Wheels Not Wanted

A few years ago my brother's kids participated in a piano recital; they did great. I was there. Because I was there, which is not nearby where I lived, I headed back to their house & hung out with them for a few hours.

I borrowed one niece's bike to ride around the neighborhood with the other niece - the one who's always excited to chat & share a story & fill you in on what's what. And that's what she did around her neighborhood. We had a fun time. She was about to point out where a friend of hers lived & then noticed her friend approaching from the opposite direction, back from a run. My niece asked her, "Were you out for a run?" Her friend affirmed with a head nod.

We continued back around the rest of their neighborhood's main circle which dropped us back off at my brother's house. My niece put the two bikes back in place. Her sister came out of the house from helping her mother with something & I could tell that her mother was asking her if she wanted to go bike riding with me, knowing that I'd eagerly go back out around the block again with the other one; she declined shaking her head no. She's into that sort of stuff; she just wasn't in the mood in that moment, which was fine.

We'd pulled out the family's hula hoop & played with it for a bit. I had my smartphone handy so I took pictures of my niece, which is where I learned about timing on tapping the smartphone camera button I wasn't so good at it. I tried a few times to capture her mid-hula-hooping & realized it wouldn't be the shot we truly wanted. I warned her, when it became my turn at the hoop, that I wouldn't last long. She nodded in understanding, further contentedly saying, "Okay." She also showed her smartphone camera skills to be better than my own as we've better evidence that I tried to use the hoop for a heartbeat (the moment that she captured), whereas she actually used the hoop for a few minutes, & I, well, I don't think my attempts at capturing her some quality jpg images does her justice. Oh well.

Before moving on to the family's backyard, where I further didn't do well with my camera when my nephew climbed a tree & successfully jumped from it - & the keepsake I captured isn't of his jump, rather moments before, & then again afterward, my niece pulled out another item from their family's garage, one of these.

She'd just received it as a Christmas gift a few months prior (as this memory of mine happened in April of the year when it did happen). She'd asked to receive it; it wasn't just something someone saw & thought, "Hey, she might like this, let's get it for her." Nope. She was interested.

I looked at the gift, stunned. My own mother looked at me, noticing I'd been taken aback. I was stuttering with a loss for words. I had no intentions of speaking negatively about it, though for me to speak about it, it would've been my own thoughts on it, which weren't positive & encouraging. I'd no interest, or need, to be negative, however, as it had nothing to do with me & it wasn't wrong. I was shocked & amazed that my niece had an interest in such an item; I'd never ever had an interest in using one, let alone owning one. My niece was so interested, she asked for one as a Christmas gift.

The family only had one, so sans showing me a few moves on their driveway, right there, right outside their garage - which is where these toys were stored, there really wasn't much to do with it.

I'd always considered figuring skating. as I'd seen in the Olympics, to be pretty nifty, & I'd considered roller skating to be a close & viable option; though, aside from those shared skates I wrote about earlier in the week, I never did get a pair. Maybe these would have been a fun pair to try, which I'd select because of their color, their no-ankle-coverage, & that they aren't roller blades. No matter, that same, where-to-skate problem would have still remained.

These links are affiliate links to Amazon as well as the image link in the top left. Also, the image link, being one with a rainbow, is in honor of my niece's interest in rainbows.