What a Day!

I should have realized that something odd was going on when I returned from work this morning around half-past-four. One of my upstairs neighbors was running the clothes drier at that uncharacteristic hour. When I woke up at half-past-seven, I saw that there was a text message from my landlady- the furnace had conked out, and one of the upstairs tenants had called her. My plucky neighbor had probably thrown a few blankets in the drier to warm them up... pretty crafty. It wasn't too bad in my apartment, but I had no incentive to dawdle before leaving the house for my volunteer coaching gig.

We had a full complement of four 35 minute classes- girls eleven and up, girls nine and ten, girls seven and under, and boys seven and under. I had a kinda gross moment when one girl, a beautiful child of five or six, sneezed out a two-inch long snot column... I told her not to move a muscle, and got a tissue so I could clean up this prodigy before she wiped her nose with her sleeve. The boys' class was crowded, so we went over falling roll-outs, a couple of throwing techniques, and then let the kids play randori. A couple of the fathers are 'weekend warrior' types, and they got on the mats to give their kids pointers, which completely pissed off my friend, the Moroccan George Clooney, who is one of the nicest, sweetest individuals I've ever met. He was still pissed after we hit the showers, and we discussed the imposition of a 'no parents on the mat' policy. None of the girls' parents ever pulls this- in fact, we have a particular favorite dad who is a wrestler (he was also a competitive diver and male model in college, which amuses us to no end), who we enjoy having on the mat- he even works out with us, because there is a lot of overlap between judo and certain types of wrestling. Funny how dudes never seem to need to live vicariously through their girls. Our best girl fighter is a twelve year old who is big for her age, strong, and very smart- her dad is an athlete and a sports medicine doctor, an all-around gentlemen... he never feels the need to tell us how to do our coaching gig.

I finally got home around half-past-two, and the heat in the house had been fixed- yay, landlady! Shortly afterwards, I received a call from some good friends who were visiting the Hudson River Museum, a jewel in the crown of the City of Y______, a place I visit every couple of months. I told them I would meet them there and we wandered through the Red Grooms exhibit, which my friend K. described as 'walking through a childrens' book', before hitting the planetarium show. Admission to the museum is six dollars, the planetarium show is four- I could have used my company ID for a reciprocal free admission, but this was ten dollars well-spent. For the record, I love the fact that my beloved city has a museum and planetarium, and want to make sure I support the museum with my wallet.

I had to bop out after the planetarium show to get to work, knowing that I would have two hungry kittehs waiting for me. They can be quite forceful when it comes to feeding time. It's been quiet on the job, which is a good thing, because it's been a long, busy day... just the sort of productive day which serves well to distract one from politics for a spell.