Updatery

Random things that have happened in the last few days:

The student whose house burned is generally doing well. Their insurance has come through in a big way, and they moved into an apartment less than a mile from their house today. On the down side, the dog definitely died in the fire, either by smoke inhalation or by having the roof collapse on him.

We are now officially in the market for a newer car (our youngest car being 10 years and 210,000 miles old). Rob is hanging out at the local auto auction to find our replacement. He is having so much fun doing this that he make take his own sweet time in actually purchasing said car.

The aforementioned youngest car has developed a large crack in the radiator - so there goes Rob's plans for the weekend.

I have a reader for Drowned Deep who has not previously read Ghost Dancer - which should allow a reasonable view of whether it stands alone decently or not. Now I'm just waiting on my new toner cartridge to arrive so I can print it out. I can't complain though, I have a draft printer Rob gave me for Christmas three years ago, and this is the first cartridge change despite heavy usage.

I've finished Sunsu kata. I love this kata, but it's seriously crazy-making. The patterns are so similar both to patterns in the other kata, and to other patterns within Sunsu, that it's incredibly easy to either slip into a different kata, or to accidently skip or repeat sections (or do them in the wrong order). You have to be present every moment in this kata in a way that just isn't necessary in any of the previous katas. It's wonderful - and crazy-making!

I'm also down to the last section or two of learning Tokumine No Kun. I would suspect two, just because I'm not getting many lengthy teaching times with Sensei, which means I'm getting the katas in smaller bits than I could actually handle. Which is all right, but is slower.

Our last karate class is the 18th. We resume on the Tuesday following New Year's. No sign of a Christmas party this year. Rob and I hosted one a couple of years ago, but with a houseful of guests, A. coming to visit after the New Year, and Dad Wood moving in after that, I'm just not feeling the impetus to step up and offer this year.

I'm freaking out bad about A. coming to visit. She and her husband have a neatness standard that is just insane - our house on its best day would be an utter disaster by their standards. Mom is offering to help me clean while she's here, but not to put too fine a point on it - her track record with such offers isn't great. Plus, even Mom & Dad's house on its best day, though much better than ours, would still be a hovel by A&M's standards - not that they'd make snide comments or look down at us, or make a fuss - it's the veiled pity and the offers of help that make me want to beat my head against a wall.

Deep breaths. A&M have a lovely apartment, lived in by two neat freaks, and maintained by a succession of aides and a once weekly cleaning team. I have a house double that size, lived in by four people, none of them dreadfully neat, and maintained by me (which should frighten anybody who's ever seen me clean or *god forbid* attempt to organize something). My inability to keep a house to A's standards is not an indictment of my worth as a person, wife or mother. Really. (If I keep repeating this maybe I'll start believing it?)

Oh - and I should have a new belt musing up in the next few days. It's cooking in the back of my brain quite noisily by now.