was Sunday, light angling toward night, ping pong paddle in hand, trusty doubles companion at side, and the metronomic bounce of the ball chanting the game's name beneath a shade tree in Parque Bustamante. Felix and I took on the world - a highly-trained 10-year-old and his bloodthirsty assassin-serving 8-year-old brother directed by their sage coach (they called him "papá", but I've been told that's actually a name one earns after years of training and sweat-soaked t-shirts). We let them take the first two games, not wanting to completely shatter the established playground order. But after letting them bounce in prepubescent glee for half an hour, we turned on them. We crushed them, plastered them, squashed, flattened, destroyed, obliterated, eliminated, exterminated, annihilated, annihilated-exterminated, extirpated them, finished them, sunk them, trashed, them, blocked the light from their eyes and sucked the hope from their lives, induced premature aging and both and pre- and post-traumatic stress disorder, fits, vertigo, severe insecurity and eating complications, grey hair and wrinkling, arthritis, tendinitis, appendicitis, chronic-blepharitis-induced chalazeans, and sadness. After losing the next three games in a row they didn't cry, but it sure felt as good as if they had been.
Nothing like a feel-good Sunday.
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I knew you were a romantic at heart
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