Buried
Filed under: Board of Directors, Mental Strain for Mama
I haven't been blogging much at all. In fact, I haven't been doing much of anything blog or martial arts related lately. The screw in my knee is protruding more and more and I need to make an appointment soon. I just am delaying entering back into that world of knee crap again. I don't want to go there, understandably so.
Instead of doing what I should be doing, I've been throwing myself full force into the board position at the country club. The sports bar pitch I made on Monday night was voted through, so now all the getting quotes and meeting with contractors has shifted to ripping down wallpaper and supervising the project so that everything turns out as planned. I am both excited and nervous. I am constantly thinking, "if you build it, they will come" and am really hoping this is true. If we spend the money, build it and they don't? Well, it'll be my head on the chopping block for sure. I've stretched my neck out far for this one, used all my persuasive skills, and am holding out hope that it will all turn out ok.
In addition to being buried by country club business, we've been buried. . . literally. . .
The side of our house. We actually had to go out in the storm to clear our furnace vent because the snow drifts were so high.
We were so thankful to friends and neighbors who showed up to help with the digging out. It was pretty intense.
That would be our extremely buried mailbox that took Mr. BBM several hours to dig out.
The snow piles from the street. . .
The snow drifts off our rock wall that are waist high on adults. . .
Half of our holly tree with the nearby butterfly bushes completely covered.
The snow drifts on our patio and our covered patio table. . .
Needless to say, we are not thrilled about the prospect of another 6 inches on Monday night. My class at the university is quickly turning into an independent study course. This is truly insanity.
A Snowy Public Service Announcement
All week long, Mr. BBM was warning me that my birthday plans for tonight were going to be ruined. They called for a foot of snow but I wasn't buying it. "It will probably only be a couple inches," I told him. However, when I woke up this morning there was an insane amount of snow.
Still, I was hopeful. And then the Governor declared a state of emergency and I'm guessing that traveling to the local nightclub does not count as an "emergency" need to be on the roads.
The whole family went outside to shovel and play in the snow. Lil C had a bit of an issue with staying on her feet.
I shoveled for a while as I enviously stared at my neighbor's with snowblowers and shot them pleading, begging looks. . . Apparently they didn't notice.
Mr. BBM and I took turns on and off and then he disappeared and I almost died finishing the sidewalk.
When he brought the girls back from sledding in the park, Lil C had done several face-plants and Mr. BBM took her inside.
Then he came out to resume shoveling and started having chest pains. . .
But I was kind of busy. . .
There's a moral to this story somewhere. When I figure it out I'll let you know.
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, I am no longer blonde after my 2.5 hour hair appointment yesterday. BBM is now offically dark and mysterious.
Of Breakfalls in Cocktail Dresses
You never quite know when the need for your martial arts knowledge is going to pop up. Muscle memory is important and the reason why a martial artist practices the same things over and over and over again. Last night I had to use one of my martial arts skills and you might be surprised to know which one and just how well it worked.
We went to Mr. BBM's work party last night and had a great time. I was able to meet Edward while there. Clearly, he digs me too.
Hello new Facebook profile picture. I was just gearing up to get out on the dance floor when the night ended abruptly after only making it into music from the 70's. When the DJ was playing the last song at 10:30, a group of Mr. BBM's co-workers started plotting our after party plans. We made our way to the parking lot, where we realized that strawberry colored coats and silver shoes are all the rage.
And then one of the girls mentioned a bar/nightclub down the road. Although there was much protesting from a Mr. BBM who knew that if he got me anywhere near a dance floor with music about "dropping it low" (My God-every song is about dropping it low these days), he was in for a long night (he would be correct), we were on our way. (Man, that was a horrible sentence. Please don't show my students.)
We arrived at the club where college students in the area probably go, slightly overdressed for the venue. But there is strength in numbers so we walked in with our heads held high. It didn't take long for a small group of us to make our way to the dance floor. It didn't take long for me to start harassing the DJ either.
I had three simple requests:
"Say Aah" by Trey Songz, "Blame it" by Jamie Foxx, and "Baby by Me" by 50 Cent.
The DJ took in this girl in the purple cocktail dress and couldn't help but be surprised that I wasn't requesting something more appropriate for a girl about to celebrate yet another anniversary of her 29th birthday. He told me he would play them all and I went back to the dance floor, happy to wait.
While waiting, the DJ put that line dance song on that goes something like "down down do do down" or something and since we were in the middle of the floor with nowhere to go, we figured we'd better learn how to do it. We watched this one young guy who clearly knew what he was doing and copied everything he did. He had a unique way of dancing that involved kind of hopping around on your feet and so we all joined in.
We were quite proud of our newly learned skills so we were demonstrating for a couple of people who weren't in the mood to get their groove on when the unthinkable happened. Someone had spilled their drink on the floor, and as everyone knows who reads this blog, if there is an accident about to happen, it will find me.
I hopped adeptly from foot to foot and then I was falling. My right foot slipped in the beer sludge and went flying across the floor, wiping my left leg out with it. I had a second of realization that I was going down and it was not going to be pretty.
And then I landed on the floor and was quickly back on my feet, thanks to Mr. BBM's P90X'ed arm that lifted me off the floor instantly. That's when I realized that I must have done a side breakfall because nothing hurt. I wiped my wet feet off, checked the status of my dress (totally dry), and told the bouncers to mop that up before someone (me) breaks a hip or something!
Then my night got even better. A young guy who was sitting nearby saw the whole thing and was smiling at me. If there's one thing people need to learn in life, it's to laugh at yourself. So I did. I nodded in his direction and put my arms out to indicate that my awesome slide declared me "safe." He laughed and a little later he came over to talk to me. The girls I was dancing with were rolling their eyes. Clearly he had not seen the ring or the wrinkles. His opening question was "What do you do for a living?"
I told him I taught at a university and he looked taken aback. "How old are you?" he blurted out before then telling me that he had asked a really rude question. I laughed. "How old do you think I am?" I asked him back.
Without a second thought he said "25" and that's when we became best friends. Seriously though, I cracked up laughing and told him he was off by about 10 years. When I told him I'd been married for over 10 years and have two kids he shook his head in disbelief and made his way back to his seat. He may have had a little encouragement from a guy by the name of "Bob the Blocker." The fiance of one of my dancing friends, he had a very refined way of getting guys to leave us alone.
Still, the guy made my night. When you're a week away from turning 35, that kind of compliment feels fantastic.
A little later, some guy decided to do that back into you and dance thing and started trying to talk to me. He asked me if he could buy me a drink. I told him I didn't think my husband would appreciate that very much and he said he would buy my husband a drink too because he's a "lucky man." Then he guessed that I was 22 years old.
He became my new best friend, and then made his way over to Mr. BBM to tell him how lucky he was to have me. I'm guessing that after picking me up off the floor, Mr. BBM wasn't feeling particularly lucky.
Clearly, I entered an alternate universe last night or something. In a place where young guys think I'm 22 and I actually know how to do breakfalls. . . that's the only possibility.
Learning Again
Last night, I had every intention of staying home and curling up with a book. It had been an early start for me yesterday and I was tired. Couple that with the fact that my knee is feeling cranky and I had no intention of going to karate, much as I wanted to be there mentally.
I made dinner and sat down to eat with the family and the whining began. Lil C wanted two spoons and she had taken one from Big I. Big I then complained about the food and stated that the rice "had no flavor" despite the fact that I had cooked it in chicken stock and covered it in sauce and mushrooms from the chicken marsala I also made. Then Lil C started screaming at the very top of her lungs about the spoon and I lost it. I ate my last bite, took my plate to the sink, put my shoes on, grabbed my karate bag and I was out the door.
"See, you whined so much you made mommy go to karate!" Mr. BBM said.
I'm glad they did.
I was able to learn two new kata tonight that I'll need for 2nd degree black belt (not that I'm even thinking about that at all in the slightest way possible). It's just nice to learn something new every once in a while. I learned the dreaded Suiyoshi Nokun Ni which I wouldn't even watch before last night because it's so similar to Suiyoshi Nokun Ichi and easily confused for those about to test for black belt. I also learned Odo No Sai Ichi which I remembered a lot of from a training camp session I attended in the summer.
It was nice to concentrate so much on something new that I was actually able to sort of forget about my knee for a little while. It was nice to have a mental break from that.
Today, I'm going to force myself to work out in an attempt to strengthen my leg muscles further. And Thursday, if nothing comes up between now and then, I may actually be able to make it into a second night of karate in the same week. It's good for my soul; my soul needs it.
The Good and the Ugly (No Need for the Bad)
Today was my first day back on campus and it was a good one. I'm teaching Fundamentals of Speech only this semester; and although it's at 8 a.m. I am pumped for this semester. First, I don't know how it happened, but this adjunct got one of the best rooms on campus. I have white boards. I have projector screens that automatically emerge from the ceiling at the push of a button. I have some ELMO thing that I don't even know how to use, but I have one. I also have enough computers for all my students, comfortably arranged around the perimeter of the room which is going to make a HUGE difference when we start researching speech topics. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but praying to the classroom assignment gods and maybe having done a semester of chalkboard purgatory have done me well.
In addition to the fantastic surroundings, I seem to have a great group of students. I have six students from previous semesters who are all awesome, and the new students seem to be a nice group of kids as well. My class is loaded with athletes and nursing majors. I might as well just give them all A's now. I had one eye-rolling girl (there's always one) who warmed up after about 15 minutes and they all seemed like good sports, even when I announced that they'd be giving a short speech today. I see a lot of potential in this group and am excited to go back to class on Thursday. Here's hoping this trend continues.
On another note, I had my awesome physical therapist and his wonderfully talented graphic designer wife over for dinner and fun this weekend. I whipped out my knee once again and had him take a look at it. Once again, my PT strongly recommended I go back to see the surgeon. I asked him what he thinks is going on and he mentioned the possibility of something going on with the screw in my tibia. Perhaps it's backing out. Sometimes screws need to be removed.
Mr. BBM did some research on it and found me pages of people on the internet who have the same problems that I have: unreasonable pain at the tibia site, the ability to feel the screw through my skin, bruising that won't go away, pain that doesn't quit, the inability to kneel in any way, shape or form without looking like a crazy person. I felt a gush of relief when I saw the pages of people with the same issue. I also felt fresh new fear.
Many people who have the problems I have had to have another surgery to remove the screw. Almost everyone who went this route reported incision pain for a couple days, followed by relief, sweet, sweet relief. If that's the problem, and it has to be done, then it's going to get done. It would absolutely figure that I'm one of the 3% who would have this problem. The symptoms seem to match up exactly to what mine are and I'm going to make an appointment and see what I can do about it.
On one hand I'm happy to know I'm not alone and that something can be done if this is my problem. On the other hand, it's another surgery, the third one on the same knee. That, I dread. However, knowing there are options and that I won't have to just accept pain as part of my daily life is a good thing.
If surgery is required, I'll need to time it just right, probably over spring break, so that I won't need to take any time away from campus. But hopefully, if this is the path I have to take, it will be the last time I have to walk down the surgery aisle, squeezing a gown shut behind me and hoping for the best. In my wildest dreams I imagine myself doing karate without feeling any pain. That alone, would be worth it right there.
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