Andy's Blog

I won’t dwell on the week that has just passed as it has been one of *THE* most painful, physically, that I have experienced for a long while.. but more importantly my previous post went through a complete rant on how I wouldn’t mention this kind of thing again, and it seems a little churlish to make the following post completely ignore that half-baked promise.

Instead I shall concentrate on what I know now that I didn’t know last week;

• The song “Turning Japanese” by The Vapors is about masturbation, whacking-one-off, spanking the monkey, etc, etc… Seriously, I didn’t know Officer!
• You can make scrambled eggs in the microwave!  This was a moment of epiphany for me and smacks of witchcraft and necromancy.  I haven’t actually seen this devilry in action, but I have been told in good authority that this is actually possible.
• “But it’s alright if you act like a turd, ’cause i like….. birds” is both awesome *AND* perfectly acceptable as lyrics for a song.
• Abdominal muscles when they involuntarily spasm and tighten, for two whole days, is eye wateringly painful *AND* makes it almost impossible to poop.  I missed the pooping.
• Spaghetti does not grow on trees.  I am still getting this one confirmed, am not entirely convinced.
• Calling a surgeon “Doctor” is considered an insult by them… that’s one to file away for future reference, but only for AFTER they’ve had their hands in your innards.
• It *IS* possible to make peas taste worserererer

I try, as a general rule, to maintain an air of general ignorance at all times – however these little snippets did manage to permeate my thick noggin, which I now pass onto you for your delectation and hope that you find them as useful as I did.

Laters…

Beer, pizza, mindless violence, hyper-active kids, cider, karate, mad dashes across Northamptonshire, troubleshooting wireless access points, kung-fu in a film with karate in the title, pill popping, weak-ass shower switching between nut-shrivellingly-cold and skin-searingly-hot, missing a birthday party, talking-about-love-n-life, kiddies roller disco party, tea, more tea, COFFEE, fighting, laughing, Iron Maiden, bruises, yoda, young love, old friends, full english breakfast, kids up till 3am, Jackie Chan overload, grading, teasing, expectations, throwing up, winding down, blogging, snoozing…

How was your weekend?

The large yellow glowing object, so very foreign to these shores, has made an appearance in the large blue expanse above our heads.  The birds are out, feathered variety I hasten to add, flowers are blooming and all around are more pale skinny legs than you could shake a proverbial stick at – yes, summer has arrived!  In an uncomfortably sticky way.

I like Summer, I really do, however anything above 18c and I really *REALLY* begin to suffer.  Unfortunately, for some of my colleagues, adding Karate to this “uncomfort” has the frankly undesirable effect of me producing copious amounts of sweat.

This past week has been full on with Karate; a Seminar weekend, teaching classes and attending senior training.  I think I may have lost twice my body weight in delicate perspiration.. or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Ah well, as a great philosopher once intoned, “The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devils own satanic herd”… although he probably never had to wrestle with a fragrantly soaked 16oz heavyweight Gi whilst trying to air it.

..and it is this sweatiness that I shall use as an excuse for the black eye I received at the seminar, that or ninjas!  Lots and lots of Ninjas!  That’ll keep my students quiet and not asking why I didn’t “block” the offending punch.

I think this Summer is gonna be a long and steamy one from a karate perspective.  Which’ll be fun, especially at grading time – running around trying to catch wilting students before they face-plant the dojo floor.  I also have the slightly uncomfortable feeling that this coming July grading shares the same  space as one’s day of birth.

*sigh*… ok, time to go and practise my kicks (which are woeful at the moment) and think of some more excuses as to why I’ve gotten the shiner before my students asks any hard questions.

Oh, and a *HUGE* Big Up and best wishes to Libby, Darren, Jackie, Paul and Roy who are off to the Black Belt Grading on Sunday.. You’ll storm it guys!

It doesn’t matter how many karate lessons you take, the grade of your belt, the years of practise, blood, sweat n tears invested, extracted and demanded by your Sensei.. or even the years of accumulated experience gained through 40 years of what life has thrown at you.  Nothing really quite prepares you for being attacked by a stationary pillar!

There was no attempted block, or retaliatory strike, as the aforementioned stationary pillar maliciously jumped out at me whilst I was looking elsewhere… the “KYAI” was also absent, although it was replaced with a kind of muffled “Gnnfff!” noise.

I now have a slightly sore head, a bruised arse (whence I landed), a cheezy look on my face and I’m thinking about taking my pride to A&E.

A reconstruction follows…

Also, if I do get a facial bruise, and Sensei asks anyone; I was attacked by 10 or 20 ninjas… or Sarah and her phantom belly button! (in joke, but once she reads this the outcome will be the same as 10-20 ninjas).

*sigh*

Bravery Award

“Hmmmm, we have two options” explained the Doctor as he prodded and poked my thumb.

“Number one; we inject here and here”, he pointed to either side of my thumb, “wait for the anaesthetic to kick in and manipulate your thumb back into place.  Of course it will mean your whole hand will be numb for a while which’ll affect your driving, etc.”

OK, so option #1 wasn’t too clever; I needed to drive back to work and then do my usually tappity-tappity-tapping on the computer.  Time for me to ask the obvious..

“So what’s optio…” *CRACK!*

“AAAaaarrrggghhh….

…”

“Finished?” the Doctor asked as he peeled me from the ceiling and sat back into his chair.

“Sorry about that, but I tend to find the surprise approach works best in these situations” he continued.

“Fuuuuu….” I whimpered. “So why did you jump back too?” I asked.

The doctor laughed.  “I’m on rotation with the Army, you try that move with a Soldier and his first reaction is to deck you.  Seeing as this is a martial arts injury, I thought it best to give you the same wide berth”.

I had to laugh at that as he put a support on my wrist and hand area.

“All done, you can go now”

“What no lollipop?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any, but you can have an m&m for being brave.”

I of course had to take it, I rather felt I deserved it.  As I got up and made my way to the door the Doctor did have one last question.

“Spunk monkey? I’ve not heard that expletive before, that’s really rather good although I’m not sure it’s something I can fit into a conversation very easily”

I left, hastily…

“It’s dislocated”

…and with that proclamation the Nurse confirmed my latest Karate related injury, from a tournament 3 weeks back, and then went on to put the fear of God into me;

“Do you want to know how it’s fixed?”

She knows me well.  Now this is something that I have freely admitted to in the past, and is the source of much amusement amongst certain most Senseis within GKR Region 33 (and as it turns out most of the Senseis of Region 55 too!), that I am not the most ‘unsqueamish’ of people.

Although, truth be told, I have a fairly good idea, I answered “Probably best I don’t know”.  There’s plenty of scope within my life for self denial.  And with that I have an appointment with the Doctor to “fix” me, a sense of foreboding and a growing appreciation of the opposable thumb;

• Great for gripping liquid containers such as tea mugs and more importantly PINTS OF BEER!
• Writing or drawing becomes somewhat easier with this appendage.  My writing was never the neatest in the world, now it’s damn near unintelligible (even a Doctor would be embarrassed).
• Stops you from shaking other peoples hands like a wet fish, and also pulling this funny kind of face when they insist on pulling some sort of Vulcan death grip on your hand.
  

  Nice to meet Yoooooeeeoow!

“You’ve been here a few times with Karate related injuries haven’t you Andy?  Are you any good?”

..and with those parting words from the Nurse I sloped out of the Surgery somewhat more depressed than I entered.