1. When it’s not your kid, three-year-olds having meltdowns are kind of funny. I was in a store this morning where a small child was in the process of trying, in vain, not to lose her mind. “I would not like that! I would not like that!” she sobbed, all crisp patrician New England enunciation.
2. The pond near my office is host to 3 duck families with 4, 6, and 9 babies, respectively. Ducklings happen here every year, and every year some are lost to a variety of depredations, not the least of which is the enormous, prehistoric snapping turtles in the pond (clearly, our ducks do not do their turtle homework the way Mrs. Mallard did). And so, this year as in every year, I slow as I walk by the pond and see if they’re all still there. Today I saw an older man holding his a bike, his lips moving as he counted to himself, one, two, three… before remounting and pedaling off, satisfied.
3. Nunchucks: I haz dem. Stay tuned for pictures of black eyes.
4. My Y karate class is over for the summer, but because I like to be overcommitted, I agreed to teach bo (fighting staff) to the brown belt newbies all summer at the dojo. I taught this class for years pre-Eliza, and in the middle of class last night, Sensei, who is masterful at those kind of comments where he seems to be mentioning something offhand and insignificant but is actually being quite pointed, said something about how someone should really be teaching that class and did anyone want to — with a flick of the eyes in my direction.
So, I raised my hand. When I began learning bo 10 years ago, I saw it as a thing I had to learn to get to the vastly flashier sai (tridents), but I guess he saw some previously undiscovered talent of mine for flinging 6-foot sticks around about 2 years in and announced to me that I would be the assistant and then suddenly I was teaching the class.
We are very deep-end-of-the-pool in our approach and it worked because now I have this thing about the bo, it feels like it’s mine the way sai never will.
I keep thinking I really need to shoot some video of me doing karate so you know I am not making all this business up, but I feel deeply dorky about asking Jim to tape me outside, so I guess I have to get over that.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love karate? Because I do!
5. We’ve had a number of break-ins on our street lately, and some neighbors organized a meeting for planning the eventual ass-kicking of the criminals. It’s going to be awesome. Jim’s a little concerned, I think, about the posse aspects of it, particularly since it has come to light that a number of the ass-kicking-planning committee have martial arts training. Notably, those are the houses which have not yet been hit. Coincidence? I think not.
You might think the break-ins would sour me on the city but I am an idiot who is undeterred, all the more because I so enjoyed meeting a number of neighbors I hadn’t met before. Most of them are wryly, self-awarely in love with the neighborhood and the city, too. We are idiots together, and that is something.
6. Small Person: Is whining too much! There has been hectoring on my part to the effect that I am sick, sick, SICK of her bad attitude and she is an ingrate, etc. It is, however, difficult to keep a straight face when the Small Person starts zoning out during said lecture and I yell, “Look at me when I am talking to you! Look in my eyes!”* and she does this fixed, bug-eyed stare and tries not to blink.
7. Those things on your chest? Are bumps. As in, “Mommy, when I am a grown-up, am I going to have BIG bumps, too?” I was distracted and corrected her, “Honey, those are boobs — uh, I mean breasts.”
*Shades of my father, who is legendary for the 2-fingered “got-my-eye-on-you” gesture he used to make whenever I zoned out during HIS lectures.