Joss Whedon Likes the Squiggly Slide

Yesterday, I decided I desparately needed to get my groove on and my dark chocoloate truffle choxies off. So I decked out in my Flashdance-inspired warm up pants, zipped Finn up in 14 layers of impenetrable gear, and trucked through snow and ice to get to our car and head out for some cardio ass-kicking at the Y.

I boxed whole-heartedly and maybe a bit too passionately for about 12 minutes, just before my heart started thumping loud enough to turn heads and just after the woman next to me looked at me as if my very private demons were about to jump out and very publicly attack her. Then I coasted until we got to the abs and faked my way through 153 crunches.

But this time is not just for me. It's family time--separate but equal family time. I get to play out my Buffy fantasies: roundhousing, jabbing, and hooking my demons into dust, and Finn gets to play astronaut on a very large and very scary indoor play contraption that I like to keep my distance from. I'm just not much into small tunnels and squiggly slides. Perhaps I can trace that back to being stuffed down the laundry chute as a child. Sisters are love.

And so after our imaginative forays into nether and outer worlds, Finn and I regrouped and compare notes.

I shared my feats of thighs and biceps. Finn looked at me blankly, as only a three-year-old who's thinking about what this adventure to the Y should cost me--cookie, ice cream, another shot of chocolate milk?--can. So I tried to pry into his extraterrestial expeditions, extend his imagination, feed his role playing--what planet did he visit? what was his favorite part of the spaceship? did he make any astronaut or alien friends? really? well, what was his name?

Finn thoughtfor a bit. And then said, "His name is Joss Whedon. And he likes the squiggly slide, too."

I suppose that's what happens when you spend the first year of your life breastfeeding while your mom watches reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I suppose that's exactly what happens.