Go Fly a Kite!

Today is the kind of day that I dreamt about in the depths of this particularly nasty winter that better be over finally. Beautiful, sunny, windy. Like Mother Nature is finally waking up from hibernation and is starting to get her act together.

On days like this, there's only two things I want to do. Fly a kite and go sailing.

I've got some mad kite flyin' skillz that I aquired during "Field Days" in grade school. Every May, towards the end of school, our principal turned our huge playground into a various array of fun activities like softball, obstacle courses, picnic and of course kite flying. Needless to say, some years were better than others for such an activity, but my competitive nature bloomed early and I'm now a master.

Darling's finally old enough to appreciate flying a kite, so, tonight, we're gonna take the brand new Dora kite out for a spin in the field next to our house. Here's hoping for a great time. This is also the field that the neighbors let their dogs poop in without clean up (don't get me started) so we might even have bonus adventures.

As for sailing...I grew up at a local residential lake. All I wanted when I was growing up was a butterfly sailboat. I loved watching the Sunday morning races in the summer and wanted in on the action.

I begged for years and years. All the cool kids had their own boats. My parents always said no. We already had a ski boat, a beat up old fishing boat and a very leaky canoe, no matter how many times my dad (who was in the Navy, ok, he was a Corpsman) caulked it.

So, what do my parents do, months after I move out? Buy my sister a used sailboat. I was livid. But whatever, I still go out there and take it out with my sister. I'm not sure Darling's quite old enough yet for that boat but she is pretty awesome with a fishing pole and loves the "fast boat". With all the boom swings that can occur with the sail, we might wait awhile. Sometimes you have to have pretty quick reflexes or you get smacked in the face and that sucks.

Today is only one of the first (hopefully) beautiful days of Spring. Maybe I'll get my chance to sail away soon.