Bubbles the Purple Fish, on his own to fly without a pilot on October 13 2019 at One Sky One World, LaVista NE.

So getting ready on Sunday morning, I was packing kites, the day did not look the best for Charlie the Dog, since the winds would shift during the day, and the soccer fields at the LaVista Sports complex have permanent aluminum benches, and bleachers. I really wanted to get him out, but with that forecast, I also like to keep my kites in one piece. So I decided, to take my other collection of aquatic creatures – Bubbles the Purple fish, The peace fish, and the rainbow squid. as I gathered a few more items, and take the to the garage to pack up, I managed to forget a very important piece to any day you decide to fly show kites; a pilot. Whats a pilot you ask? It’s a medium to large kite with enough pull to allow you to anchor other kites off the single line. This kite basically acts like an anchor to keep the show kites from wandering out of the area on their lines. If you are all by yourself, this is not as important, as when you are flying with others – a wandering kite causes damage, and most of your other kite pilots around will not be very impressed or appreciative of you taking their displays out of the sky. Needless to say, LaVista is one of these fly’s.  Well, after getting everything packed up, you guessed it, I forgot a pilot. When I unpacked, I discovered that I did not have a said pilot kite. I asked to borrow one from a friend, and he gave me one of his secondary kites to see if I could make due – unfortunately, it did not work. So, what did I do? I rolled out a shorter line, and allowed Bubbles to wander all around since I was lucky to have a full soccer field to myself. Well, that didn’t leave me much ability to put anything else up, since I would need to babysit the kite all day. However, what did come back out of it, was yet another life lesson; Adapt.

As I was sitting there, watching the kite, travel around, up and down, back and forth, virtually swimming, I found many people were impressed with the, “Swimming” Bubbles was doing. Out of nowhere, Bubbles became the hit of the fly. I sat back and again, at 52 thought to myself, yet another life lesson: How to adapt, and make the best of a situation. maybe it’s because I am getting older, maybe it’s because I was just plain tired, but I sat back and realized, I just let the day happen, and even though my plan did not go as I wanted it to, it was still a good fly, and none of the spectators knew that I didn’t get things to happen as planned. And quite honestly, they didn’t care. So I pretty much at one point laughed to myself and thought, no matter how old you get, you can always learn something from life daily. Am I still a control freak? Yep. Am I more aware of my need to be in control? Yep. Am I trying to better focus on letting go? Sure, but I can do a better job. Sunday was a perfect example to me of where I just need to some times, let things take their course, and not always be in control.

The day ended up with pizza with the club, and enjoying some chatter before heading off back home, and ultimately to Philadelphia again. One of these days, I will learn the best way to finally let go and allow everything to just happen, I hope though, maybe each day I am getting closer to that goal.