Recovery Escapades:
A Newsletter Of 2nd Chance Life Across Cardiac County Line Road
Episode Seventeen: Wow, Life Is Beautiful. Ow, Life Hurts.
THANK GOD FOR IBUPROFEN
A few weeks back I had my first martial arts class since karate in my sophomore college year, oh over 33 years ago. So for several nights I was at a dojo named Texas MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). I must not have pushed it too far the first class because I could still type the beginning of this blog entry on my crackberry. Enough to start, and finish it later. I mean my neck was not in a brace from learning grappling holds and being laughably taken down to the mat over and over.
I slept like a log of oak and awoke several times in the night feeing just as stiff. And I had not two cents of sense to start this until 48 hours before a 5K race the following Saturday. If I had rolled over and died that 5K race weekend I'd have no one to blame but myself. Lucky for me rain delayed then cancelled the race.
DODGED A BULLET BUT NOT A FIST
I dodged a bullet then just to catch one the following Tuesday night at Mixed Martial Arts class. The Tuesday following the 5K nonrace I was mixing it up at MMA but not holding up my guard during the 2nd round of sparring with (thank god) 16 ounce gloves. So I catch a jab to the left rib cage. Wow.
The head shots I took before the rib shot faded after just a few seconds, and the body/mind corrected itself but not that shot to the ribs. Some kind of intracostal muscle (what the doc called it) took a bruise or worse. So I am out of MMA class for a while, week or three, until I can afford to spar again with less than perfect guard.
TOO MUCH FUN?
I heard of a late seventy something guy who took up cheap racing - small Mazda Miata type cars, shifter cart style racing. No big muscle car drag strip stuff just a challenge to the driver's skill. When asked how his first race went he said "I got my ass kicked and had a ton of fun". That is what my first Martial Arts classes in 33 years was like. Even the 3rd class with the rib cage dent. More fun than I expected. A butt kicking ton of fun. Fun. Ouch. Fun again. Ouch again.
I must remind myself of all this, the fun AND the soreness, once my ribs heal up enough to not chicken out and to resume the MMA classes. So that I go back and continue what I started, despite the ouch that goes with the fun.
SO GOOD IT HURTS
This is just another example of how a life lived is beautiful and how a life lived hurts. Ask any woman who's raised children if life hurts and if despite that if life is still beautiful. So true is this is fact the woman you asked might look at you as if you as nuts to even bother asking. Kinda like my Cursedly Candid sister looked at me once. Not how she looked when I asked her "If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?"
AND YOUR QUESTION IS....?
Nah it was how she raised her eyebrows when I followed up by asking "If a husband is out in the forest alone and no wife is around to watch what he does, is he still wrong?"
"Why bother asking" is what she said.
Um, not what she said but what she asked me not to ask.
To be very technically precise about it.
Fun. Ouch. Fun again. Ouch again.
That's life in my cardiac recovery lane for now.
Yours Truly and Ridiculous,
From Across Cardiac County Line Road
James Sullivan
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2 comments:
A nonsense answer to your question, "If a husband is out in the forest alone and no wife is around to watch what he does, is he still wrong?"
Just because.
*****
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
II
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
On NPR's Poet's Corner, actor John Lithgow read this poem (The Owl and the Pussycat) from his book of favorite poems.
Lithgow reads very well - his is a voice full of enthusiasm and energy, no pompous literary overtones. I haven't heard hjim read anything somber like Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night" so the jury's out on that side of the tragedy/comedy dynamic duo.
I have enjoyed Lithgow's screen work over the years, and laughed a lot at his lead character in "Third Rock From The Sun". His talent as an aloud reader, on this one too, is something to enjoy.
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