Wendi {at random}

The hookie dookies are a little two-person acrobatic trick my sister and two friends and I came up with when we were kids. One person lies on her back, legs straight up in the air at a 90 degree angle to the floor. Another person lies on the person's feet facing the floor so that the feet are on their tummy. Is that clear as Mississippi mud cake? Not terribly original, I know, but a fun little way to pass the time when you're around 7 years old.

Well, the hookie dookies were hands-down our favorite thing to do next to disco dancing to the funky beat of the Bee Gees and KC and the Sunshine Band. The best place to do them was in Kim and Karen's basement on the orange shag carpet right beside the hobby horse. It was always better to be on top, sort of like soaring atop an amusement park ride at the county fair but cheaper and only a tad less thrilling. Somehow, decades after Kim and Karen moved away and Michelle and I grew up, I have never forgotten the hookie dookies. (Nor the bootie bill for that matter, but that's another story for another time.)

Camden spent his toddlerhood climbing up on our feet for hookie dookies, pretending to be an airplane or Buzz Lightyear. Benjy does it now. Only he isn't satisfied with mere jets. His solid little 40-pound frame sits propped on my feet like a mini Hindenburg. He holds my hands until he's ready to let go, then he thrusts his hands straight out to his sides and then quickly grabs for my hands again. In all, he's perched on my feet hands-free for maybe 3 seconds tops. This is the essence of the hookie dookies, but it's not the highlight for him. It's what comes next. "Mom, do the snow walker!!!" Here, I have to add a new step to the basic hookie dookie - I have to somehow move my feet back and forth with his tummy balanced on them while moving my hands back and forth. I look like a beached snow walker on its back with its back legs tied together. Benjy is howling at this point, oblivious to the awkwardness of this ordeal. He's deleriously happy playing snow walker. He's Luke Skywalker. He's got the force, Man!

And that's the magic of the hookie dookies, I suppose. They're kinda timeless.