Feb22

Her Royal Highness’s Birthday

Posted on by
Standard

As Her Royal Highness wishes.

HRH and I had already made a coffee date for her birthday when we learned Pink’s birthday was only two days away. We last-minute traded our coffee plans for dinner with the three of us.

I had a gift for HRH–some random goofball items only she could [pretend] to appreciate, including the most obnoxious children’s card I could find, one that sang loud, boisterous music when opened–but not a gift for Pink. I hoped I’d be able to sneak the gift to HRH without Pink seeing.

Pink wound up parking right next to me at the restaurant, but HRH was farther down the street. After dinner, I said to HRH, “Let me drive you to your car.”

“It’s not that far. I can walk.”

I tried to catch her eye, “HRH! Let me DRIVE you to your CAR.” But she wasn’t picking up what I was putting down. And I wasn’t actually being that obvious.

Then Pink said, “We can both walk you to your car, and then Ilsa and I can walk back to our cars together.”

It was hard to fight that logic. Consequently, after later texting HRH about my missed intentions, the coffee date was back on for the next day.

In the midst of it, Hubby texted to ask if I was picking our son up from half-day school. I responded with this picture of the birthday girl:

Because hanging with your friend instead of picking up your child is a totally legit parenting move. (Don’t worry. There was after-care. He had fun.)

Instructor scolded me.

Again.

One night in Jiu-Jitsu it was my turn to partner with Pirate. Anyone who sees the two of us side by side, plus his belt stripes vs my naked belt, know I have no chance of prevailing here except that one fluke.

So what does one do in this situation? You lean into the ridiculousness of my odds–Ilsa style.

I sauntered up to Pirate, exuding false bravado and said, “You’re going down, clown.”

“Don’t call him ‘clown,'” Instructor said, brow furrowed. “You might hurt his feelings.”

Pirate shrugged. “It’s Ilsa.”

When Instructor walked away, Pirate added, “I know you’re just joking with me. You’re Ilsa.”

I’m glad he gets me, but appearing like a jerk to Instructor and getting scolded is the worst.

Working with Pirate, I did my tried-and-true technique of simply holding out as long as possible before tapping.

“You’re strong,” Pirate said.

“What? No, I’m not.” You should see my arms compared to his machine guns. “I just keep fighting until I can’t any more.”

“Well isn’t that strength?” he asked.

“Oh. I guess so. Thanks.”

At the next class, I got to the mat before the other students. Instructor was already center mat, waiting for everyone to gather. I realized I hadn’t grabbed my attendance card, so I got up to retrieve it and returned to the mat.

Attendance card for marking your classes.

The others still weren’t ready when I considered that, it being a small class, Instructor wouldn’t necessarily need to collect cards. We could just leave them on the desk, so I got up again to put my card on the desk.

When I sat back down, Instructor stood and said, “I’ll collect your card now,” and walked to me with his hand out.

“You saw me put my card on the desk!”

The man was messing with me. And all was right in the world again.

I’m sort of kind of maybe beginning to get the old mojo back. I’m still 95% “Defend Escape,” as opposed to “Control Submit” of the four big black words emblazoned on the gym wall, but I can make people work for their submissions.

Observe: Big black words in this old picture.

Although today, rolling with Smiley Guy, I said, “Ow.”

“You okay?” he said.

I slipped my hand out. “I was wrist-locking myself against you. I almost had to tap to my own self-submission.”

It appears I can be my own worst enemy. Too bad that “win” wouldn’t have counted.

“Rowds. Ro-ads. That’s a totally weird word, isn’t it?” is David Spade speaking to Chris Farley in the 1996 movie, Black Sheep. Here’s the clip.

New question: With domestication origins in prehistory, this bulb vegetable’s relationship with humankind is so ancient that remains of it were found in the eye sockets of the mummified Ramses IV.

Discover more from Writing and Martial Arts

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

56 responses »

  1. Onions.

    and it’s okay to possibly hurt his body but not his feelings … It’s going to take awhile for me to work this one out …

    Where’s the picture of the birthday card? I like getting birthday cards at coffee places, well I just like raspberry lattes — with or without birthday cards. Now a birthday card with a gift card for raspberry lattes would be just awesome. I’ll bet neither of you thought of even buying a raspberry latte.

    I got to go, that’s all the “raspberry lattes” I can type without actually having one in my hand.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  2. This made me laugh: “Because hanging with your friend instead of picking up your child is a totally legit parenting move. (Don’t worry. There was after-care. He had fun.)”

    You’re strong alright Ilsa, and you have the reputation to prove it! xx

    Like

    Reply ↓

  3. Garlic? Maybe.
    I would expect anyone to know you were teasing when you said, “You’re going down, clown.” Except me. I would just lie down on the floor and tap myself out because I know very little about fighting and nothing about Jiu-Jitsu. I would be afraid. Very afraid. Almost as afraid as I would if I got pulled over by a long-haired teenage police officer.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  4. It’s good you’re strong in Jiu-Jitsu, Ilsa. I sure hope things work out for you there. Having a coffee get together for HRH’s birthday is so nice, even better that it included Pink. I think onion is the answer to your question.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Wasn’t that a riot? What was I to do? As soon as Pink made her very logical suggestion, I knew it was hopeless. Ah well. 😛

      As with all things, there are good days and bad days, even at JJ, but mostly good days. Thanks. 🙂

      P.S. Cough cough Amazon review please. Cough cough. 😉

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • Sorry about that! I can’t post Amazon reviews, because their guidelines require that you’ve spent $50 on Amazon within the past year to do so. Which I haven’t. 😆 Next time I do so, I’ll be sure to drop a review!

        Liked by 1 person

    • Okay, that took me a moment. Now that I get it, that’s pretty funny, Mark. At first I was like, “Huh? Is he still drunk from last night’s drinking fest?” 😉

      Right, the cards! Silly me. I concern myself with not getting too technical with JJ terms, but I forgot you don’t know the cards! It’s what track how many classes we’ve attended. We pull them from the alphabetized box on the desk. Then Instructor collects them into a pile on the desk to have our attendance marked. Or we just place them on the desk for him sometimes. I’ll add a pic to this post.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • Haha. There was no Sunday drinking fest. I bought a pair of shoes, which is about a million times lamer. But also, a helluva lot more responsible.

        Thank you for explaining the cards. I was thinking, how nice, they celebrate each other’s achievements by exchanging Hallmarks!

        Liked by 1 person

      • More responsible and more practical, especially when you need to walk home because you’re too drunk to drive. Wua-wua. Sorry. I know you can hold your own. I can only get through about a half a drink. Who’s the lame one now?

        I can see how that was super confusing, especially with the mention of HRH’s singing birthday card earlier in the post. Thank you for asking so I could clarify for others.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. The combo of the photo and your truism here, “Because hanging with your friend instead of picking up your child is a totally legit parenting move” made me LOL! I mean…how could the hubs argue the point? Message delivered…he just needed to receive! 😜💝😜

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  14. I love how much effort your brain went through to pull of the stealth birthday gift transfer, esp. because your plan ultimately failed. We guys would probably just hand over the gift without thinking, all proud of ourselves, and then go, “Oh crud! I didn’t get YOU anything!” 🙂

    Like

    Reply ↓

  16. Oh I love how you describe awkward situations! “I’ll just walk you to your car.” I would have sent her a text saying, you missed your chance, I’m keeping the gift, we’ll trying again next year. And you instructor objecting to your use of a word, “clown,” how dare he? It’s funny. Did he hurt his humerus? I think so. Hugs, C

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

Share what you think of this story, or share one of your own!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.