{"id":693,"date":"2010-02-11T20:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/11\/i-was-a-spider-monkey-for-a-while\/"},"modified":"2010-02-11T20:32:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T20:32:00","slug":"i-was-a-spider-monkey-for-a-while","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/11\/i-was-a-spider-monkey-for-a-while\/","title":{"rendered":"I was a spider monkey for a while."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I got some bad news this afternoon &#8211; one of my aunts passed away yesterday.   She was the second wife of my dad&#8217;s brother &#8211; a brother that he hasn&#8217;t gotten along with in a long time.   As a consequence, I didn&#8217;t see her much or interact with her much even when I did see her over the years.  <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There was one time, though, that I was visiting my grandparents for a summer during college and my aunt and uncle invited me on a rock climbing trip.   They were both avid climbers and this was a new thing for me &#8211; but I went along and had a lot of fun.   I remember approaching one site, getting geared up, and using my long reach and flexibility to climb it like I was going up a ladder.  Actually better than a ladder  &#8211; I was so focused on the hand and foot holds that I didn&#8217;t pay much attention to my fear of heights.   Though I did freak out a little at the top I still impressed myself.   My aunt was a little less enthused, I think.     She was quite a bit shorter than me and could not have taken the route as easily as I did &#8211; if at all.   Her British upbringing kicked in and she shouted up to me, &#8220;You&#8217;re like a bloody spider monkey!&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I think I did impress her when &#8211; too scared to rappel back down &#8211; I &#8220;down-climbed&#8221; off the rock and she laughed when I lay face-down in the dirt in relief.  <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We had a fun day and afterwards I keep seeing vertical surfaces and instinctively looked for hand and foot holds.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>My aunt&#8217;s heath began to deteriorate a while after that trip and while she was able to climb a few times, it wasn&#8217;t something she could do frequently.   <\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I wish I&#8217;d had a chance to get to know her better.   I&#8217;m glad she&#8217;s not in any pain anymore and I wish I&#8217;d gotten a chance to climb with her again.<\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6913097901389264887-3475828315187799720?l=thunderofwade.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got some bad news this afternoon &#8211; one of my aunts passed away yesterday. She was the second wife of my dad&#8217;s brother &#8211; a brother that he hasn&#8217;t gotten along with in a long time. As a consequence, I didn&#8217;t see her much or interact with her much even when I did see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}