Physical Training, Physical Torture

Several weeks ago I went to a training session for some kind of medieval euro MMA along with my friend Julia, in a dinner-theater place in Alexandria, Virginia.  The people running it are....interesting.  They told us the following story.....

Long ago in the middle ages knights in certain areas of Europe (Britain??) were taught a unique and distinct fighting style, mixed martial arts combined with swordplay, and it was the deadliest, most effective, efficient combat style in all the land and it was SUPER SECRET such that no one would write down the moves lest the information fall into the hands of the enemy. And so the art was passed down, generation to generation, until eventually it was lost forever as there was no written record. 
Then one day about 10 years ago a woman up in her attic cleaning out things discovered a series of drawings and diagrams which turned out to be an instruction manual on this secret deadly art of combat--someone had illicitly written it down after all and hidden it away for hundreds of years! Anyway, after the drawings surfaced, they attracted a small but cultish following of men and women set on learning this most incredible of all mixed martial arts.  

These people have come across some money, and are investing in a building somewhere possibly in Virginia that they plan to turn into a medieval military training facility where students will be taught the lost art and trained from childhood to adulthood in the ways of battle, chivalry, and honor on a quest for glory and possible world domination. Their vision for this school appears to be much like marine corps training, and only the best, the most fit, the most brilliant will graduate after years of training and testing in both physical and mental arenas.  Graduates of the program will earn KNIGHTHOOD, a most high and esteemed honor granted to a very select and superior few.

Obviously they are going to need instructors for their school, and since there aren't a whole lot of people with background in this particular area, they need to get creative. And so they advertised these free training sessions in order to train a small but elite fighting force that they will eventually hire in full and part time positions at the battle school.  At the end of training, they will review us and determine who the best are, and who they wish to hire on as instructors of KNIGHTS.

After this whole explanation I already began to feel a little concerned about my presence there, but mostly it was just fascinating.  There were 6 of us, plus the leader man, plus his 2 knights there to train the rest of us in knightly pursuits.  Three were men, 2 aged about our age and 1 aged about 40, and then me Julia and a girl our age.  The leader, or "Duke," told Lady Jennifer to take the rest of us "out to the alley" for "PT" which at this point I can only assume stands for Physical Torture.  

When I heard "out to the alley" I raised my hand and inquired, "We will be....outside?"
I received only stares of contempt. 

So I put on my ankle length gigantic puff coat, wrapped my scarf around my face, whined a lot at Julia, and headed outside to the alleyway behind the restaurant.  Upon arrival, I was told to start running, just to "warm up."  So off we went running around Alexandria in the cold winter night air, me in my giant coat and the others in sensible running wear like sweatshirts and those stylish headbands.  

After running a quarter mile, which is more than I have run in 10 years, we returned to our alley where I attempted not to cry.  Lady Jennifer, who was not winded, thought for a moment and said, "Okay, just to warm up....do 20 pushups, sprint to the end of the alley, when you get there do 20 squats, sprint back, do 20 scissor kicks, sprint back, do 20 jumping jacks and I guess we'll go from there."

I raised my hand. "What's a scissor kick?"
I received stares of contempt.  

I had to get down in the alleyway in my coat with my scarf still wrapped around my face and do pushups.  I only did 11 and then acted like I'd done 20 and sprinted off to do the squats.  Which are hard to do in that coat! I really did not have freedom of movement....
Eventually by watching others I discovered that scissor kicks are when you lie on your back and kick your legs up and down straining all of your muscles until you start to cry. I did not want to lie down in the alley but I was also already humiliated enough, so I did. 

After finishing THAT, Lady Jennifer had us do a minute of planking, which I will not even describe to you but it is basically horrifying. And also involves lying down in the alley. 

Remember also it is FEBRUARY OUTSIDE.  

I have never been more unhappy.  

Eventually we did get to learn a bit of the swordplay which was super awesome, but we were STILL OUTSIDE so I was still very unhappy.  It was pretty interesting though....in some ways very similar to fencing but of course in other ways extremely different.  

Only 15 minutes into sword lessons in the back alley, I turned to Julia and said, "I'm going home."  

I left her there. 

And that is my medieval European mixed martial arts experience. Julia is continuing on, and perhaps can continue telling us tales about the weirdness. 

Ovens

Every once in awhile I forget that you cannot take a pan out of an oven with your bare hands.

Virginia

Most of you are familiar with my infinite hatred of Virginia. I am big enough to admit right now that about 30% of my hatred is irrational. But Virginia does have some serious, real issues.  For example, they have a habit of closing entrances to major roads or put up road block signs, or tear out entire sections of important roads and then NOT PUT UP DETOUR SIGNS. Just the ominous ROAD CLOSED signs.

Can Virginia not AFFORD detour signs? Do they think it's FUNNY? I personally do NOT think it is funny, because I have the same conversation over and over again, alone in my car.

RoadBlockSign: YOU SHALL NOT PASS.
Me: Are you KIDDING ME? This could have been so simple. Where am I supposed to go now?
RoadBlockSign: DON'T CARE, MOTHERFUCKER. THIS IS VIRGINIA WHERE NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR WELL-BEING.
Me: All right punk, I'm just going to take out my GPS and find a new road! Because I am an ADULT!
GPS: Acquiring satellite.
Me: That's cool, I'll just sit here parked in front of this stranger's house while you take your time. No rush.
GPS: Acquring satellite.
Me: You do what you gotta do, I'll just continue wasting my $4.20/gallon gas while you mess around in space.
GPS: Acquiring satellite.
Me: Are you fucking serious???
GPS: You're so funny when you're mad. All right, head straight.
Me: No, that's the road block. That's why I turned you on.
GPS: I really think we should go straight.
Me: We cannot go straight. This is my problem.
GPS: We can run right over this thing, it's not very high.
Me: I am not doing that.
GPS: No, we can take it. A Toyota Camry is very much like a tank.
Me: This is bullshit. I'm just going to drive off in a random direction for awhile until you recalculate.
GPS: I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Me: Watch me.
GPS: Oh, it's on bitch. It's on. Recalculating.
Me: I WIN
GPS: Make a right.
Me: That makes NO sense, we want to go the opposite direction. Why on earth would we turn right?
GPS: I have a good feeling about it.
Me: Just like you had a good feeling about Wilmington, Delaware??
GPS: Just like that.
Me: Oh no no no no no no. I'm going left, recalculate THAT.
GPS: Now you've done it.

And then of course I'm stuck wandering in circles around US-66 or US-29 or Virginia Avenue as my GPS beats me into submission so that it can take me backwards and forwards with evil glee up and down the same eight blocks of the same goddamn road JUST FOR FUN.  All because VIRGINIA can't put up some damn DETOUR SIGNS. And this ALWAYS happens in the middle of the night where you can't even go the old fashioned route of stopping at a gas station for directions.

Fucking Virginia.

The Lunch Exchange

I have a friend who works in the building directly across the street from my office.  This has been going on for over 1.5 years now, and in that time, we have gone out to lunch a lot. A lot. 

After doing something of a cost analysis, we determined that we were wasting an extraordinarily large amount of money on lunches in restaurants during the week. Neither of us were especially motivated to cook for ourselves when we had a perfectly good lunching buddy so close. 

About six weeks ago we decided to put a new plan into action: The Great Lunch Exchange. This is a project wherein each of us cooks something Sunday night and divides it into four Tupperware containers. On Monday afternoons at 12:00, we meet mysteriously on a street corner and trade TWO of our four containers for two containers of DIFFERENT FOOD.  In this way we have four low cost meals for the week, and then pick one day to go out. GENIUS.

Except, of course, I am a disaster at cooking.  

One recent Sunday I decided to make a broccoli cheddar quiche. I bought the cheddar, I bought the broccoli, I bought premade frozen pie crusts, and got ready to bake my quiche on Sunday night. 

Immediately I hit a major disaster in that upon reading the box with the pre-made frozen pie crusts, it informed me I needed to defrost the crusts for 24 hours. I decided that was ridiculous. I needed to make my quiche NOW. 

"I will microwave these crusts!" I said, pleased with myself for coming up with a brilliant quick defrosting idea.

"DO NOT MICROWAVE CRUSTS!" responded the package, in very large unmistakable letters.

"Then...I...will....hold the package over my space heater for twenty minutes!" I said.

"No one has ever thought of doing something quite that stupid before," said the package. "Clearly we will have to revise our warning label."

I took the box of pie crusts and held it over my space heater for 20 minutes. 

This was less effective than you may have imagined.  I tried rolling the pie crust over my pie baking pan. It immediately fell to pieces. Instead of going out and getting a new pie crust, I chose to cobble all the pieces together at the bottom of the pan, painstakingly putting tiny bits together like puzzle pieces.  When I was out of pieces, I looked at the bottom of the pan through all the gaping holes of pie crust and said, "Screw it!"  And poured the quiche mixture in anyway.  

Knowing my propensity for burning things in ovens, I set the oven timer for 20 minutes and put the quiche in the oven.  I immediately walked away and went to my room in the opposite end of the house, shut the door, and turned on a movie. 

Forty minutes later I went downstairs for an ice cream bar and heard the beeping and wondered what it was. 

But only for a moment. 

I raced to the oven and pulled out my bubbling burning darkened quiche.  I decided to make another quiche. 

I started the entire process over again, space heater, puzzle pieces and all. 

Except this time when I put it in the oven and set the timer I set up a chair six feet away and sat in it staring intently at the oven until the beeper went off. 

It wasn't bad, actually. And if anyone has ideas for new recipes to cook for Sunday, that would be appreciated. 

Pretty Little Liars

I'm not much of a liar. Not that I've never done it, especially in recent weeks, during which time the lying has spiraled a little out of control (but don't worry--I've never lied to YOU). But my lies have been quite rare, mostly because I've never seen the point in bothering. I have no secrets, I have no real boundaries--I'll tell anyone anything.  Probably more than most people might wish. 

As a child, I lied a few times to my parents, but I confessed within hours every single time, with only one exception. My little soul was overburdened by the guilt and I would burst into tears and blurt out the whole truth. Once I turned 16 probably I told a few more lies, but honestly I can't even remember any. There never seemed to be any point; my mother would discover the truth immediately no matter what I did or didn't do with uncanny magical abilities. So it never seemed worth the effort of going through something I knew would fail anyway. 

However, there is one time in my childhood that I told a lie and NEVER admitted to it. Until now. 

I was 6 or 7 years old. My father and I were in the bathroom one morning before school and he was trying to force me to wash my face properly.  During the course of the process he got water all over my clothes which is something I have never been able to abide, and still cannot to this day (seriously, just try me. I turn into a gremlin). I was so angry that when he turned his back to leave the room, I grabbed a nearby roll of toilet paper and threw it directly at his head. Startled, and rightly so, my father turned around and saw the roll of toilet paper lying on the ground by his feet and then looked at me, staring at him. 

"Did you just throw a roll of toilet paper at my head?" asked my father.

In a stroke of child genius, I looked him straight in the eye and said, "No!"

There was, of course, no one else in the bathroom. There was not even anyone else in the HOUSE. And yet there I stood, staring my father down, insisting that I had NOT just thrown a roll of toilet paper at his head. 

Of all the lies I could have told as a child, we will never know why it was THIS particular one I decided was the one to go with. 

Obviously my father was so incredibly shocked that I had chosen to lie about this, he spent several seconds clearly having absolutely no idea how to even respond. After a few moments of tense silence and staring, he burst out laughing and simply left the room. And we never discussed it again. 

And to this day, it remains THE ONLY lie to my parents I have ever managed to maintain consistently for any length of time. And it is only because my father was so shocked and then amused that he simply never questioned it or brought it up again. 

Extra Poor Decision

Worst of all decisions:

Giving your parents the link to your blog about your bad choices, and then forgetting you gave your parents the link to the blog about your bad choices and then having them confront you.

Grandmothers in Boots

I don't know about your grandmother, but mine is a TERRIBLE DECISION MAKER.
I am pretty sure I get it entirely from her.

For instance, yesterday evening Grandmother shows up at the front door covered in blood.
Her clothes have dried blood stains all over, she's bleeding from the face, and she explains that she tripped and fell down an escalator in the Seattle airport. The concerned onlookers called 911 and the paramedics came and bandaged her bleeding knees etc., and tried to get her to a hospital. She refused to go and insisted they let her on her plane. STILL BLEEDING FROM THE FACE.

They made her sign a waiver.

She made it all the way back to the house like this, luckily with no broken bones or internal bleeding. We're standing there, discussing her CONTINUED BLEEDING when she sees the new high heeled boots I've just bought myself.

My grandmother, STILL COVERED IN BLOOD FROM TRIPPING, tells me dead serious, "I am going shopping for high heeled boots just like those! And I will wear them with black tights! Because that is the fashion!"  When I stared at her with incredulity, she added, "But some women also wear those tight jeans...should I get tight jeans? Can't I just wear black tights? Do I need both? ....what size are YOUR shoes? Will I fit?"

I am hiding all of my shoes from my grandmother. She thinks she's getting her own this weekend. I may hide the keys to her car.