d! great news! I'm so glad.

In Trudy Fighting News:

Class last night rawked, but now that the weather is cold pretty much as soon as I step outside after class my left leg locks up like a locking thing. Oy. I'm going to have to start wearing leg warmers, aren't I?

Beautiful Former Instructor was, for whatever reason, wearing clothes last night instead of his usual gi. Oh dear. Now I know what jeans were invented for... And if you're going to wear a t-shirt, must it be one with a big winged sort of design on it? Some peoples chests? Impossibly broad. Like, you can't see around them broad. You needed to emphasize that? Dear LORD. Gah.

Erin is going to meet me at my school next week when we hang out. There she will come in from the cold and use the potty and, possibly, look at fighter boys. Mmmm fighter boys.

And finally, I did a right round kick last night that nearly knocked the person holding the pad on her ass. Suh-weet.

Today is payday. I seem to have gotten a spot bonus - both a cash bonus and a non-cash something that I have paid taxes on. Ummmm, thanks? I mean, bonus's are nice and all, but I have no clue what this is for or who it is from or what the non-cash thing is. Not complaining, just confused. Appreciative, but confused.

Thank you, universe?

d, that's wonderful news. Go team regenerating bone! Wishing your dad empty roads and much pleasurable driving, right soon.

And more excellent news, bonny. I never seem to use any of my own store of Zen, so I'm sending you as much as you need for dealing with Gordon. When you start to run low, you can just remind yourself you've got an emergency tank of back-up Zen ready to go.

Poor Dylan! One of my brothers had terrible asthma as a kid, so bad that he didn't sleep lying down once between the ages of 2 and 14. Then he outgrew it, and now he's the only one of us who doesn't suffer from crippling seasonal allergies. I'm vibing "Outgrow!" vibes at Dylan right now.

Must now go, as Matilda needs changing. Which will be agonizing, as over the last couple of weeks she's suddenly become hideously transition-averse. Clothed is fine, naked is fine, but that time in between when garments are being added to or subtracted from her person is punctuated with unearthly shrieking and yowling and floods of tears. My only consolation is that she does it with Hec, too, which mitigates the overwhelming sense that I am a complete failure as a mother who is torturing her child with brutal abusive applications of fabric.

Oh, poor Dylan! As a fellow asthma sufferer, I am so empathetic to the little guy. And poor mom and dad too. So scary for everyone.

Good news, d!

Suzi, insent in a minute.

I am a complete failure as a mother who is torturing her child with brutal abusive applications of fabric.

Awwww...poor JZ! So not true.

And more excellent news, bonny. I never seem to use any of my own store of Zen, so I'm sending you as much as you need for dealing with Gordon. When you start to run low, you can just remind yourself you've got an emergency tank of back-up Zen ready to go.

Bless you.

This is exactly the visualization I will use. I, unlike Jonathan, did get the jetpack...and I'm gonna use it!

I am a complete failure as a mother who is torturing her child with brutal abusive applications of fabric.

In our neighborhood, the houses are all very close together and the windows are always open. The other night, I brushed Ellie's teeth when she didn't want me to and she ran screaming into the bathroom, "Mommy - I don't want to" only in Spanish and kept screaming and crying for a good 10 minutes.

I just pray the neighbors are understanding and don't think I"m a terrible, abusive mother. (Because, of course, if she said "don't brush my teeth" no one would listen, probably but just "I don't want to" could mean anything is happening to her.)

I think my most mortifying mother moment was surveying all of a 5 year old K-Bug's bruises at a doctor's appointment. Who knew an active kid could get herself so banged up on the playground...

I just pray the neighbors are understanding and don't think I"m a terrible, abusive mother. (Because, of course, if she said "don't brush my teeth" no one would listen, probably but just "I don't want to" could mean anything is happening to her.)

Oh you poor thing!

Do you have enough Spanish for a nice loud "Ellie! I'm going to brush your teeth if it takes all night!"?

I think my most mortifying mother moment was surveying all of a 5 year old K-Bug's bruises at a doctor's appointment. Who knew an active kid could get herself so banged up on the playground...

Famous family story.

My Father was a little boy, four or five, and his Mom was making pancakes. He kept running into the kitchen and bugging her with sillly things. Finally, she turned and yelled at him, shaking the spatula as she told him to cut it out.

It was an old-school spatula, big and heavy. As she shook it, head flew off the handle and clocked my Father above the eye. Naturally, this bled like hell.

They took him to the hospital, my Grandmother was MORTIFIED. And then it got worse...

Doctor: Billy, what happened to your head?

Dad: I was running in the house and I'm not supposed to. I tripped and hit my head on the radiator.

My Father was trying to COVER FOR HIS MOM! And they always told him if he ran in the house he's split his head open on the radiator so he went with that!

My poor Grandmother fell apart and started telling the doctor that not only had she hurt her own son, she hadn't coached him to lie about it. Since none of their eight children was ever abused he believed her. Can you imagine if that happened now?