This post took close to 4 hours to write which means I cannot now be bothered to think of a title

[EDITORIAL NOTE: Am behind in answering comments, sorry abt that, but delighted that there are so many new people! Welcome, where are you all coming from?? Also, am flabbergasted by your response to my ranting at the end of previous post. If you knew what I felt like writing you’d realise I wrote in a rather benign and neutral manner. And if you knew the whole story you’d laud my restraint, especially considering the very recent naff cat postcard accompanied by a criticising, self-serving letter masquerading as contrition and I hope this was the last of its kind – any kind really.]

CuTEnEss!!!
Yesterday Ana and I finally – FINALLY! - managed to meet. She is almost unbearably cute with her simultaneously tiny and humungous belly. Too ready to pop, Ana is. [Think kind vaginal thoughts for her please ] She brought her daughter along, much to the child’s dismay. I was obviously a stranger and did not remotely look like green grass, which was what she wanted to play with, nor did I show much of an inclination to join her on the floor where she diligently kept perfecting an already flawless breaststroke. Furthermore, I seemed to feel the need to eat, thereby influencing her mother to act likewise, instead of calmly explaining to the mother why she should be leaving with her much neglected offspring already. Ana was exactly what I thought she would be like, only free range and with a voice - most disturbing.

SAUGUT
Saugut [see sidebar and The Needy Pig] is a private joke, just between me and every German-speaking person. It means "sow good", "swine good", which in turn means "brilliant!" in German. See? I AM hilarious. [Udge - no one else speaks German, right? Lurkers? - I'm surprised you didn't remark upon it, little Saugut didn't quite catch your fancy?]

VE-VE-VOOM!
I have been lured by the charm of Veronica Mars. I started watching and thought Oh no, not another series abt teenagers and their angst-ridden wardrobes big cars Gucci bags lives [the 2 OC episodes I watched in horror *many a furball* still being very much on my mind] – and then it turned into Oh. Oh. That’s interesting! – which was then further replaced by Bloody hell why haven’t the other episodes downloaded yet, GO VERONICA!

OPEN LETTER TO CAT
Cat, wake me up again at 6 am.
No, seriously.
No, go on, WAKE ME UP AGAIN AT 6 AM if you want to co-write Misery: My Life As A Migrant Invalid.

HOW THE LIONESS GOT HER *insert as needed* KICKED
Yes.

Contact Combat indeed. Krav Maga, remeber? KM is how Jen.Lopez managed to defeat Rotten Hubby in that one movie, remember how precise and lethal are movements looked? [Here are some videoclips, I’ve never watched them but they are bound to be interesting]. I've started lessons and if my belly doesn’t soon end up looking like this there will be much grief all around. In the meantime there is pain, there is a whole array of pain and on so many different levels.

General Pain Level:
For you to fully understand this you must realise that I haven’t done any sports since I stopped riding, which must have happened around 1992. Gah. I am in horrible shape, I AM IN HORRIBLE SHAPE! I am in the worst shape you could imagine. I seem to be using my lung capacity better now that I’ve quit smoking but I have no stamina, no muscle definition, I AM AN AMORPHOUS SACK OF AMORPHOUS BLOBS CONNECTED BY AMORPHOUS BLURBS!

Did you know that before starting the ass-kicking itself one needs to warm up? I’d blocked all that from my mind and instead chose to believe I’d be urged to softly rotate my joints, careful not to displace any tiny microscopic creatures worthy of our respect that may be nesting there.

[Chorus: Look here, there will be running you know. That’s what combat sports’ warming up is all about.
Lioness: Oh rubbish! I shall not run.
Chorus: But you must. There will be running and sit ups and push ups.
Lioness: Me?? NEVER! Shows you how much you know.]

I nearly collapsed. Who runs?? I mean, WHO THE HELL RUNS?? And why would people do it willingly? It hurts! It robs you of your breath and your pride and it builds up far too much lactic acid. This was on Monday and on Tuesday I could barely move, I am not exaggerating, all of my muscles, even some I am sure I am not supposed to have, seized up. Go look up Muscle Diagram and there you'll find me. I have to be helped out of sofas and couches and walked poorly, if at all, top opf my head parallel to the ground.

Specific Pain Level
Liberally sprinkled between the two of us you can find one bad wrist [bovine origin], one bad knee [psoriatic origin, one fears], one bad ankle [Me-No-Feel-Pain-Me-No-Need-For-Medicine-Man origin]. Therefore, we are the poster couple for ankle support, hand wraps and knee support.

So, some exercises I don’t do at all (push ups, wrist will have none of it) and everything that is knee-related is on a Let’s see how this one goes basis. On Wednesday I didn’t participate in the warming up session with quite the same enthusiasm, thereby reducing the amount of pain I live in (Ana can atest to the truth of all my pain statements, having been there to watch me try to get up. Repeatedly. She was the heavily pregant one.). But then we fasted, so – oh well. There’s always something.

Pride Pain Level
On Wednesday the Instructor watched me do this and actually shook his head and sighed! I told him I would worry abt elegance at a later date but WTH?? I am the only person not achieving instant coordination and gracefulness, is that it? He’ll see, give me a few months and he will see. Anyway, I bet he can’t dance salsa AT ALL. So there. *sticks tongue out*

Now, there are only 3 females, the rest of the class is populated by penises and their attached humans. This caused the Instructor (are they also called Master in English?) to advise the new men to avail themselves to that which has been described as perhaps the quintessential homoerotic ritual robe because, just as it enshrines the symbol of the myth of masculinity, so too the straps that originate in the top elastic circumscribe the buttocks and disappear in the anus, bringing us to that place where masculinity meets its mythic undoing. And so, as suggested by the versatility of Apollo, there are two sides to the jockstrap that symbolize the homoerotic paradox: the pouch in the front as the shrine of masculinity joined to the straps in the back framing its mythic violation. Hysterical, yes?

Funnily enough, no word was said abt us, the 3 females, and do we not bleed? Do we not have boobs? Do we not need this:

I truly don’t know if we will need these. You may think I am overdoing it. Let me I assure you there’s a fairly good chance that I am not. Let’s examine why:

[Here]

Now, picture me on the right, holding a shield for the first time; A big male looking pretty much like the girl on the left (only bigger and fiercer, of course); my left eye; a blur; and a lesson in the indirect effects of testosterone on the female body.

This Krav Maga thingy may yet rearrange my anatomy in most surprising ways but I promise I’ll go kicking into the night. HA!

[Shabbat Shalom, dahlings]