I’ve been on a body double/stunt double kick all week. I had one of those moments where I reread Gagliano’s preface to La Dafne for the seemingly 80 millionth time and finally noticed something cool. When I wrote my dissertation I liked it because of the young female singer who had to undergo a virginity test and later died an untimely death of small pox. And of course what twenty something feminist can’t come up with something to say about a girl who in order to escape rape gets her Dad to turn her into a tree—Dafne. This time around, looking for another more peculiar document I came across it on Google books—my new best friend—and noted that the production needed two Apollo’s: one to kill the python and one to sing. Apparently the fencing and acrobatics of slaying prevented good singing.
And low and behold we had our own body double feat going on here. After two years of completely refusing any team sports Rebecca announced she wanted to play indoor soccer. The team was already full so the kids decided they would share the shirt and sub in and out for each other. At home this involved practice costume changes. They had the shirt switch down to a science. Rebecca also had to put on just the right pair of boys athletic shorts, hair bands to match the shirt, and stud earrings. Jonathan left the house in his usual boot cut cords and lime green cowboy boots but by the time we got to the game both had acquired new shin guards. Let’s just say that while some kids are already clearly preparing for NCAA scots on the U8 league ours our not headed in that direction. One regularly skips on the soccer court and the other runs like a girl and neither have the killer instinct.
I actually went to the game as I thought it might be a one time only occurrence. As a rule I consider team sports to be a Daddy activity. I can’t bear even the threat of being a soccer mom and I was tormented in my youth by my inability to play anything with balls. The playground is not a kind space for those without depth perception. Indeed I run because after one week of field hockey tryouts the coach gently suggested I get myself to a sport without sticks or balls. It looks like there will be more opportunities to see the Lerdau twins in action…….
The truly momentous event of yesterday involved Jonathan eating pizza with green flecks on it. Any mother of a kid with serious food issues will understand the significance of this. We are not talking run of the mill picky eater here—we ‘re talking about a kid whose twin had the skills to be a feeding therapist by age 4. We took the kids to a fancy pizza joint and while we enjoyed our brick oven almost Italian like pizza Jonathan and Rebecca had a cheese pizza which came with, lord help us, fleks of parsley. Jonathan’s response was “someone needs to remove this.” Rebecca and their friend explained in their best, we are good kids and you are dumb voice, that the green flecks had no taste. I spent a few minutes dutifully using my well honed skills at removing green but gave up and said “dam it Jonathan just eat the pizza” and as it turned out he did.
This was also the lunch where while our pretentious seven year olds debated whether the pizza was the same as in Rome I suggested we just think of it as a different genre. My daughter responded with “mommy do you even KNOW what a genre is…….”
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