Mr. Na and his friend, the literary character

My friend and her husband are both sports writers for one of local dailies here and because of playoffs and such, they've been dispatched to cover some games in different cities this weekend. Their son, whom I shall call "the boy named after a literary character" is Mr. Na's age and his preschool mate, so I offered to take him in for a weekend of fun, fun, fun while his folks left town.

For the most part, the weekend was partly fun for those two but there was a lot of bickering involved. I've never seen two strong-willed four year-old boys hang out together for more than a few hours, but I never expected them to act like an old married couple. They fought over everything from choo-choos to competing about who can jump higher or run faster and, get this, they were using dirty ol nasty tricks in hurting one another that I thought were reserved only for fourth grade girls: I'M NOT YOUR BEST FRIEND ANY MORE! Yet if you each asked them if they still liked one another, they'd say "yes" without hesitating.

But despite the fracas here, I did manage to get a 10-mile run in on Saturday morning, exploring a part of Seattle I'd never seen. That's what I love about this city--even after 10 years here I still manage to stumble on new places. There are beautiful wooded running trails on the backside of Ravenna, adjacent to Cowen Park that make you feel like you're nowhere near the city, though U Village is a stone's throw away. I connected to the park from the Burke-Gilman and ran the backside of the trail until I came upon Ravenna Boulevard and then caught Roosevelt and made my way down to loop Lake Union.

Later that evening, after we put the little ones to bed and secured the Nana as our glorified baby monitor, Pa and I ventured downtown and caught Little Miss Sunshine which, by far, was the best movie I'd seen all year. I laughed so hard I nearly had popcorn coming out of my nose.

Well, it's Sunday night (sorry, I'm a few days late in posting this here) and our little literary character friend is sleeping in Mr. Na's bed while he and I are watching my favorite childhood movie (which is now his! How cool is that?) His father has just landed from Dulles and will be here shortly and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. All things considered, I like having one little guy to contend with, not two.

Not yet, anyway!