Few things in life irritate me more than rotten kids.  As in, kids who don't know how to behave, who speak back to their parents, who think they are the center of everyone's world, who don't have manners.  Most, if not all, of that can be attributed to the parents who don't do anything to address bad behavior.  But topping the list are the times that kids are just downright cruel.

Kid2 is very social.  While he can happily play by himself for hours, he loves to be with people, talking, playing, having a good time and generally, he's just a happy-go-lucky kid who wants nothing more than to get some good fun in before it's time to settle for the day. He loves to play outside with his friends.

On Wednesday, he came in the house crying almost hysterically.  Apparently a couple of his "friends" were picking on him & were making fun of him for taking Kung Fu (something that he's very happy doing and is pretty good at it, IMHO).  No reason, one boy just gets a mean streak in him & is rotten to pretty much anyone around him, but he generally seems to hone in on one person. That day it happened to be Kid2.  It was essentially 2 against 1, so rather than stay outside & be ridiculed, Kid2 came in.  I think the underlying theme was that he's a sissy because Kung Fu/Martial Arts aren't a "real" sport, as these kids see it.  When I pointed out to Kid2 that because of his Kung Fu, he has the ability to kick someone's butt if they ever tried to pick a fight with him, he said, "Yeah, but I can't use it on them, because that wouldn't be right, even though they're picking on me and making me mad". (He knows the Kung Fu School creed really well).

So my heart broke a little for him, in that even the kids who are supposed to be his friends are cruel to him because he can do something that they can't, or because they don't understand it.  It really burns me up because while Kid2 can dish it out sometimes as good as he gets it, he's not the type of kid to randomly turn cruel on someone and ridicule them just because it occurs to him to do so.  He just wants to be friends & play nice.

To add to this frustration, when I opened up the front door this morning, I found a Yu-Gi-Oh card (like Pokemon) on our front porch -- torn up & thrown at the front door.  I can't swear that the card belonged to Kid2, but if it didn't, I can pretty much guess that whoever did that, did it to irritate Kid2. The cards - both Yu-Gi-Oh & Pokemon, were big last week, and the same kids who were making fun of Kid2 were trading cards & looking at each other's card collections, so I have a pretty good idea of who tore up the card & threw it at the front door.  I'm just hoping that it wasn't one of Kid2's special cards - I hope whichever little brat did that tore up one of their own thinking it would be funny.

Tonight Kid2, aka the Nonnieman (his nickname for himself) did his belt test at the kung fu studio to move from yellow/green belt to green belt. 

I've been a bit worried about this test, mostly because he missed so many classes in the past few weeks because he's been sick.  Their form has been based on the Snake style of Kung Fu, and it involves many rapid hand movements and body turns.  Some days I would have a hard time keeping up with the movements that were being taught.  To help things along, we got Kid2 the DVD that accompanies the class, showing the form being broken down into it's major sections & completed.

Going in, I felt fairly confident he would do okay.

Okay? He rocked the house! At the end of testing, the instructors announce the results (everyone passed!) and the top score on the test.  And tonight's top score was our very own, Nonnieman -- aka as "intensity" on the mats.

I'm still tickled with pride over this.  I know he works hard, and I know the instructors are very good at getting the kids to work on their forms.  Even though this is the kids' age group (it goes up to age 11) the work they have to do as they advance through training isn't easy -- 1 minute of good crunches (and they do watch to make sure the kids are doing them); 50 jumping jacks, 20 pushups (Nonnie did advanced, meaning clap-pushups instead of shoulder slap pushups) 1 minute of Horse stance (not easy to maintain).  They also did some of the basic snake moves outside of the form, stranger defense, and then the form itself.

Not easy.  But our kid aced it!

Okay, so most of the people in the kickboxing class I go to are women.  But it's usually taught by a guy, and occasionally there are men working out along with the rest of us femmes.

Us femmes aren't all that feminine when we're there.  Is there anything female or sexy about throwing punches/shadowboxing, or putting on gloves & hitting some bags?  Pushups aren't very ladylike either.

But I've decided why I like this so much - as opposed to going to someplace like Curves or trying to workout to videos is that I like working out with guys.  I know I'll never be able to put as much into a punch or a kick, but it's much more fun to do a work out that a challenges a guy, instead of dancing around doing aerobics in fluffy little outfits.

I guess I'm not very ladylike.  But it sure is fun!

I always have a small laugh as I head into my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning workout.

The place where I work out, the American Institute of Martial Arts (or AMAI) is located in a shopping center, 2 doors down from a Dress Barn clothing store.

I usually park in a row of spaces that is in between the clothing store & the martial arts place.

As I'm getting out of my Jeep, in my workout clothes, carrying my water bottle & my MMA (mixed martial arts) boxing gloves, the ladies who work at Dress Barn are getting out of their cars, dressed in heels and fashion jewelry & skirts and blouses and dress slacks.  On more than one occasion, I've noticed them giving me a once over, taking in my sporty attire and boxing gloves with something akin to a shudder.

And as I head in, I reflect on the fact that it was only 12 short years ago that I was working full time, getting dressed up every day to head into the office, in heels and skirts and blouses & dress slacks.  Instead, 3 mornings a week, I spend almost an hour and a half kickboxing and doing various (easy) martial arts moves to stay in shape. 

I may not look as nice as the Dress Barn ladies in my yoga pants and sneakers ... but I bet I can kick all their butts!

That's what my son would say when he was bent out of shape about something a few years ago ... "Mommy, I'm 'tated!"  It was a stand-in for "irritated", much like his combo word "irrinoyed" (irritated +annoyed) or "annoytated" (annoyed + irritated).

But 'Tated pretty much it ...

Today, when we came out of church and walked to my Jeep, I paused about 10 feet away.  From that far away, I could tell that someone had hit the rear passenger door on the driver's side.  Obviously, it was hit with a vehicle door, because of the straight-ish line damage on the door, and obviously by an SUV much higher than my average size Jeep Liberty.

Above the strip that runs along the center of the vehicle doors front to back, there's a white streak.  The strip itself, which is almost an inch thick at its thickest point, is gouged, and there's a hefty dent under that, where the bottom of the offending vehicle's door slammed into my Jeep's door.  In short, this isn't a little ding.  It's definitely over $100 worth of damage, possibly $200.  While that's not a huge amount of money, this is from a door being smashed into my car -- most likely, given the gusty winds today, someone's car door got pulled by the wind.  Nick said it looks like they had to yank to get the door pulled away from the Jeep (where it sank deep into the strip that runs along the side panel) so it wasn't like they didn't realize they had done damage.

I look at my windshield.  No note left under the wiper.

I'm trying to be charitable & think - okay, it's a windy day.  Maybe the person left a note & it blew away.  But the general direction of the wind would have held a note down to my windshield if left under the wiper - I was parked pretty much head into the prevailing winds.  Okay, maybe it was a kid, and the door they opened got away from them, and they didn't realize ... but wrenching their door out of the side of my car shoud've alerted the adult driver that some damage was done.  If nothing else, there will be damage to their vehicle, too -- at the very least, a goodish amount of Patriot Blue paint on their door.

Maybe it's silly to be irritated by this, but I am.  I like my Jeep; while I was okay with my previous car, I really enjoy driving around in my little Liberty, and while I've had to deal with a door ding or two, this is actual damage. Once again we'll (or our insurance, depending on how high the estimate is in relation to our deductible) be footing a repair bill for something that wasn't our fault.  And I guess it really irks me that it happened at church of all places -- couldn't the person have waited for us to come out, to 'fess up to the damage???

Kid2: "This game isn't working!!!" (playing on the PC)

Kid1: (Upon hearing Kid2's exclamation) "Why are you playing my game anyway?" (Her new Rollercoaster Tycoon game, received for Christmas)

Kid2: "You told me I could"

Kid1: "No I didn't!"

Kid2: "Yes, You did!"

Kid1: "You never asked!!"

Me: "Yes, he did ... he went into your room about a half hour ago, I heard him ask you."

Kid1: "I was asleep!"

Kid2: "You nodded your head yes!"

Kid1: "If I'm asleep and I nod my head, it doesn't mean Yes!!!"

And that is the essence of male-female communications, whether they be sister-brother, boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife or father-daughter. 

I decided that today would be better spent Christmas shopping than trying to tidy up the house.  After all, it's much more fun, and probably less frustrating than trying to sort through the mounds of toys that are cluttering up our den.

It was a good day for Christmas shopping -- a little overcast but not completely gray, a bit of chill to the air, but not so bad that I had to bundle up.  I was doing really well today until I was in Michael's, of all places. 

I was in the Christmas aisle, looking at their Christmas village merchandise, and trying to decide what I wanted to add to my collection.  I don't have much room to set up a village, but I wanted to get some people or animals or something to go along with the buildings.

As I stood there, a man came around the corner & started looking at the village merchandise, too. I don't know why, exactly, but something about him reminded me of Pop.  He didn't look like him, didn't have any of his mannerisms -- maybe it was just that he was there, looking at the Christmas village, and it made me think of  the Christmas village that Pop had, and would put up in the bay window at the house.  Whatever it was, I felt like a ghost was standing next to me, and I missed Pop so much that I almost burst into tears in the middle of the store.  I grabbed a random accessory (turned out to be pine trees, already have a few of those, I think!) and left.

A bit later, I was coming out of JC Penney's, walking back to the Jeep.  As I walked through the parking lot, a man got out of a car and started walking in.  He had blond hair, wearing a flannel shirt and brown cords, and a vest.  He was the same size and build as Pop, and about the same age as Pop would be.  Once again, I felt a ghost pass by - although I managed to keep myself from tearing up this time.

I guess it's no coincidence that this happened on the 4 year anniversary of Pop's death.  It always hits me harder when I'm Christmas shopping, or when I hear "Oh Holy Night", which was Pop's favorite Christmas song.  I guess Christmas will always be linked to Pop in my mind, and I'll have to always be a little sad in the middle of being happy.

Miss you, Pop.

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Woman left in CT scanner for hours - Health Care - MSNBC.com

I find this scary.  In a nutshell, the woman was to have a CT scan to see if her cancer had spread.  The procedure was to take 25 minutes, and the technician told her to relax & dimmed the lights.  The woman couldn't tell how long she was in the machine (couldn't see a clock) and couldn't hear anything going on around her.  By the time she finally freed herself from the CT machine, the room, and got into the outer office, 5 hours had passed since she went in, the office was locked, and everyone had gone home. 

"People have been left in the office after hours, when something like that happens — it's the same sort of thing," Dr. Steven Ketchel said. "My guess is she was lying on the table, waiting and waiting and nobody told her she could go home."

It's happened before?  Maybe someone should institute an office check.  Bathrooms empty? Check.  Computers off? Check. Lights out? Check. CT Machine empty --- ooops!!! "Get dressed & go home" ...

As a mild claustrophobe I think I probably would've been out of the machine before it was done trying to scan me.  Maybe, when the woman didn't hear any machinery for a few minutes, she should have realized that the procedure was done and called it a day.  But the thought of being inside a machine for hours?  H-o-r-r-i-f-y-i-n-g!!!