We Have A Date

Went to taekwondo class last night and discovered that the next high belt test has been scheduled for Saturday, August 23rd.

My participation in this test is not "official" yet--I still need two stripes--but the instructor told me to expect to be looked at for those next week.  The seven stripes I have now are for techniques, self-defenses, forms and sparring; the remaining two are the board-breaking stripe and the final red stripe that signifies that I know all my material and am ready to move up a belt level.

This is a big deal, y'all.  Red is considered a high belt (albeit the lowest of the high belts.)  For perspective, in our system a black belt is the 12th belt you earn, and red is number 8.  The expectations for execution and performance and fitness become higher from red up and the tests become longer and more difficult (hence the Saturday test rather than the weekday evening schedule for lower belts)--effectively, this is the big leagues.

I've  known for a while that I would most likely be invited to the next high-belt test, which is why I've been ramping up my out-of-class cardio and lifting, but hearing a date for it was actually chilling!  I have a lot of work to do over the next three weeks, that's for sure.  These tests are only held on an as-needed basis, when there are a sufficient number of high belts ready to move up a level.  I will be one of the lowest belts testing, and I believe the highest ranking students will be testing for their black belts.  The expectations for me will not be as high as they are for the black belt candidates, but for me their test will serve as a preview of coming attractions.

Assuming, of course, that I don't have a fatal attack of nerves between now and then.  Wish me luck!

    
 

The Definition Of Insanity

This Friday night, there will be EIGHT eleven year-old boys at my house, only one of whom actually lives here.

They will eat pizza and ice cream cake and probably everything else that is not nailed down since they are all growing like weeds and never stop moving.  They will swim and play basketball and play Manhunt in the yard with flashlights until they collapse, at which point they will all retire to the basement with sleeping bags and pillows and handheld gaming devices.  They'll likely be up most of the night, but as long as they are relatively quiet, we don't care.

In the morning, I will make them pancakes with sprinkles and whipped cream.  There will be a goodly number of very groggy faces and some SERIOUS bedhead at the kitchen table.  After breakfast, parents will come to collect their kids, and I will fumigate the basement (preteen boy hormones...whew!) and try to identify the owners of all the stray games/socks/T-shirts etc I invariably find while doing so.

This is the routine now; Thing One's birthday party of choice. This is the third or fourth year running. He loves it, his friends love it, his friends' parents think we're nuts.  And we are, no doubt.  But it makes our boy happy and once a year we can live with it.  We just invest in earplugs for the rest of the family!  Happy belated birthday to our eldest, coming right up.

And speaking of birthdays, wishing a happy "real birthday" to my beloved mother today as well!

Home

Thinking tonight: I've lived in this house longer than I've lived anywhere else in my life, and by a long shot, but I'm not sure if this area will ever be home for me.  If I'll ever be able to say I'm from here when people ask, and mean it.

Home was wherever my nuclear family lived when I was growing up, and we moved often. I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the concept of living in the town you grew up in as an adult, sending your kids to the same schools you attended and having them taught by some of the same teachers you had, although I know that's common.  Happens here all the time.  It's just completely alien to me, and I feel like it would be stifling to be so anchored to one spot.  Almost like the sense of belonging would become a shackle sooner or later.

Maybe it's just me, though--an artifact of my upbringing.  Bought corn down the road at a farm stand the other day and the kid selling the corn told me that she's part of the eighth generation of her family to work that particular piece of land.  That's 150-200 years, easy, and the life of a small farmer sure isn't an easy one.  Clearly her family has some strong ties keeping them near those fields and barns and stone houses.  Then Thing One asked me to go help him find a cache tonight, and it was located at the edge of a secluded tiny neighborhood cemetery at the end of a dirt track up a wooded hill...you'd never find it if you didn't know it was there.  The oldest graves I saw date back to the 1820s, but people with those surnames still live around here.  (And all the headstones of young women gave me the willies...let's hear it for modern medicine and obstetrical practices.)

Two of my three kids were born here and the third arrived as an infant, so this is the only home they've ever known.  Some days I envy them that simplicity!

Love That Boy

"Kid has an IQ of 500 but can't get out of a Porta-Potty!"  Memorable words from a former soccer coach of Thing One's.  Bless the kid, he is smart as hell but a serious space cadet.

I was reminded of that this morning.  Normally, feeding the dog is Thing One's job, but I came downstairs before him today and she was hungry.  I had to open a new bag of dog food and couldn't find the measuring cups we always keep in her food bag anywhere.  Finally, it occurred to me to go out to the trash can in the garage and look inside the old, empty bag of food.  Sure enough: there were the measuring cups.  *facepalm*

Can You See Me Now?

Took Thing Two to the optometrist for his annual checkup today.  On the bright side, he cooperated admirably, but unfortunately, his prescription has deteriorated again (par for the course with farsightedness as kids grow, or so I am told--what the hell do I know?) and he needs new glasses.  He's the only one of our three kids who needs them *knock on wood* but this poor kid got every damn whammy in the collective genepool.  Learning disability?  Sure.  Aplasia cutis?  Bring it.  Kid doesn't have enough else going on??  Sure, let's make him wear glasses too.

We have no idea where the aplasia cutis came from; might have been a spontaneous mutation thing although one of our nephews (Himself's side) has a similar sort of spot in a different location.  The language processing problem came from me, no doubt.  Clearly his case is much worse than mine (considering that I got through high school, college and grad school without formally realizing that I can't remember shit unless I write it down as soon as I hear it, and I don't have the expressive language issues that he does) which does NOT make me feel any better about being the conduit.  His vision issues, thankfully, I can't blame myself for: those are 100% from my blind-as-a-bat-before Lasik husband.  Whatever you can say about brown eyes (and don't get me started about how all the songs except Van Morrison's are about blue-eyed girls), my brown ones work.

In the grand scheme of things, a prescription for new glasses shouldn't be the end of the world, and it isn't.  I just feel bad for the kid, since the glasses are just that last bit of insult heaped onto a shitload of genetic injury and I'm reminded of it every time he needs new ones.  Dammit all to hell.







 

Milestone

Since July 9, 2013 I have found 1000 caches (1004, actually)...picked up #1000 on a bike ride yesterday afternoon.  My first time on a bike in a good 15 years, I might add, and boy, is my derriere having an opinion about that today.  Yikes.  Gives me a whole new level of appreciation for the Tour de France athletes!

Banged Up

Check out this beauty of a bruise!  One punch to a target with my fist aligned not-quite-right, and ouchouchouchouch.  Luckily I just broke a blood vessel, not my hand.  But doesn't this make me look like a badass??  Especially with the entirely incongruous girly red nails.

To add insult to injury, a couple of days before this incident, I jammed the heck out of the thumb on the other hand while sparring...I was moving toward my opponent for a strike just as he lunged in as well and he caught the end of my thumb straight on.  You don't think about how important it is to have two fully-functional hands until you don't!  My husband was kind enough to point out that this is a purely voluntary activity of mine and that injury is part of the package with martial arts, both of which are true, if not particularly helpful or sympathetic...we'll just see what this ninja mama has to say when he bellyaches about being sore after his next marathon.  :)