Exotic yet ordinary

When I was growing up, I used to stay at my grandparents' house for a few days each year during summer vacation. At that time, they lived in an old country school house which had been converted to a home. I always enjoyed spending time at their house because it was so -- different. At our house, you couldn't hear the crickets for the cars. Our yard was not thick with lightning bugs at dusk and our night skies were not cluttered with nearly as many stars. There were no owls incessantly making inquiry about who you were, no croaking frogs, no goldfish in goldfish ponds, and certainly no cows to answer you as you stood atop the 'fraidy hole' mooing as loud as you possibly could.

I didn't ever watch a lot of television during my visits. Cable wasn't available, so viewing was limited to the local ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS affiliates, a few religious channels, or nothing. Though I think PBS is wicked cool now, I was not particularly interested in their programming back then. The alphabet channels weren't much more appealing with their talk shows and soap operas and under no uncertain terms was I going to listen to preaching outside of church (and usually not even then - I was too preoccupied with 'church games' during the sermon). That said, I still occasionally flipped through the channels (using a dial, of course) in the hopes that I might find something, anything, to watch for a bit.

About mid-week during one visit, I had grown particularly tired of watching hummingbirds, seeking out creepy crawly things, and conversing with cows. So I turned on the television in my grandparents' back bedroom and started flipping through the morning programs. After a few clicks of the dial, I stumbled across an aerobics program - and stopped. I stood, staring, while three women in color coordinated leotards, tights, leg warmers and headbands completed their workout. Not once did I participate. I simply stood there and watched. The next day, I watched it again. And the next. Every morning for the remainder of the vacation, I tuned in to watch the same three women do the same routine, and not once did I get up and exercize myself.

This evening, after a yummy yet not particularly healthy meal at Hernandez Mexican Restaurant, I decided I was going to make good on the first item on my list of resolutions for 2006 (see less of myself) by...exercizing. So, I located my Slim by Six DVD, dusted it off, and slid it into the DVD player on the Mac. Little girl entered the room just as Debbie was congratulating me on the committment I was making. She walked over to the computer, climbed up in the chair, and inched as close to the screen as she could get. Bottle in hand, she simply stood there and watched as three annoyingly fit folks smiled through the workout. I smiled knowingly.

She may look more like her father than she looks like me, but she definitely seems to have my penchant for television viewing.