Wii Hangover

Family and friends gathered for a goodbye barbecue at Jimmy and Judy's house last night. There was swimming and a new game called noodle-balance-toypedo-catch, or noodle-toypedo for short. You have to balance on the noodle, standing in the deep end, while you and your friend(s) shoot the toypedo over to each other. If you fail to catch it, you have to surface-dive with the noodle between your legs to retrieve it. Good fun, and not overly strenuous, which makes it a successful Saturday afternoon pool game.

After dinner, I walked around the block with my mom, Buddy, and the one with all the N's and her children. How to make a walk around the block turn into an hour long adventure: bring two-year-olds. Finn dragged a car around the block. Cat climbed up every neighbors' steps and walked down the ramp when she wasn't busy trying to "get me". Eventually, Finn helped her out by yelling, "Here's another one, Ayah," as we approached a set of steps. Their play is evolving out of the parallel stage and into interactive play. He even let her pretend to wash the car. Fun to watch, especially if you're not in any kind of a hurry.

I was in a kind of hurry though, because there was a Wii party going on, and you know how I feel about the Wii. Well, my love for the Wii doesn't quite seem to extend to Mario Brawl, which I don't understand at all. Too many bright colors and moving pictures for me to keep track of my guy (who turns out to be kind of a crappy fighter - except when I accidentally set it up for the computer to control him). Tennis and golf are still where it's at. Somehow, when we're Wii-ing, it's possible to get so wrapped up in the game that it gets to be 1:00 in the morning, and we're still on the 7th hole and not about to quit without finishing.

And, so, this morning, when my body got me up at 7:00 as usual, my brain stayed in bed. Sure, I ran through the dog park with the dog (who now smells of mango-fish, because of his inability to resist the lure of a roll through a rotting fish carcass, and my mango flavored dog shampoo.) But I'm all disjointed and unable to focus. It took me three tries to finally call the newspaper and get it to stop while I'm gone. This is the Wii-hangover. If I lived in the same house as the machine, I'm sure I'd be having a little hair of the dog that bit me right now, because I could really use some practice on my putting, and I'd like to have a Wii age of less than 50.

No. Al. Must. Focus. Leaving the country in six hours.