Inventions, Well Wishes and Free Cash
Last night, Lil C came into our room four times. That's in addition to the five times she came out of her room before she fell asleep. I know she's stuffed up and is having trouble breathing but enough already. Between Mr. BBM snoring and Lil C visiting, I am getting next to no sleep. Lil C then crawled into bed with me this morning and spent two hours touching my face and arm and driving me absolutely insane. Finally, she fell back asleep and is now snoring louder than Mr. BBM has ever snored (Ok, maybe not quite that loud). Clearly she gets that trait from his side of the family.
Big I is looking and feeling much better today. However, she still has a low-grade fever that just won't quit and she says her headache is better but still lingering. I know she's feeling better because she "invented" a white board made out of a piece of notebook paper and a plastic storage bag. Now she's working on creating an eraser. Once she's done that, it's on to the 10 page packet that came home from school yesterday. I feel like I've been homeschooling her the entire week. Now I know why I don't do that. I'd like to state for the record that I personally despise "New Math." It's just wrong. I spent much of this week teaching Big I to check her answers with "old math" which worked just fine for me growing up. Funny that now she gets it. Grr.
I spent last night camped out on the sofa watching DVR'd episodes of "Flash Forward" which is an absolutely brilliant show. If you haven't watched it yet, I strongly recommend you find it online and get caught up. If you're a "Lost" addict like I am, you will love it. I also watched last night's episode of "Project Runway" and I would just like to warn Irina that if she ever runs into me on the street, I'm probably going to slap her or step on her foot or possibly trip her. She is such a jerk. Whatever happened to being so confident that you didn't have to insult other people? Ugh, she's just awful. I hope Carol Hannah wins, just to spite her.
In other news, my karate instructor had hand surgery yesterday for the second time. I know she's at home right now, probably trying to breathe away the pain and doing wonderfully at it, so please send positive thoughts to Mrs. H for tolerable pain and a quick recovery. We will miss you in the dojo Mrs. H! Actually I miss myself in the dojo too. Next week I'm going to try to work on actually getting there twice in one week.
Finally, a bit of good news to share. I'm giving away a $100 Visa card over at The BBM Review. Go check out the Sonicare review and follow the directions for a chance to win the card or a Sonicare Prize package. If you twitter about it or blog about it and leave a link in the comments, you get an extra entry too and who couldn't use an extra $100 these days?
Finally, if you haven't checked out my latest fantasy football column, that's where the laughs are located. Go visit Bulls N Balls and see for yourself.
Have a wonderful, swine flu free, weekend!
The Most Craptastic Week of All
Big I has been home sick all week with suspected H1N1. It can't be confirmed though because her doctor won't even see her.
Lil C seemed to be fine, but this afternoon she broke out in a fever and is now sound asleep on the loveseat, snoring away.
Today on campus, I was scolded for breaking the projector that is attached to the ceiling. I turned it on, off and then back on and apparently doing that breaks them. I got scolded by the IT lady in front of the class and then she sent reinforcements who told me it wasn't my fault and that she is indeed, insane. However, I couldn't help feeling guilty considering the guy had to put a chair on top of a table in order to get up high enough. I took on personal responsibility for his well-being, teaching my class while keeping a death grip on the chair, and figured I could handle being held responsible for killing a projector, but add a media/IT guy to the death count and well, a girl could get a reputation.
This whole week has been complete crap as far as I'm concerned; and now I have a headache which is how Big I started. I will probably spend my weekend, which is also my 11th wedding anniversary, sick.
I'm also really ticked off at my fantasy football team and have written some "love letter" to my players over at Bulls N Balls. I don't know who I'm more angry at right now, the crazy person who accused me of breaking the projector, the stupid swine flu, or the San Fran D/ST.
Just saying their name makes me seethe right now. Argh, just make this week end already.
All the Answers or Not
After the day I had yesterday, I knew I had to go to karate last night. I needed to punch and kick and get my frustrations at the world out. I tried to tell myself I should stay home and take care of Big I, who is home sick for the second day in a row; but then I realized that Mr. BBM is perfectly capable and I had no excuse to not get my butt to the dojo.
Off I went.
Last night, I was the only black belt besides the instructor. At our school, we have so many talented black belts that a new one like me is sort of like being in 13th grade. When people have questions, they go to the higher ranked black belts who have been there forever. They don't come to the newbie with questions; but last night that changed because none of the ones with the answers were there.
Our instructor was going around the dojo and asking each person to do a different waza. A green and brown belt made their way over to me and whispered, "What's mine?" I had to know ten of them for black belt testing. Back in June, someone could pick one and I could do it without a problem. But we don't do waza that often in class. Ask me any kata up to Shodan and I can show you; waza is a different story.
I started with one and mentally made my way up to around six. If I do them in order, I can get them sometimes. If someone shows me the first move, I can usually let my muscle-memory do the rest. Last night, unfortunately, the poor brown belt was pretty much on his own. So was I though, because when my instructor asked me to do ten, I had to ask him to get me started. I don't know why waza are so difficult to remember, but they are so slippery in my brain. They just don't stick around long before sliding off into oblivion. I need to fix that.
With dojo testing coming up this weekend, the white belts were preparing their testing materials. My instructor asked me to take any white belts who wanted to do their material in front of me downstairs. Two little girls showed me their stuff and did a great job. It was nice to teach them little things without having them roll their eyes at me like some of my university students do, when I simply ask them to take out a sheet of paper. I had a good time going over things with them and then went upstairs to practice some of the higher waza.
There are some green belts getting ready to test as well, so we did much of their material which is always good review for me. As the end of class was nearing, my instructor asked me to run the green belts through the first bo kata. We went through it a couple times and it felt weird to be up front, teaching someone else. I'm just never really in the position to do that at my dojo. It felt weird, but it definitely felt good that my instructor handed things off to me a few times. I take that as a huge compliment.
When the class was over, one of the Mom's of one of our green belts congratulated me on my black belt. I haven't seen her since before I tested. This particular Mom and I used to hang out on the sidelines when I was injured. She had ACL reconstruction when she was in college and we used to compare notes. We frequently talked about whether or not it was worth it to come back and risk re-injuring the knee. During the time when I was sidelined, I must admit that I often thought about not going back. ACL reconstruction just sucked so badly that I didn't want to ever risk going through that again.
But last night, as I drove home from the dojo, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. I'm so proud of my comeback; and it's exciting that I am now in a position where I am being asked to help other people reach their goals. There is nothing better than doing that.
The Audacity of People
As I was driving home from campus today, I witnessed a hit and run at a busy intersection. A woman and her young daughter were crossing a busy street, when a woman came screaming around the corner, making a left turn, right into the woman. I was the first car in line to turn right and it was right in front of me. The woman was hit in the legs and the force of it threw her back and onto her back and butt. She never left go of her daughter's hand. The little girl was unharmed, although I'm sure that seeing your mother hit by a car isn't exactly the best thing for a little one.
I immediately threw my car into park and got out. Two other men did too. I screamed "Are you ok?" at her as she slowly got up from the ground. I reached back into the car and grabbed my cell phone. The other men who were out of their cars were closer to her. I dialed "911." Clearly, she should have been at least looked at. The woman continued to stand in front of the car holding her daughter's hand, as she gave the driver, a young woman herself, a piece of her mind. The woman who hit her never even got out of the car, not when she had initially knocked her down, not as she slowly made her way back to her feet, not at all.
What was even more shocking than the fact that the woman did not get out of the car was that there were cars behind the driver who were beeping. Everyone clearly saw what happened, and you know, who cares? We have places to go, things to do, people to see. . .
Unbelievable.
And then, even more unbelievable is that the driver edged her car around the woman and sped off. I was on the phone with the 911 operator at the time and quickly regurgitated the license number as she sped off. The woman repeated it back to me and I hope to God that she got it. I didn't have time to commit it to memory or write it down. I just read it off and then turned right to try to follow her and make sure I was right.
The 911 operator kept trying to transfer me to the local police but it wouldn't work. I told her everything I could, and that the woman who had been hit was slowly walking up the sidewalk of the same street. I lost the car in a sea of traffic at a shopping center and that was that.
I drove back to the intersection and tried to find the woman and her child to see if she was ok and to tell her that she should really be seen by a medical professional, and to let her know that I had given the police the woman's license number, but she was gone too. I don't know if she went in one of the many buildings for help or if she got on a bus and went back to her life.
All I know is that people completely shock me. It absolutely blows my mind that if you hit someone with your car, you wouldn't immediately get out and make sure the person is ok. It is unfathomable to me that someone could just drive off, because I would never do that. And it's even more shocking to me that someone would have the audacity to honk their horn so that a victim who was just knocked down on the street would move so that they can all move on and go about their day.
I don't understand why people don't care about other people and why people don't possess common decency. All I know is that I am so thankful that I'm not one of them.
On Pooping Animals
After spending some time around some very large horses this weekend at a Family Fall festival, Lil C told me she might like to switch her Halloween costume from a mermaid to a horse or maybe a camel. As we were brainstorming how we could create such a costume, I told her she would have to carry around brown marshmallows and drop a few every couple feet to mimic horse/camel poop.
Both girls thought this was hysterical. Poop, when kids are this age, is always funny. We've been seeing a whole lot of pooping lately after a visit to the zoo and the fall festival.
Then Lil C made it even more funny, "Yeah, then I could pick up those marshmallows and eat them" she giggled.
We definitely spent too much time hanging around at the gorilla exhibit at the zoo last weekend. Entirely too much time.
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