The end of March has already arrived and with it, my brother's birthday. My "little" brother (he's not very little at all anymore, actually) turned 21 today. That makes me feel old. And considering the fact that I'm only about to turn 23 myself, that's sort of sad. Anyway, happy birthday to my awesome brother, Garth! Have a superb day! Don't do too much schoolwork! Enjoy your cake!

In other family news, my mom is being turned into a cyborg! Well, not really, but she is being rebuilt! (Better, faster, stronger!) In a sense, anyway. She had hand surgery on Monday for her Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. She had surgery nearly thirty years ago, and it lasted her a good long while. But now she needs it again, because all the cartilage in her thumb is gone, and well, that's painful. In lieu of actual new cartilage, part of a tendon was taken from her forearm and placed inside her thumb. Isn't that weird?? And super cool? So yeah, that's what they do, apparently, and now she's recovering. Wyatt is up there with her, which is awesome. Otherwise I might worry more. And Mom's next door neighbor made her homemade chicken soup. It's good to know she's being looked after. After she heals from this surgery, she gets to have surgery on the other hand. Craziness! She's one tough cookie, though, and is handling it like a trooper. (And now I'm talking like my mom while talking about my mom. This is weird!) The whole thing kind of reminds me of when Loki got his new knees. Medical technology certainly is amazing, isn't it?

Luckily I have not needed to explore this amazing medical technology for myself at all recently. Spending less time on the computer really did seem to help my wrist out quite a bit. Hooray for home remedies! Of course, when I went on a hike with Bobbi and Loki today, I probably didn't help matters one bit by throwing a gigantic two-ton piece of wood in the water for Loki to fetch! Okay, it was actually quite small, but that's what deceived me, see, because it was quite heavy for its size. "Gigantic" was a stretch, but I'm sticking to the two-ton part of the story!

Anyway, Loki is quite cute when he fetches things from the water. Of course, that game ended once Bobbi threw his stick into the deep end of the pond. Then Loki was like, "Okay, game's over, guys. Way to go. There's no ground over there, okay? Not safe!"

We cheered him on and said, "It's okay, Loki! You can do it! Swim!" and he looked at us like we were from Mars. Oh, well!

(Someone just laughed maniacally in the street below my apartment. I feel like I'm in a movie or something. Killer clowns, stay away! While I'm having this little aside, may I also add that if I don't find out what is making that "woo-whirr-woo-oo" sound in my apartment, I may have to kill someone? P.S. I love Kimberley Locke's song, "The Eighth World Wonder"!)

Hiking with Bobbi and Loki has become a weekly thing. It's a lot of fun! We hike in an off-leash set of trails, and Loki runs around the hills chasing squirrels. Of course, he's kind of unobservant (took him several weeks to actually notice the squirrels in the first place!) and is a terrible hunter, so I'm not actually worried about the squirrels. I am slightly worried about Loki getting his nose bitten when he sticks it in the ground squirrel holes, though! Anyway, so far, so good. It was a beautiful day. We had a little picnic. We met some nice dogs and people, and some asinine dogs and people. The lab that snapped at Loki right in his sweet little face is not my favorite dog in the world. (No actual injuries, thank goodness!) And the plethora of folks we saw walking their dogs on prong collars?? Dear god, people, what are you doing to your dogs?! Stop that nonsense!

Anyway, Bobbi and I were saying how athletic and awesome it sounds to say we go hiking every week. The really cool part is that I actually am becoming quite the little athlete right before my very eyes. Also? I have been re-discovering my self discipline. Forgot I had that! I keep wanting to skip my fitness classes, but I keep on going, no matter how hungry, tired, or antisocial I'm feeling. I can't believe I haven't been late once, and I have fun every time I go. Dude. I haven't even told y'all about my fitness classes yet, have I??

All right, well, here's the current schedule:

Monday mornings - Yoga
Tuesday evenings - Self Defense
Wednesday mornings - Water Aerobics
Wednesday afternoons - Hike with Bobbi and Loki

I try to get in some long walks on Mondays and Thursdays, and sometimes even on the weekends. Fridays are my teaching days at the marsh, where I walk several miles just leading the groups of kids all over the place. It is really awesome!

Speaking of which, I had two really funny students last week! One boy was a total attention-seeker, I learned. I was trying to get them to identify scat we found, so I asked them, "Now, who would eat those red crayfish, then poop right here?" The boy shot his hand up in the air, so I called on him, and he replied, "Me!" Ha! I responded, "Well, don't do that! We have bathrooms, okay?" Then we talked about the scat some more. Oh, the answer to my question, by the way, was: otters. Otter scat contains little red crayfish scales. See what kinds of fun things you can learn by working out in nature??

Later, that same boy interrupted my tiny lesson on bird nests to ask, "Will you marry me?"

"Sorry, already married!" I said, to which he gave a shocked, "REALLY?!" I held up my left hand and pointed to my ring before going back to what I'd been saying. That kid was funny. It's not every day you get a proposal!

The next day, I taught again, and that was when a little boy was arguing with me about whether or not animals of different species could breed. He insisted they could. "If mammals and birds can't breed," he said in his best I'm Quizzing You voice, "then how did we get the platypus?"

"What?" I asked. "That's a totally different animal! Not a mix of a mammal and a bird!"

"Yes it IS," he insisted. "If not, then how did it get here?"

Well, we're encouraged not to use the word "evolution" with the kids, because some parents are psycho in this conservative area in which I live, so I didn't know what to say to him. Plus, we were getting ready to talk about something else soon. So after a few rounds with this kid of, "No, they can't!" / "Yes, they can!" on the subject of different species' abilities to mate, I just told him, "You know what? You can believe what you want to believe, and I'll believe what I want to believe. And, we can agree to disagree."

"But," he said sadly, "Then you'll go through your whole life believing the wrong thing."

"You know what?" I said. "I'm okay with that."

Ha! Kids are weird!

* * *

I think I'll end this with a few quick fitness class stories!

1) In Yoga, there's a blind woman with her German Shepherd guide dog. I am fascinated that she does Yoga without being able to see. I talked with her and she's super nice. She let me pet her dog, who is the sweetest German Shepherd I've ever met, and the first guide dog I've ever met, too!

Also about Yoga, at first I thought my instructor was a total weirdo, but she was much less strange this week. I am happy. I no longer want to flee in terror.

2) I love Self Defense Class! Kicking is fun! But not as fun as grabbing someone's elbow and pushing them toward the ground. That's definitely the best.

3) In Water Aerobics class, there was this annoying girl who seemed to think it was okay to use me as her personal dumping ground for any venting she wanted to do. Why she felt compelled to come to me, I'll never know! I just gave her odd looks and moved away from her whenever she spoke to me that first week (last week). Then I complained about her to my therapist, who gave me a great technique that I was able to implement today.

Annoying Girl: Hi, how are you?
Me: Fine, how are you?
AG: Okay, I guess. (obnoxiously) I'm freezing though!
Me: Really? I think the water feels great!

Later...

AG: God, my arms are so sore!
Me: I know, it feels great! (big, beaming smile)

It totally worked! She seemed far less interested in talking to me after that, which I felt extremely grateful for. Annoying people of the world, you will not get the better of me! Mwa ha ha!

In somewhat related news, other people in my water aerobics class seemed interested in treating me like a small child today, which I really don't understand.

I was stretching to the side with my arm over my head, and one girl said, "Wow, it's so hard not to tickle you when you do that!"

I said, sort of uncomfortably, "Well. Thanks for refraining!"

Later, I finally got out of the water and she said, "You like the water, huh? You didn't want to get out, huh?"

Instead of saying, "What am I, five years old?!" I said, "I was actually just stretching before I got out of the water."

"Oh!" she said.

What the hell??

Another woman asked me, "Do you wear sunscreen before you come to class?"

"Yeah, definitely," I said.

"That's good," she said. "You're so fair!"

"Oh, I know," I said and smiled. She was kind of an older woman, so maybe she was just looking out for me in a nice way, but it certainly is strange when people talk to me as though I'm somehow not an adult. Brief announcement to the world: I know I look young, but I am in fact, an adult!

Announcement number two: I know I look like a nice girl (and that's probably because I usually am), but that does not mean you can talk shit about your life OR the class OR the teacher to me, especially if you are a total and complete stranger! (Different rules apply to close friends.) I do NOT want to hear it. Okay? Do NOT. Thanks!

* * *

Wait, that is a sort of angry/venty way to end this post. Okay, one last story before I go:

I got a text message tonight that said "i wudnt want to mess up what u and b have 2gether. But i will always b open 4 u".

Now, I don't know who "b" is, but that sounds like fodder for some juicy gossip! If only "b" knew!

Except, not really, because Joe said it's likely spam.

They sent another message, though, that said, "r u there?" But, possibly still spam, so I ignored it (and decided instead to post the whole thing on the internet for all the world to see. Sorry, wrong-number girl or guy!).

I was talking to Kirsten online this whole time, and told her all this. She and I spent the next several minutes speculating on the variety of humorous ways to respond to that message.

My favorites were:

"omg maybe u r my tru luv!!"

"OMG i kno where u live now!!"

"OMG stay there im coming over!!"

Maybe it's the "omg," but those were hysterically funny to me (and only one of them was mine)! Ah, the wonder and fun of telecommunications. Receiving an odd love-affair crossfire message on my cell, making fun of it with my online friend, then posting it all on my online journal. God, I love the twenty-first century!