When Judy and I first married it seemed like I was always retying her shoes for her. She’d tie them in the morning, then shortly after they’d come undone. I’d retie them and they’d stay tied. Never really made anything of that, I just had a talent for tying knots, until at some point years later, we realized that there was a problem with the knot Judy was tying. Tying shoes is simple. You tie an overhand knot, then you tie the loopy part on top of that. I had never thought about the logic of it, but the two knots have to interact; things have to be done in the right order. Knots are sensitive like that. A square knot is just two overhand knots tied one on top of the other. It’s a wonderfully simple and reliable knot. Get the second overhand knot backwards though and the square knot becomes useless; a slip knot. When Judy learned as a kid to tie her shoes, the subtlety of which loop goes around which was missed. Her shoe knot becomes a slip knot. When you learn something as a kid, and it becomes automatic, it’s hard to relearn it as an adult. Sometimes you even teach a kid to tie their shoes exactly as you learned to tie yours, and pass the problem along for another generation. Sorry Becky. This problem has been overcome at our house however. Judy no longer buys shoes with laces. She mostly wears sandals, but when she has to wear real shoes, she’ll only wear shoes with Velcro straps. This all comes to mind because lately I’ve noticed that every time I go for a walk, my left shoe comes untied sometime during that hour. How can that be? I’m the knot tier. My knots don’t come undone! I puzzled about it for a while and came up with a possible explanation. Our modern running shoes come with ample shoelaces. There is plenty of string to tie, with maybe even more than we really need, so that when walking or running there is so much shoelace flopping about it can brush against the other foot or leg and be a little distracting. That happened to me, but I figured out a way around it. I started tying the left shoe over on the left of center and the right shoe to the right of center. That keeps the shoelaces for one foot away from the shoe for the other foot. Problem solved, and a new one created at the same time. By tying my shoe off to the side, right against the edge of the shoe, I change the dynamics of the knot. One shoe is getting pressure to untie from the right and one from the left. Knots are sensitive like that. That shoe-tie knot is more susceptible to pressure from the left than from the right. The slight pressure from the left is enough to cause the knot on that side to loosen, while the one on the right remains unaffected. I returned to tying both shoes right in the middle of each foot, and theory confirmed. Both shoes now remain tied!
Health update
Haven’t been sick like that in five or ten years at least. Can’t even remember. It came on fast but was only two or three days at its worst where we had to just give up, give in, and lie around waiting to feel better. A slow steady recovery has us both feeling much better now; only a week out. The cough will linger, but the whole sick feeling part is 90% gone. It feels so good to feel good again.
It was a cool morning
One day when we were in Phoenix. Judy left early to do some grocery shopping and I stayed home to work. She wore tights instead of her usual shorts, because tights are a little warmer. But tights don’t have pockets like shorts do, so she had to carry a purse with her stuff in it. When she finished her shopping, she walked back to the car and opened the rear lift gate. She kept her purse on her shoulder, because that’s where the keys are, and loaded all the grocery bags in the car. By the way, when the lift gate to the minivan is opened, it doesn’t unlock the car. Approach your locked car, lift the gate (you can do that because the key fob is in your pocket (or purse)), put something in the back, close the gate, and walk away. The car is still locked. Well, after putting the groceries in the car and closing the lift gate, Judy reached in her purse and felt only bananas and apples. That was disappointing. Her purse had gone in the car, and a bag of groceries in a nice re-usable cloth sack hung over her shoulder. The implement that could unlock the car and save the day was now locked inside the car. Better call for help. Oops. The implement that could be used to call Steve or Matt for help was also locked inside the car. Back inside the store, the guy at the bank counter lent Judy his cellphone to make a call. I didn’t have a car to come save her, she was already driving that, so she called Matt. Matt was working, didn’t recognize the number calling, and so didn’t pick up. She called me. We needed to get a car key to her, or send a locksmith to break into the car. I called Matt. He was home with the kids working. Kind soul that he is, he dropped everything, piled the kids into the car, and drove to pick me and the car key up. Together we drove to the grocery, found Judy pacing the parking lot, and opened the car. It was an evil conspiracy of events that led to this misfortune; that all started with the morning being a little cool. But all’s well that ends well. The solution ended up being simple, it gave Matt and I a little more time to visit, and although the day was now a little behind schedule, everything was in the right place again.
Yeaa Alex!
I left off last night with two events to go. 11.5 on the pommel. Good enough for 5th place.11.45 on the rings. Solid. The top third of the finishers advance. He just made it. We’re going to Nationals! We’ll report back. In May.
Gymnastics
Grandson Alex is at Regional competition in Reno tonight. Hundreds of kids from Arizona, Nevada, California, and Hawaii. Matt is feeding us scores. Alex is off to a good start. He stuck his landing on the vault. 11.6Parallel bars went well. 12.15A fall on the high bar, but he stuck a double back-flip full-twist dismount. 10.612.5 on the floor. Awesome! Two events to go. He doesn’t need to win this to go on to Nationals in Orlando in May. The top tier of finishers in each age group move on. We’ll report back.