Choca!

Alex’s favorite form of displacement behavior of late is walking up to you, sticking his hand up in the air, and shouting “High five!” Recently he’s even doing this Spanish style which is the same except he now shouts “Choca!” Sometimes this drives me crazy, but I try to be good natured about it. The kid has had a lousy year so the least I can do is indulge his choca habit.

This morning I went for a run by myself for the first time. Usually I require the moral support of either Jack or Alex to get me going. But today I made it out there solo and even ran longer than I have before (I won’t embarrass myself by telling you how short of a run that actually is). It was a great run. No pain, no inner conflict about if I should keep going. I actually felt good. Almost as good as I do on a bike ride. And on the cool down walk home I must have had a satisfied smile on my face. As I was heading uphill toward Plaza de España a middle aged man was walking down the same sidewalk. And as he approached a huge smile appeared on his face, he stuck out his hand, and greeted me with “Choca!” Lucky me, I knew what he was saying (thanks Alex!). I gave him a high-five and floated the rest of the way home.

You simply don’t see many people exercising in Madrid. Sure you see the odd runner or biker, but not a lot. When I had my choca encounter it was as if that man knew I was thinking to myself, “wow, I feel really good, I need to make sure I do this more often.”

Make someone’s day, give a choca.