Go Fly A Kite!

Let's go fly a kite! Up to the highest height!

Y'all remember that song from Mary Poppin's? Remember how happy the kids were to go flying a kite? Well, now I know why.....

My cousins, Gourda*, Bongo*, and I met for dinner last night at a Mediterranean restaurant. After being served our drinks by an 8 year old girl (hello child labor laws!) We order food. Mmmm hummus - 500,000,000 people in the Middle East eat hummus according to the menu. Not as many in the Midwest I'd venture to say, but regardless, Iz good? Yea? Hell yeah! On a freshly made pita! I'm thinking of going back tonight! Don't even get me started on the baklava! "Greek to me" now means I LOVE IT!

Exiting the restaurant we all experienced major gusts of wind (not in the bodily function type way, but in the prevailing westerlies kind of way). Prompting Gourda to suggest we "go fly a kite".... in the literal sense, not in the "go take a long walk off a short pier" kind of way. We stopped, got the kites out of Bongo's trunk, which evidently had been there for 5 years, and headed to a church nearby with 8 consecutive soccer fields behind it - plenty of room for kite flying!

Gourda had a bird shaped kite with a long curly tail. Bongo had one of those kites with two strings that you're supposed to be able to steer in circles or whatever. I had a simple triangular kite. Gourda asked me if I wanted "the bird" to which I retorted, "no thanks, I've already got two right here." (My middle fingers).

So I take off from soccer field number one and run and run, and run, and run, all the while letting my string unspool, and finally at field number 5, my kite caught some wind! Which took all of MY wind! I was huffing and puffing like a freight train! Anyhow, the kite kept pulling asking me to go "higher and higher" and I gave in and let it go all the way to the end of the spool! You could barely see the sucker! Why is holding a piece of string attached to freaking flying piece of fabric with sticks through it so enjoyable? Who knew? I'm not sure if the clouds saw an unidentified flying object and wanted to investigate, or what, but these big thunderheads started rolling in.

Well, finally, after several attempts, Gourda got the bird up (snicker). However, poor Bongo's kite must have been in a no fly zone, because other than when he threw it across the field in the package, it didn't leave the ground for more than a nanosecond.

None of us wanted to make the news as human lightening rods, so we reeled our toys in. Of course that takes forever! But in the end it was worth it all......such simple pleasures last forever.

And speaking of flying........ back at the apartment, Gourda handed me her "whittle-itty-bitty-baby Elfina" - a tiny Chihuahua to watch for a minute. Well I was sitting slouched in a dinning room chair and the creature was walking all over my stomach like a baby on a waterbed, being cute and whatever. So I made bird noises, like I do to all dogs, and this one decides to flip out! She's jumping up and down, flopping like a fish, and I"m going here and there and everywhere trying to catch her so she doesn't fall on the floor. Unexpectedly she runs up my shoulder before I could catch her, jumps, landing nose first on the carpet. Poor thing was ok after some sneezing fits. But now I'm sure it hates me. Whenever she came near me the rest of the evening her tail was tucked between her legs. I did give a peace offering of a doggie treat in attempts to smooth things over, but time will tell.

Observation: I'm good at flying a kite, I'm not good at flying a Chihuahua.

*Names have been changed to protect identities of those involved. Poor things would hate to have their real names on this site.