Not the Steroids Post

I feel like I should have something to say about the Mitchell report, but I really don't. I mean, I could wax indignant about steroid-abusing baseball players being above-the-fold front-page news when people are dying in Iraq, icecaps are melting, the price of oil means poor people can't heat their homes, blah blah blah, but that's pretty obvious. And, frankly, I don't particularly care about steroids, aside from the role model thing and the health risks for teens. It wasn't even illegal back when they were doing it (I think), so who cares?

S argued that it doesn't matter for bodybuilders, who admit that what they do is just entertainment, but in baseball there is competition! and records! to which I replied, uh, isn't baseball just entertainment? to which he did not have much of a reply. I will admit to a touch of schadenfreude at the number of high-profile, championship-team Yankees named, especially in comparison to the Red Sox (Eric Gagne? by the time we got him the steroids were definitely not relevant, unless they were addling his capacity). But that's about it. Really, I've barely paid attention.

And speaking of sports and not paying attention, I lost M yesterday. It was during her swim meet warm-up. There were about 60 kids in identical suits and caps. She wasn't a boy, she wasn't a tall kid or a heavy kid, but that left...maybe 30 possibilities? She wasn't super fast and she wasn't one of those little ones who barely know their strokes. That left...maybe a dozen, scattered across the lanes, in motion. And it didn't help that I was looking for her old purple goggles when it turned out she was wearing her new blue ones. I scoured the lanes, but there was no way. It turned out I was even focusing on the lane where she was swimming--they were divided vaguely by speed, and I know how fast she is, though apparently I don't recognize her stroke, which made me feel terrible, like when some random child cries and I look up, certain it is M or E, because I am one of those unnatural mothers that doesn't recognize her own child's cry. Though I knew I was being silly, the whole experience of not being able to spot her was quite horrifying.

Eventually they got out and I located her, though it took me a couple of tries. She was usually the one chewing her goggle straps. She did better at this meet than last--won a heat, cut 16 seconds off her 100 back, only got DQed once, for not touching the wall on a flip turn (i.e. a stupid error, not a personal inadequacy). I got a fair amount of work done up in the stands, though it was hot, loud, and full of swim parents who are a fairly unpleasant breed, the loud ones spanning the range of competitive to boring, the quiet ones, like me, perhaps interesting, but in no mood to interact, having gotten up at 5:20 to drive an hour in the cold dark and have the kids on deck by 6:40. That's A.M. We took naps when we got home.