What was that swimming rodent?

I canoed the Delaware Water Gap yesterday. The canoe counselor in my canoe spotted something swimming in the water. The river was flooded and moving fast, but we paddled after the swimming animal and drew near. What was it? It was small, swimming slowly but frantically and trailed by a long bushy part that floated in the water. I was like, "furry water snake?"

But no. It was a swimming squirrel.

Tom: "I would almost have to say that you're lying about the swimming squirrel. It's totally preposterous. Squirrels don't swim! Wouldn't their tales get full of water and pull them to the bottom? Did you take a picture? It's possible you've witnessed the something squirrel researchers have debated for years... "

Family sports strategy

In other parent sporting news, my Dad won the local triathlon (he won his age group). He won by passing the guy in front of him about a quarter mile from the finish line. Dad and other guys in his age group were featured in an article in a local newspaper, and from this article Dad knew that the guy whom he beat had broken his hip last year.

Dad put all this together in tune with our family sports strategy: We, as a family, specialize in beating disabled people. More specifically, we specialize in passing them right before the finish line.

This was true when me and Dad did the New York Marathon together, and "smoked" a group of blind people who were running together just before the finish line. The NYC Marathon takes a photo of you when you finish, and in our finish photo from that year you see the group of blind folks, raising their hands triumphantly and weeping as they prepare to finish, and me and Dad looking very serious and competitive as we elbow past this group to cross the line.

With my sister, we also "smoked" Rhino Man (pictured) in the marathon one year.

It's like, we can't beat everyone in the race. But we can beat some people, such as those in 40 pound rhino costumes, or those with hip replacements. And we're proud.

Actually, the guy Dad beat in the triathlon was doing pretty well, so I don't know if he really counts. The blind people in the marathon had like a 2 hour head start on us.

What a bummer

I'm not convinced that it's at all useful for us in this country to, on this day each year, re-live the hijacking-suicide attacks. I feel for the families and friends of people who died. But does having sympathy and respect for those people really entail round-the-clock news coverage of the memorial, complete with archive footage of the buildings on fire and all that? It's traumatic and I don't see what purpose it serves besides, perhaps, to whip up more support for the "war on terror."

Speaking of which, I heard a dude on the radio asking whether it makes sense to have a war on an emotion like "terror" rather than on the small and clandestine organization that carried out the hijacking-suicide attacks that killed thousands of people (which organization, apparently, is now mostly based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area).

Well, that I dunno about. But then it got me thinking and I realized that the Bush Administration hasn't been attacking most of the things that terrorize me in my daily life.

Things that terrorize me:
#1 Sharks
#2 Relationships
#3 Not having my prescriptions covered by my health insurance
#4 Reckless drivers

Which of these things have been attacked in this war on terror? Man, not even sharks! And who isn't terrorized by sharks?

Voyage to the Isle of Rushin

As some of us paddled down the Delaware (while others of us drank, smoked and dragged their legs in the water) Rushin sighted an island. From about a quarter mile away, this island seemed like a good place to stop. The trouble was those rocks (pictured). When you are not wearing shoes, they really hurt to walk on. Sometimes, you fall. And for about 100 yards around the island, the water is very shallow and the raft can't sail over these rocks, so one must get out of the raft and walk to the island (which also consists of these rocks). But it was Rushin's birthday and he had no shoes, so he demanded that people with shoes pull him in the raft over the rocks to the island. Rick said we had to do what Rushin wanted because it was Rushin's birthday.

Some people gave up and crawled to the island. Crawling on the rocks was not a big improvement versus walking on them. This island exploration trip took about an hour and our raft was more than an hour late for the pick up bus.

But Rick did eventually stop crawling and drag Rushin, in the raft, to this island. This island is known as the Isle of Rushin.

Yoga

What was he talking about?--you make the call!

[Dad--walking hunched over.]
Me: Dad, you should take yoga classes like your sister said to. Then you will not be so stiff from running.
Dad: Yeah, that reminds me. I was stretching after running the other day, and about 20 yards away from me, there was this dog that somebody was taking for a walk. And the dog was just fascinated by me stretching. It just stared and stared at me.
Me: What does this have to do with yoga?
Dad: Its owner tried to pull it away, but it was just staring and staring at me stretching. The owner tried to pull it away. She didn't pull it awfully hard, but she pulled on its leash pretty hard. [Demonstrates with hard, but not awfully hard, pulling motion.]
Me: [Abandoning "yoga" as a topic of conversation] What kind of dog was it?
Dad: A golden retriever or something like that.
Me: And what do you make of this?
Dad: I don't know!