Float like a butterfly...

I took my first boxing class tonight. There's not actual fighting, but it's actual boxing training. 

The Kentucky boy and I signed up for the class at our gym on a whim. It's taught by a mini-Rocky who apparently was an actual boxer for many years. All we knew was that it would be some sort of circuit training involving boxing.

What it was turned out to be an hour long ass kicking. By the end of the shadow boxing, my arms were tired.

Then he said to do three minutes  on the heavy bag. Which doesn't sound like much.

Until 45 seconds in when you can't move your arms any more.

It was tiring, but it was awesome. Now I will be badass in two countries!

Does this mean I'm getting old?

Someone roped me into joining Facebook this week. 

It's weird, because I keep getting friend requests from people I haven't talked to since high school. Some by choice.

It was nice chatting with the girls I was inseparable from in ninth grade (we didn't grow apart...just became less unseparable as I went the decidedly honors route and they went mostly just trying to get by...in high school, your friends are whomever you have class with).

What's weird has been the friend requests from (a) people like the girl I only sort of knew because we were in a theater group together briefly her senior year/my freshman year of college (b) people like the girl I've known since we were 6, but not always as friends...she was part of the group that bullied me in middle school...

I accepted the request from (b) mostly so I could see her pictures since she's still friends with a lot of kids from high school that were in my life, but not necessarily friends. It was nice to see that the two boys I had huge crushes on in high school have both gotten out of shape and overweight and kind if ugly now that we're in our 30s. It's also interesting to see if we're old enough now to recognize the horrible things we did as kids and get past them. 

I'm waiting for her to make the first contact...

Everyone in the (car)pool!

In my ongoing quest to do my part (and save some gas money), I started carpooling to work. I haven't been in a carpool since Kathleen Robbins' mom used to drive me to cheerleading practice. It's different as an adult.

I frequently work with my fellow carpooler and we have a good relationship, so we have plenty to talk about on the ride in (at least today), but I feel like we should have a "no talking shop in the car" rule.

But it's weird being in someone else's car (or even commuting with someone else in your car). Do I have to drive safer? Is it okay to openly vent my spleen at my fellow motorists (in a strictly metaphorical sense)? Can I talk back to the radio, as I am prone to do? Have I just given up two precious hours of "me time"?

Fall Return

I'm finally back from....well....from some sort of moody little cocoon in which I had nothing nice to say so I followed Thumper's mom's rule and said nothing at all.

Wonderturtle posted a list of differences between her life in summer and her life in fall, which got me thinking about my own differences. However, Wonderturtle is a high school teacher, she lives an entirely separate life in summer. I, on the other hand, am a boring corporate research scientist. My days' look a lot alike.

Now that fall is here, my Fridays go all the way till the end of the day. You don't appreciate short Fridays until you lose them.

Now that fall is here, I have a lot more traffic (and school buses) to contend with in the morning.

Now that fall is here, my co-op student is around a lot less. Less time with the extra hands; less time spent trying to manage the scientific equivalent of an un-housebroken puppy.

Now that fall is here, the gym is crowded with teenagers convinced that this year they will make varsity.

Now that fall is here, maybe I will go back into my cocoon.