Category Archives: humor

Iron Grey Ponytails Flying

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It’s been a hellacious week, so Nora had to drag me to weekend exercise class. This month it was called KICKIT and I anticipated some BS about women’s empowerment and a few knee twinges.

Marshall, our instructor, came around and showed me where to stand for best balance, and how to pivot in a tennis shoe. He started the music, and off we went.

I had the time of my life.

Two minutes in, we all smelled bad, and some of us were yelling names at the bags. He showed us how to punch harder, protect our faces, use the whole foot, and some other fun stuff.

And as he showed us the culminating exercise of the first half of class–throwing one-two punches followed by “the groin kick”–Pretty Woman started playing. The five of us, grey ponytails flying, came alive. We slammed our hands into the bags, we threw our whole bodies into the high knee that didn’t so much tap the bag as take out an aggressor, and all I can say is I never felt so feminine in my life.

Mid-class, Marshall had us take a break, drink water, walk around. Just stay loose. I leaned against the window of the exercise studio, which looks down onto a basketball court. Little girls, maybe 8 years old, were donning knee pads and picking out balls. They all had ponies like ours, theirs with sparkly bows rather than iron grey streaks. Their instructor, wearing a tight hot pink warmup jacket, blew a whistle, and from O to 60 the girls started in. Dribbling and yelling and throwing their bodies in the air like fearless warriors. Some of them came down hard, jumped up, and threw themselves in the air again.

You go, girls. Do it for all of us. We’re counting on you.

Marshall called us back to order, showed us a few more moves, and congratulated me on a particularly well-placed kick. The fact that I was screaming a name at the time, he suggested, was not essential but if it made me feel more empowered, go for it. At the end of the class, one of the women apologized for letting an f-bomb fly, and we began a spirited discussion of the many ways the f-word could be used in appropriate contexts.

I’ll be going again next week.

This is not us. I just like the picture.

I Was Tired – – –

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Well there I was yesterday at noon heading down I-85 (motorway 85 to my Scottish readers) on my way to my friend Dirk’s house and home studio to record the next five radio shows. (Celtic Clanjamphry, since you ask.) Sailing along at the seventy MPH speed limit I rounded a corner and saw in front of me a large chunk of tire from a tractor trailer (Artic lorry for my Scottish readers). It was straddling both lanes.

It must have just happened as there were no vehicles stopped and I only had a split second to decide what to do. I could see lots of other vehicles behind me, so I had to make a decision. Should I go right or left? I made the wrong decision. If I’d gone to the right onto the hard shoulder I’d have missed it (we drive on the other side of the road for my Scottish readers) but I opted for left. I didn’t want to end up toppling into the median (the grassy area between the carriageways for my – – – ) but in trying to avoid the tire and the median I hit the tire with the front fender—pretty hard.

It made a thump but I didn’t think too much of it. I had the radio on and was listening to a talk show on WETS.fm (of course). The car kept going and I thought everything was fine, until I began to hear what I thought was interference on the radio. Alas, it was a bit too rhythmic – – – . So I switched off the radio and realized the noise was elsewhere and coming from the fender area.

Sigh….

I pulled off at the next exit and onto the shoulder, got out and had a look. Most of the plastic ‘mudguard’ inside the front passenger side fender (wing for my  – – – ) was sticking out in the wind and the rest of it was rubbing against the tire (tyre for – – – ). I thought I’d managed to spring it back up to where it was designed to be and carried on.

But thirty minutes later as I approached Abingdon (Virginia for – – – ) the all too familiar sound returned so I pulled into a parking lot (do I really need to – – – ). There it was hanging out again in the wind (nope, nope!).

Maybe I could tie it in place with some of Wendy’s yarn that’s bound to be stashed around the various corners of the car? Just my luck – she had done a car tidy last week. For the first time in over twenty-five years I couldn’t find a scrap!

I ripped the damn thing out with my bare hands and carried on my way – – – –