daughter played a couple of games of pool. First game, not so good. The table had a terrible list, and most of the balls congregated at the right side of the table. Jess adjusts well, though, and was cleaning my husband's clock until he couldn't take it anymore and they moved to a table that was more or less level. Then he won. I think if she hadn't bothered with her other sports (that would be softball and volleyball, both at high levels through junior and senior high) she would be better than him, though. Good pool players are usually the product of a wasted youth, and she didn't waste much of hers. She's catching up now, though.

Then we went to the new casino, out on the Enoch Reserve. Never been there before. We don't gamble at casinos -- we just worked them (see above and Jess's choice of sports as to the reason why we worked casinos) -- but this one is different than any I'd ever been in. it was clean and light and we weren't overwhelmed with the sound of those video lottery games. We all decided that if we could stand gambling like this, this would be the place we'd come to do it. I don't think we'll be back.

Anyhow, it was fun, and we've taken a pact (well, I did, anyhow. I'm dragging them along.) to do something we haven't done before every once in a while. Like Lazer Tag. A friend talked about taking her kids to it, and Jess has been once, and it sounds like fun. And going to the museum. Jess went once, with the school, and my husband has never been. I worked there for a month (contract I got after a class I aced in university) but haven't been there in years. We didn't have the chance to do this stuff while Jess was growing up. Sports takes a lot of time. Especially if the kids are good.

This is not to say that we haven't been to some interesting places because of sports. We have. We've been all over Western Canada, and down to the States many times, and once to Cuba (which was amazing, and I want to go back.) I can tell you what the ball diamonds and volleyball gyms look like everywhere. I don't know if Jess could though. Because after a while, the diamonds and the gyms all look the same. Know what I mean?

OK, was just reading this over, and want to take back the last bit. Jess remembers all the diamonds, and all the gyms. She was playing the games, after all, and has a mind like a steel trap, which makes it frightening to argue with her. She was out on the court, or on the diamond, doing it, weekend after weekend, week after week, since she was seven years old. And she remembers all of them. That was her childhood, after all. And who doesn't remember their childhood?

I'm the one who doesn't remember it all. I watched almost every game. (Ask her about the one I missed, sometime. Apparently it was the best volleyball final EVER.) I watched most of the practices (much to the coaches' chagrine), but it blends for me. I do remember bits and pieces -- they pop up out of the high speed scream that was her childhood like glass on pavement. There was the no hitter she won on my birthday (God what a good game that was) or beating, in the provincial finals, the pitcher who took her spot on the provincial team.

My daughter dragged her team of misfits to a 1 -0 win, with the provincial coaches sitting right behind me in the stands. (They sat behind me. Not the other way around.) They were there to watch their protege. They got to watch my daughter take her apart. That was a good game. (Yeah, I was bitter. I was there for the no phone call. I was there, trying to explain to her why, after she'd been congratulated by everyone at the tryouts, including the umpires who all came up and shook her hand saying "you just made it" why she hadn't been chosen for the provincial team. And neither my husband or I had a good answer. None at all.)

I remember her studying for mid terms in the back of the car as we were going from softball practice to volleyball practice. I remember her being reamed out by her volleyball coaches in Grade Nine because she hadn't yet picked her sport and committed to it full time. And I remember taking her to the mall once, between games, so she could hang out, like the other girls did. My husband and I were about 20 feet behind her and her friend, with our eyes on the clock. I remember calling "It's time to go." It was always time to go.

My sister's boy just got his licence. He's another jock, and she's sad, because she says that the best times they spent together were when she was driving him to a game or a practice. Yeah, I get it Sis.

So now, we are going to do some fun things when we have the chance. Lazer tag. Yeah. I like it.

Word count: 54622, but don't be fooled by this. I have a major problem I have to overcome before I get any more good word count days. My characters don't have good reasons for doing what they're doing! Oh help me god of plotting, god of motivation! Let me know why the hell Roman even wants to invade an alternate earth. GACK! Thought I had it, then realized it wasn't enough, and that the story would collapse if I didn't know this bit. So, I sit and stare, and go exercising, and go bowling, and all the while Roman and his life march through my head, so I can figure him out. This is what you get when you split one bad guy into two. Really. It's OK, though. I've decided it is, anyhow. At least I know I have a problem. Now I can fix it.