Slower Than a Ladybug

My best friend and I ran five miles today.    We get up in the dark, get dressed and then meet half-way between houses.   Sometimes I make it to her house first and sometimes she gets to me before I get out the door.   Sometimes we have technical difficulties causing one of us to be later than expected, such as a child appearing in the bedroom door right as you’re about to leave.   But for the most part, we meet outside at about the same time and then start our run around the neighborhood.

I don’t think we even think about where we’re going anymore when we run.   We’ve been doing this for several years now and we always go around the neighborhood in the same pattern.   I think we tried running the pattern in reverse about a year ago but decided it didn’t, “feel right” and aborted the attempt, turning around and dropping back into our regular routine.

We have running sides too.   I run on the right and she runs on the left.   Every so often we get on the opposite sides of each other due to cars, people or other hazards.   Our changed relative positions seem wrong to us and we’re usually back in formation a few seconds later.

All that regularity in our runs and yet every run is always interesting.  It’s because we enjoy the time together.   This always means talking.   This almost without fail means laughing.   And sometimes, it even means crying.

Today we were at about mile three when my friend said, “look at that, it’s a ladybug in flight.  You hardly ever get to see them in flight.”  I looked up and sure enough, right in front of us over our heads, was a ladybug heading somewhere.   I’ve seen them fly, but usually you encounter them sitting somewhere, looking comfortable, not particularly interested in moving.

I was watching to see how it managed to fly considering it has two half-domed shell pieces of questionable aerodynamic merit.   It was flying slowly, which we remarked on.   Then we realized it was flying slowly, yet it was outpacing us.

We started laughing.   We couldn’t stop laughing.  We knew we ran slowly, but we never thought we ran slower than a ladybug.

The Big Boy Update:   My son likes Legos.  He likes video games.   My husband got him something that combines both: Lego Dimensions.   There is a video game, but there’s also a pad onto which you place lego figures.   When placed on specific parts of the pad, the characters appear in the game and you can play that character and use their special skills.   Of course, there is a financial catch—you need lots of different little Lego Dimensions characters to take advantage of all the features of the game.   For now though, my son has no idea there are more than the included four characters.   Don’t tell him otherwise if you see him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   Post-bath my daughter likes to play the, “you can’t get me” game on the bed.   There are things that need to be done like pajamas and eye drops.   She may not be able to see well, but she can run around on the bed, avoiding wherever you’re moving next indefinitely.    She laughs every time she outsmarts you.

Juliette’s Wish:  My best friend said today her daughter, Juliette, had told them she wanted to move to Canada.  My friend was worried her daughter was having a hard time adjusting to the new class at school.   Juliette replied, “No, Mom.   I want to move to Canada if Donald Trump is our president!”

Slower Than a Ladybug:   Five miles today at the breakneck speed of “Ladybug Flight”