T Minus 2 Hours

Things left to do before leaving on long trip:

1. take shower
2. pack carry-on
3. calm down frantic husband
4. vacuum carpet I don't think so.
5. pick up kids
6. calm down excited kids
7. put fresh sheets on bed
8. make sure cab comes
9. don't forget kids' car seats
10. don't forget passports
11. stop blogging

Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it because we will. Happy Holidays otherwise!

A Tale of Two Bruises

Exhibit A:

The Bruised: Me, in nage role
The Bruiser: J, in uke role
The Implement: shomenuchi strike
Lesson Learned: Don't meet an incoming overhead strike with your wrist. Blend!

Exhibit B:

The Bruised: D, 7 years old
The Bruiser: P, 3 years old
The Implement: plastic trashcan
Lesson Learned: Don't hit your older brother with a trashcan. Also, don't antagonize your younger brother when he has a plastic trashcan close at hand.


(These were taken last week. The bruises have both faded, D's faster than mine. Ah, the amazing healing powers of youth.)

I am a Finder

I have this knack for finding stuff - on the Internet, in the house - keys, wallets, longed-for robots. If it needs finding, I can usually sniff it out. Imagine my consternation when I spent about a half hour or so a couple of nights ago trying to find the cable that we use to download pictures from our camera onto our computer. It wasn't in any of the usual places. Not in the desk drawers, not in the kitchen 'junk' drawer, nor the garage, under any of the beds or in any of the bookshelves.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

I hung my head in defeat. No Christmas pictures to send out this year. (OK, so we haven't taken the photo yet but without the cable the effort was doomed.)

Tonight, I thought I'd try again. I put myself in the place of the cable and thought to myself, "If I were a camera USB cable, where would I hide? Where? WHERE?"

And then it came to me, like that proverbial lightbulb: I would be behind the bookshelf, hiding with the other white cables, trying to camouflage myself.

I found it, I found it! If you had been here, you would have seen me doing a dance of joy in the living room surrounded by my three guys with varying expressions of wonder, confusion and amusement on their faces.

Oh yeah, I've still got it.

My Silver-Tongued Little Devils

P: Mama?
me: Yes?
P: You're my best girl. kiss, kiss, kiss


D: Mama?
me: Yes?
D: The Christmas lights are beautiful...pause for half a beat... and so are you.

Watch out ladies, in about 10-15 years, you are in big, big trouble.

Last Race of the Year

The day dawned cold and clear. Time to head out to Tiburon to catch the ferry to Angel Island and run 12 K. It seemed like such a good idea at the time of sign-up - visit a place we hadn't been before, run as a couple for the first time, run on a trail instead of the pavement. As soon as we left home, I remembered all the things I had forgotten to bring: a hat or a cap, my sunglasses, my wristwatch, sunblock. Bah! Who needs these things? We remembered water and the kids so on we went.

On the way up 880, we ran into not one, not two, but THREE accidents involving a total of six cars. Omen or not? Good thing we had built a cushion into our travel time. We dropped the kids off at my cousin's house, met up with our running friends and caught the ferry. Goals #1, 2, and 3 accomplished. Now all that remained was the run.

Thank goodness we didn't have a really good idea of what the race course was going to be like otherwise I don't think I would have started running in the first place. After a nice flat warm up jog around the picnic area, we started to head uphill. And kept running uphill on switchback, after switchback, after switchback. I kid you not, there must have been at least 10 of these bloody things and every time I looked up all I could see was a stream of runners about 20 or 30 feet above me, running uphill. But, and here's the big but, I didn't feel like I needed to stop running. Once again, I have the Dish to thank because none of the inclines were nearly as steep and evil as the ones on my training runs. M and I had decided early on that we were going to run together the whole way so we just egged each other on, encouraging, pushing. It was a good thing.

The path leveled out and we got an absolutely stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco in the distance - for about 5 seconds. We ran on, not wanting to lose momentum. The trail wound through trees, up and down and around. The ground was moist but not muddy from Tuesday and Thursday's rains. Nice and cushy on the feet. There was a slight breeze and in the sun it felt like it was almost 60 degrees. Not bad for the eighth of December.

We kept track of the distance by time. M would call out "We're starting on our nth minute now, should be about 3/4/whatever miles." At around 60 minutes in, we figured there were about 2 miles or so left and we started heading downhill. The trail looked strangely familiar. Hang on a second, this was what we came up on.

WE RAN UP THIS THING???? No way.

Way.

I felt like I was flying down the last mile. It was awesome. Long strides, I had lots of wind and my legs felt really good. My knees did complain a bit but that faded quickly as we crossed the finish line at exactly the same time. Hooray! We did it!

What a great way to end the 2007 race season. Four events, four shirts, no injuries and many, many wonderful memories.

Time to start planning 2008.

Kokyu Dosa

Many of my classes end with this exercise in breathing, centering, connection and extension.

Find your opponent's center and move it. Don't try to muscle it because against a bigger and stronger person, it just will not work. Make it very subtle, feel for the center, and then just give it a little nudge. Don't get frustrated. Relax.

It looks so easy but it is hard. When you get it right, it is so very cool.

Wicked Windy

It was a windy day today but that's no reason to not go out and run, right?

Right.

I thought I'd turn it off my music for a while. My run takes me through a regional park and alongside a waterway. There are no cars, just an occasional bicyclist or two. There was no silence though. I heard the squawks of the birds - ducks, egrets (or were they herons?), crows - the whoosh of the wind as it rushed through the reeds and the weeds, the thumpety-thump-thump of my shoes as they hit the pavement, the pounding of my heart, my breathing as I tried to keep it even. I tried to clear my mind but I kept coming back to the wind, the wind, the wind.

There's nothing quite like running straight into the wind. The leaves were blowing right at me, every step seemed that much harder and when I finally changed directions and had it at my back, I felt like I was flying. I felt the wind, pushing against me from the front, from the side, from the back.

For a while, it was just me and this amazing force of nature. It is times like this that I really love running.