The Natural

This picture of my nephew, Dylan, is one of my favorites. Dylan's visiting for a spell and he's definitely not the infant swaddled in a quilt, the chunky two-year old or the petulant pre-schooler who used to position himself on the opposite of everything: no to bathing, food, sleeping et al.

Dylan went climbing with me and he's a natural -- climbing routes that took me a year to ascend. Of course, he also has unfair advantages like height and muscles.

Yesterday was an interesting climbing day. There were plenty of people around but not my ace boon coon, Patti, and I missed her.

I paired up with Leah who met Patti about two weeks ago somewhere near the water fountain.

I introduced Leah to every climber that I knew which made her think that I was social. Leah, better luck with your assessment next time.

At one point, I suggested to Leah that she could climb with David of David and Helga fame or that she could probably climb with Michael and Sophie -- all lead climbers. I thought Leah would have a better time scaling more challenging routes since I don't lead belay yet.

I ended up climbing with Helga while David and Leah climbed together. Then, I saw Lisa (fist bumper, kisser and posse member) and another Michael introduced himself to me. He's like the sixth climber named Michael that I've met. I belayed for Michael and watched him mold his foot around this protuberance on a route. The way he molded his foot was beautiful...

Response of The Day

Leah to her son who had used the autobelay: Put the other carabiner back on there.

Her son: That's the way I found it.

Leah: We don't have to leave things the way other people do...

It's been interesting having my nephew around. Normally his brothers, my brother and other people are also around but he made this trek solo.

There are some people that you like less the more that you know about them but that's not true about my nephew.

Dylan on "I Think We've Met Before," 5.9


D On Auto Belay


Helpful To See Pictures of Myself (Belaying -- Pink Shirt); Otherwise, My Imagination Goes Wild