Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
January 29, 2008 - Wii Workout
The ER Doctor and her newborn
I awoke Sunday morning when my hips, tired of sleeping in a sleeping bag on the hard floor, began aching. Plus, we were starting to hear voices downstairs.
After cleaning up a little and changing, we made our way down, welcomed by freshly brewed coffee and, within minutes, homemade whole wheat coffee cake. Everyone joked that if you wanted healthy breakfast foods, you couldn't do better than have a doctor for a hostess.
Of course, I must admit to dunking a couple chocolate chip cookies in my coffee, as well. Everything in moderation, including moderation, they say. Who says that? People who like chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.
I also had half a grapefruit, so I believe that makes up for it somewhat.
As everyone chatted in the dining room area, The ER Doctor and I drifted
into the living room to watch some DVDs I'd brought. Namely, we watched
a couple episodes of the Michael Palin and Terry Jones project, Ripping
Yarns. We watched what I felt are the two best episodes: "Escape
from Stalag Luft 112B" and "Tomkinson's Schooldays."
Amusingly, people would drift through occasionally and want to know what we were watching. The ER Doctor and I took turns telling them, "Ripping Yarns. It was the project Michael Palin and Terry Jones did after Monty Python." They'd stare at the screen for about two seconds and drift back into the dining room.
Near the end of "Tomkinson's Schooldays," though, the room began to fill as everyone finished breakfast.
That's when I handed my Bill Plympton Plymptoons DVD to The ER Doctor's husband, in case he wanted to play any of them. He played several shorts, including "Your Face" and "How to Kiss," which people remembered fondly from when they aired on MTV. I think the short that got the best response, though, was "25 Ways to Quit Smoking."
As we were watching, people played Pass the Baby, taking turns holding the newborn, who is in that stage where, as The ER Doctor put it, he does nothing but eat, sleep and excrete. I said to him, "You're learning a lot of things today. How to kiss, how to stop smoking..."
People jumped in with extra advice: "The best way to quit smoking is not to start"; "Never kiss a bulldog"; "Never tell your girlfriend she looks fat in that dress." It would be amusing to learn some day that, like posthypnotic suggestions, our well-meaning words had sunk into his sleeping, newborn subconscious.
I can't remember if we watched anything else at that moment. Maybe a couple more episodes of The Venture Brothers. I remember distinctly, though, that we moved on to playing Wii. The morning coffee had rejuvenated us 30- and 40-somethings, and we were ready for a little exercise.
Twonk proved himself something of a boxing champion, taking on challenger after challenger and defeating each one. I even tried to use skills I'd learned years ago in Jung Sim Do and couldn't take him down.
It took about four of us, taking turns, before he finally got knocked out. Then the whole room cheered as if we'd seized a championship belt. We went a couple more rounds, then, several of us. I even beat one guy, but he wasn't at nearly the same level as Twonk, who I understand has his own Wii.
We moved on, then, to a different challenge: bowling. By beginner's luck, I rolled a strike the first few frames, but then I became less consistent. The Gryphon, who used to bowl regularly when he was younger, beat both me and The ER Doctor's husband.
By about 11 a.m., people started to collect their gear and say their good-byes. We started making our way towards the door at about 12:30 but weren't actually turning the key in the ignition until 1 p.m.
We'd had fun, but I was looking forward to a nice nap on a real mattress, to dream swirling dreams of animated looniness.
More from the Red Dwarf marathon:
Moral:
Not a single one of us can defeat you, but we can gang up on you!
Copyright
2008 by Alyce Wilson
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