I woke up this morning with an honest sense of TGIF. For a week that we had a day off from, it seemed inertly long. Plus since I did nothing during Labor Day I have a bunch of house projects I need to catch up on. Back lawn is becoming a jungle. Need to trim that down before cats get swallowed into the high grass and revert to a more primal behavior.
My uncle just moved down from upstate to retire, and I got recruited last night to help unload a few things. The had come down in a uhaul moving truck, a big V8 that apparently cost them over four hundred dollars in gas to drive down. They rolled up the back of the van and the first thing my eye spied out was a big rock.
"You brought a rock all the way down form New York?" I asked?
My uncle's eyes widened and he pointed at it and said 'That's a LAVA rock!' as if he possessed one of the mysteries of the universe.
So I grunted and strained and pulled the rock out of the back of the truck. Actually, it was not a lava rock. At least, it was not pumice as I know it. And it was not light like it either. So I tossed out the rock and helped unload a few other things. Saturday morning I have to go help with the rest of the load. Should not be too hard, and I might acquire a few treasures.
For no real reason yesterday I was reading up on kettlebells. Kettlebells are a weight lifting device that basically consists of a cast iron ball with a handle sticking out of it. This is what you saw dudes lifting in those old-time strong many photographs. They were used heavily for training soldiers and KGB agents back in red commie Russia. They are not of Russian origin, however. They are actually Scottish. Back in yea-old Scotland tossing rocks was great fun. The national past time. You toss a rock; your buddy tries to toss it farther. You laugh and hoot and slap each other on the back because nothing gets better than tossing rocks in the highlands. Well, during some of those early morning rocks tossing sessions the rocks were hard to pick up because it was frosty and dewy out. Sometimes a rock might slip out of your fingers, causing bummer for all around. Then one Scottish guy hiked up his kilt and got the bright idea of putting a handle on the rock. Thus the kettlbell was invented.
There are even training videos you can buy for kettlebells. It seemed a little obvious to me... it's a heavy object. You pick it up. Repeat. However, the videos lure you with such statements as "Get into great shape without the shame of aerobics or the dishonor of dieting!" which actually has a ring of truth. A guy doing aerobics IS Shameful. Because we all know what kind of guys do aerobics.
http://www.mightymiddle.com/uploads/richard-simmons.jpg
I think I simply like saying 'kettlebells'.
Kettlebells.
Yeeeah.
2026 Update
Dialing the time machine to a 2006 driveway where a 'lava rock' is apparently priceless cargo.
Twenty years later, I love that this entire post is a man standing in a driveway arguing with his uncle about a heavy rock and then drifting into a Wikipedia fever dream about kettlebells. The world has changed under that rock. Back then, if you wanted to know why a kettlebell existed, you read a blog and accepted the Scottish rock-handle theory with zero citations. Now your phone would show you a video of a man in a kilt explaining the exact metallurgy, and then another video of a man doing kettlebell swings in a parking lot while live-streaming his opinions. Moving your uncle's retirement haul used to mean renting a rumbling V8 U-Haul and spending four hundred dollars on gas; now you'd get five different quotes from a moving app that still sends a rumbling V8 U-Haul, only the insurance is a subscription. The high grass and the cats are still out there, but the cats have collars with GPS trackers, so their primal reverting is geotagged. And that jpeg of a man in short shorts—back then you just linked it and moved on; now every image is a licensing negotiation.
“2006 Ed, when you tossed out the rock because it wasn't the right kind of lava, what did you actually think your uncle was going to do with it—and did you ever ask, or was the mystery simply better?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, I reckon I figured the rock was going to be some kind of yard decoration, the sort of thing you set by the front porch to make visitors say, “Oh, nice rock,” and then stand around awkwardly. Maybe a doorstop. Maybe a monument to his upstate heritage. I didn't ask, because honestly, the mystery is better. If I asked and he said “it’s for the garden,” then it’s just a rock. But if I never ask, it stays this strange, heavy relic from a four-hundred-dollar U-Haul trip, a family heirloom of unknown purpose. I did feel a little bad tossing it out, though. Could've used it as a boat anchor, or a paperweight for my desk, or just something to heave at the next love bug that gets in my face. But no, I judged it on the pumice scale and it failed. Kettlebells, though—those are basically rocks with good PR.
