My daughter had a track meet today, which is 7 hours of sitting for us to see less than three minutes of competing by her. I don’t want to know what the ratio of sitting to action is.  Regardless, it was worth it. She did well. We were very proud.

While the other parents sat and waited for their children to compete, I wondered how many of them were sitting there wondering if their lung was going to spit blood without warning. Everyone who was, please raise your hand (my hand is raised).

After the special gift CF delivered last night when I coughed up blood in our friends’ bathroom sink – a joy cleaning up the splatter – I wondered when the volcano would go off again.

In order not to wake the angry giant, I walked up the hill to the track meet very slowly.  Then, when walking up stairs, I pretended to look at my video camera. This way no one wondered why it took me five minutes to walk up 20 stairs. One pause. Two pause. Three pause and look intently at the camera. Step.

Nothing like sitting there for hours swallowing bloody mucus.  Oh, well, it can always be worse; I just wish it was better and I didn’t have to think about things like this. I’d much rather be showing my daughter how to get a good start out of the blocks or fly in the long jump. Ah, CF, the gift that keeps on giving.

Today, sitting there in the hot sun, I thought about a quote from one of my favorite movies, “The Hustler,” with Paul Newman and George C. Scott. In one scene, Scott  says to Newman’s character, Fast Eddie, (I’m paraphrasing here) “World’s greatest indoor sport, kid, feeling sorry for yourself.”

I discovered today that it’s a sport you can play outdoors, too.