Ninja warriors with stinky feet

What’s cooler than a ninja? It’s a trick question because nothing is cooler than a ninja. Little boys want to break wooden blocks with their bare feet and yell things loudly as they do. They want to flip someone high in the air. Disappear in a puff of smoke. They want to walk confidently down the halls of their school knowing they can take out three bullies coming from three separate directions at once.
I never took karate lessons when I was a kid. But I was intrigued by the television show “Kung Fu” and the extreme patience and pacifism the lead character showed, enduring all manner of personal insults and degradation before finally becoming a lethal whirlwind of feet and hands to take down a bully and his gang of henchmen. I was dismayed to learn much later that Bruce Lee was considered for the part, but David Carradine got the lead role after producers felt Lee was too Chinese-looking to play a Chinese Kung Fu master/monk in the Old West, according to Lee’s widow.
Avery took martial arts classes when he was five. We were living in Alabama at the time, and the Florence YMCA was the center of our recreational lives. I was taking beginner yoga classes, and that was going pretty well. I was the only guy in the class, but I was determined not to worry about that. I was more worried about the fact that all the women in the class could bend double like pretzels with no apparent effort. My range of motion was more modest. I could almost touch my toes with my knees straight while the women put the palms of their hands flat on the floor beside their feet, displaying the casual flexibility of Gumby.

Stronger medication might work

Off their meds. Outta their heads. You can tell when the people around you go off their medications or forget to take the recommended dosage levels. It’s readily apparent if you look for the signs. A little grumpier. A little less patient. They just need more pills. Are they not medicated yet? Time’s a wastin’. Get them on something post haste. For all our sakes.

“What are you doing?” I asked a friend of mine, who looked to be taking twice the recommended amount of over-the-counter headache medicine the directions dictated. “Oh, I always double the amount listed,” she said. “How does that work for you?” I asked. “Great,” she said. “I can’t feel a thing.” Hmm….Set the controls for comfortably numb.