OK. So here’s a question for you to discuss.

As part of my sandan rank test, I have to write a personal reflection/essay thinger about karate, by the end of this week.

I am going to write mine about how I have found that in some ways I was never that far away from my practice during my time away.

Here’s the question: If you were a man, would it creep you out to read some chick describing how she used elements of karate to help her birth her child (albeit elliptically and with no mention of any specific body parts, concentrating mostly on the mental-focus business)?

I am TOTALLY stuck on this because I was kinda gobsmacked by it at the time, so I may write it anyway, just so I can get it out and then never hand it in, but I also kind of want to give my sensei something to think about from a feminine perspective, without getting all “Woooh, feminist!” about it.

Eliza asked me to play “tag-o-worry” with her. What now? She explains. Oh, right. Tug of war.

***

Because she has a pair of pants that have the skull and crossbones symbol of pirates on them and I referred to them as pirate pants, she now thinks pirates and skeletons are the same thing.

***

Eliza recently heard and completely misunderstood the term “scaredy cat,” and she essentially thinks it means its opposite: a frightening feline.

She was talking about scaredy cats one day, and started roaring, “Raarrraarrr!” I hadn’t made the connection and asked if she was a big tiger. “No! I am a scaredy cat! Rrrraaarrrr!”

On our way out of the school building today, we ran into a woman who looked at Eliza and smiled at me.

“Oh, you belong to her?” she asked.

I nodded and she told me she does speech therapy in Eliza’s class. Apparently, Eliza has decided that she likes this woman and has become really interested in what she does. She frequently wanders over to visit while the therapist is working with the special needs kids. The therapist initially told Eliza (very nicely) to skedaddle, on account of she doesn’t really need to do the exercises. As she told me this I immediately started to fret that she was bringing this up because Eliza was horning in on the special education kids’ therapy time and getting on the therapist’s nerves. I was ready to order Eliza to never, ever acknowledge this woman’s presence again, but apparently I was being paranoid, because she told me it’s actually helpful to have Eliza there as a model for the other kids to follow.

The conversation reminded me of Mary’s comment on my post from last week fretting about subtext, because I had an immediate rapport with this therapist that I haven’t had with the teacher. She got immediately why we put Eliza in the bilingual classroom, nodding in recognition when I explained my own background, picking up German from hearing it as a preschooler, and she understood the way Eliza approaches unfamiliar situations with watchful silence until she feels comfortable.

I mean to take nothing away from the teacher, of whom the evidence reveals that she is clearly more than capable. Tonight, Eliza was arranging sticks and cutlery into letters — A, F, E — which is something neither Jim nor I have taught her, and her coloring skills have progressed by leaps and bounds. 

However, it was an interesting lesson in just how much of your feelings about a person have to do with the old Anne of Green Gables-style recognition of a kindred spirit.

Jim and Eliza gave me a new perfume-lotion-shower gel set for our anniversary. As far as Eliza is concerned this is a total Homer Gift because one of her favorite things is to smell and douse herself with my perfumes. I don’t mind if she does it, but often she layers on a couple of different ones at once (I have a small but schizophrenic collection that ranges from sugary after-bath sprays to heavy man-killer scents to tangy florals) and she starts to smell a little, uh, insistent.

They called me at work this morning, as is their wont, and when I asked her what was going on, Eliza said she was playing with my perfumes. It soon became apparent that she was doing her usual pile-on, and so I jokingly admonished Jim, “Dude, don’t let her go to school smelling like a two-dollar whore!”

… right as 2 of my co-workers walked by.

Aren’t you glad you married me, honey?

Go here and listen to the new Killers song: Human

This song makes me very, very happy.