I’m an (exhausted) jerk
I know I haven’t posted and I feel horrible about that. I have just been on such an emotional roller coaster during the past two weeks that it’s been hard to write anything that I think anyone would care to read.
My Dad came home from the hospital on Thanksgiving afternoon. He is doing well. He got the staples out of his head today and I imagine that will have to make him feel markedly better. His recovery has not been without some complications but we are all hoping that with time, they are gone completely.
After a two week hiatus from karate, I am really looking forward to going back and posting about how I can’t remember a damn thing and after two weeks off, I will most certainly probably knock myself out with my nunchaku and have something entertaining to write about. I promise.
I’ll be back soon, and thank you for checking in with me via email and reminding me that there are people out there who care. Great big cyber hugs to all of you.
An Early Thanksgiving
My Dad is a very active guy. He used to play ice hockey. He plays tennis, goes to the gym and has been into hang-gliding since he was in college. He’s been hang-gliding for over 30 years and has never had a problem. . . until a couple weeks ago. He had a problem with his landing and took a header from about 15 ft. above the ground. His hang-gliding buddies didn’t expect him to get up, but he did. In fact, he popped right back up and seemed fine. He insisted that he didn’t need medical attention and didn’t go to the hospital.
Then the headaches started. They got worse. He had a CAT scan done a few weeks ago and there was a bleed. He had another CAT scan done two weeks later and it looked like things were resolving without the need for medical intervention. This week, things took a bad turn and the headaches and pressure got to be too much. A CAT scan yesterday revealed that intervention was necessary. My Dad was admitted to the hospital last night and had a craniotomy today to repair the bleed and drain blood that had accumulated and was causing the pressure.
Saying goodbye to him before he was wheeled off to surgery was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.
It was a nerve-wracking day with a five hour wait until we found out that the surgery went well and that he was going to be o.k. He’s got a new hair-do and is going to take some time to recover, but we are so thankful that he made it through the surgery without any complications. When things like this happen, it makes you realize that life is so very fragile. My family may not have a Thanksgiving dinner on the day we wanted to this year, but we have so very much to be thankful for tonight.
Edited on 11-19 to add: There have been some complications as of today. My Dad’s brain began to swell and he was unable to speak for some time. They also believe that he had some frontal seizures. He has been started on steroids and we are hoping for a big improvement by tomorrow. My family needs all the prayers we can get right now, so please pray for my Dad’s complete recovery. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated.
Edited on 11-20 to add: What a difference a day makes! My Dad is doing much better. He looks like a new man. The swelling has gone down and the drains have been removed. He will likely be moved out of ICU tomorrow. Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers and very touching emails.
No Pain, No Gain II
No pain, no gain. Right? Karate class was a lot of moving drills this week. We worked a lot on proper stances: seisan and nai hanchi in particular. (For the non-karate-ka’s, seisan is a position where one leg is in front of the other. You have a wide stance. The front knee bends so that your knee is over top of your toes. Your back leg is straight, but not locked into place. Nai Hanchi stance is pretty much like you are sitting on a chair minus the chair. . . a killer squat if you will.)
In my one class, we sometimes have issues with people not paying attention or not taking things seriously enough. So because of this, I will be able to give a big ‘thank you’ to my instructor once swimsuit season rolls around. One can’t stand in nai hanchi stance for long without getting a serious leg and derriere workout. Nai hanchi isn’t bad when you’re moving in drills or kata, but standing in nai hanchi alone is an exercise in control: control over your body and control over your mind which is SCREAMING at you to either sit or stand. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO INBETWEENS! My legs spent a lot of time screaming at me last night, and my knee is really screaming at me today.
I’m not sure if the squishy painful knee is from the moving drills or the self-defense against kicks that we worked on last night. I knew it was going to be trouble when my instructor pulled out the mat. I knew I was in REALLY big trouble when he motioned for me to be the uke (helper, or in other words ‘the one who will be in pain‘). He tapped his chest and told me to do a roundhouse kick and I had to take a deep breath because I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Two seconds after my kick neared the target area, I was being thrown to the ground.
*Note to self: Must practice proper form for break falls.
Proper form is not allowing your head to slam the mat. Proper form is not being stiff on impact. Hello sore neck, and one seriously messed up knee. It feels sort of like the whole snap-krackle-pop thing that I had going on back when the self-defense techniques went seriously wrong on my husband a while back. It also doesn’t help that I was so exhausted from class yesterday that I fell asleep on the sofa in a less than helpful position and didn’t make it to my actual bed until somewhere around 3 a.m.
But I’m not complaining. Next time I spar with my husband I’m going to try my new techniques and hope that he doesn’t catch on as to how to do them.
In my advanced class this week, I got a sneak peak at a kata for 2nd degree black belt. I got to try out the bo-bo kata and it was really cool. As a white belt, I loved when there were higher ranks in my class. That way I got a preview of what I would have to do in the future and it made it easier to learn when I got to that point. At my dojo, there’s only one non-black belt student ahead of me in rank who is active in the dojo, so opportunities to look ahead don’t happen all that often anymore.
Lately though, I am constantly thinking about what’s ahead. I don’t mind spending 20 minutes in nai hanchi stance because I want to make sure that by the time I get to black belt testing, I could stand in nai hanchi stance all day without even thinking about it. If and when I become a black belt, I want to be a black belt, not just some girl who has a black belt. There’s definitely a difference and when I get there, I want to know I’ve earned the privilege.
No pain. . . truly no gain.
This post is dedicated to Steve who started an entire blog based on conquering Nai Hanchi stance.
Losers
While running errands today, the girls and I went to Target. Outside, there were about ten boys lined up behind a poster board that said, "Play Station 3 Line Starts Here". They had laptops, beverages, food, chairs. . . in fact, one of them even brought an unholstered wing chair for the occassion. He must have been the big deal, because he was at the front of the line in his wing chair.
While we were walking past them, Big I asked me, "Mommy, why are those boys all sitting there like that?"
"Well, Big I, it’s because they really really really don’t want to EVER have a girlfriend. That’s why." I said it loud enough for them to hear, and one of them actually laughed in a good-natured way. And then I said, "You do realize it doesn’t come out for like two more days. How will you even go to the bathroom?"
I didn’t wait around for their answer. I wonder if they thought about that before they started their vigil for the PS3.
I think they’re losers, but then again, they’ll be losers with a brand spanking new Play Station 3. (I wonder if I could get one of them to stand in line for a Wii for me?).
“Wii”diculous
Cabbage Patch Dolls, Tickle-Me Elmo, Elmo TMX (or whatever the name is). . . Do you know what these toys all have in common? At one point they were THE toy to have for Christmas. If I remember correctly, my Mom stood in line to get my sister and I each a Cabbage Patch Doll way back in the day when they were all the rage and every little girl MUST. HAVE. ONE. AND. NOW. Elmo is the little kid toy of that caliber this year, I suppose.
But nothing compares to the Wii.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Have you heard of it? Wii. It’s just a new gaming station that has a wand that you actually use instead of sitting there pushing buttons. It’s the "active" gaming system that my husband decided our daughter must have for Christmas. "It will be great!" he said enthusiastically a few weeks ago. "It will get her up and moving around. It’s so cool!"
A monotone "great." That was my response. He showed me demo’s on the internet and I was slightly swayed. I am NOT a video games type of gal. Never have been, I doubt I ever will be. But I thought it at least looked interesting.
So, like stupid first-timers when it comes to wanting the Christmas frenzy toy, what do we do? We ask Big I if she’d be interested in something like that for Christmas. Frankly, we’re up to our nostrils in princess gowns, crowns and sparkly shoes and could use a little break from all things princess for a bit. She decided that, "YES!", that would be so "a-citing!" ("exciting" in Big I-ese).
And then the worst possible thing happened. No pre-orders, or we missed them or something, because as parents, this is the first time that we’re wanting the frenzy toy. We had no clue. We checked online and at all the local stores, and none of them are doing pre-orders anymore. Each store is getting about 12 Wii’s for the non-preordering folk. Freaking fabulous.
So, Saturday night, instead of kicking back with a nice glass of wine and watching Saturday Night Live, my husband will probably be at Walmart, anxiously awaiting the midnight release of the all powerful Wii. When he arrives, I will venture a guess that he’ll be in line behind people who’ve been camping out since yesterday, people who’ve decided that peeing in public is a perfectly acceptable thing to do (or that peeing in Depends is o.k. too), people who have brought along a cooler full of candy bars and Yoo-hoo’s, totally prepared for the five day pilgrimage in the line of Walmart, people who will not hesitate to hit a person over the head with that cooler or bottle of Yoo-hoo if they even think you’re trying to cut them in line. I will also predict that the few many greedy Ebayers who preordered 15 Wii’s a piece will waltz to the front of that line, pile up their cart and rub their greedy little troll hands all the way to the bank, err, I mean, their computer where there will be approximately 196 bids for each Wii system. People will bid up to $600 dollars or more for a system that costs less than $300. Don’t believe me? Go to ebay right now and search for Wii.
Unbelievable if you ask me.
I can assure you that Mr. and Mrs. BBM will not: engage in any activities that would require martial arts skills just to get a Wii, buy Depends in an attempt to outlast the losers already in line, or pay a ridiculous amount of money to a bunch of greedy jerks on Ebay just so that our daughter can wake up with a Wii on Christmas morning.
If we’re successful getting a Wii, great. But my instincts are telling me we won’t be, and Santa is not above giving out an IOU as I’m sure the stores will be stocked the day after Christmas. Christmas isn’t about what’s under the tree; it’s about being together, as a family, on a day that’s about so much more than the gifts.
And to all you pre-ordering people selling them on Ebay for an insane amount of money. . . Bah Humbug to you!
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