It's weird when your kid comes home from college for Winter Break-- there is certainly an adjustment period: they are used to a totally different schedule, they are used to interacting mainly with college-aged people, and they are not used to whatever family dynamics have developed since they have been living away from home-- and perhaps that is why Alex and Ian nearly got into a battle royale the first time we tried to play some pick-up basketball at the Piscataway Y . . . Alex is used to playing a certain style of pick-up with kids at the gym over at Rutgers, Ian is a bit too competitive when he's covering his brother, and the two of them have grown quite a bit and Ian, although he's very athletic, does not have complete control over his long arms and bony elbows when he's playing basketball; anyway, they talked it out and we went back and played again today and we played four-on-four with some decent players and Alex, Ian, and I were on the same team and this made a world of difference-- we killed the other team; Alex and Ian both rebounded, Alex drove with confidence and made a lot of touch shots around the basket; Ian blocked some shots with his long arms and took advantage of a mismatch inside; I shot a bit from outside; and the fourth guy on our team was an excellent player who know how to move the ball . . . it was very fun and everyone got along smashingly and then we met Catherine for lunch at Mr. Pi's and ate some sushi-- and they are both certainly better at pick-up basketball than I was at their age (when I played basketball in the same fashion as I played rugby).
This sentence needs more charismatic megafauna. You know I used to volunteer at the Harvard Museum of Natural History's Hall of Fossils, Fish and Insects which includes a section of Cenozoic mammals, right?
ReplyDeletei remember how you played pickup basketball at that age. 'basketball' is more accurate. we'll always have the spider, though.
ReplyDeletei knew you had some weird connection to megafauna-- that's awesome. brusatte got very into those creatures-- just how big and weird looking they were.
ReplyDeletedoes that video still exist of the nicks layup drill?