Some good things, some bad things going on here at the G & G household. First the good news, which is actually irrelevant news for everybody but me. (Good thing this is my blog!) I am now a "yellow belt" in Krav Maga. I use quotes because you don't actually get a physical belt; it's just a title to signify that you passed the first test and are now a level-two student.
The test is no joke. I never thought I was in fear of failing (they won't let you test until you can pass), but I still had to do it, and doing it was fucking hard. It was perhaps the most physically taxing thing I've ever done in my life -- certainly so since high school wrestling. It started at 1:00 pm and didn't end until about 5:30 pm. We got fewer than ten minutes worth of break total throughout the entire four and a half hours. We went the last hour and a half or so without any break at all. I'm not exaggerating. It was basically Krav Maga drills nonstop. You had a chance to catch your breath a bit when you were holding the pad for your partner, but you still had to expend energy absorbing their strikes, especially if your partner was six foot three, 250 pounds, as mine was.
Before the test the instructors gave us the spiel about “pushing through to the next level” and “you do this because it’s hard, not because it’s easy” and “if you think it's uncomfortable in here, imagine what it would be like on the street.” I always find this kind of thing super hokey when I’m just standing there listening to it, but when I’m thirsty and exhausted and some big dude has his hands around my neck, I buy in 100%. As a normal, boring, office-working family man, I don’t have the chance anymore to compete physically in a way I did as a kid. It’s something I miss and something I find satisfying. It’s the same reason why people run marathons. But for me something like Krav Maga is better than running, because with running I can (and do) always slow down. If you have to defend somebody throwing punches at your head, you can’t slow down. Well, you can, but you will likely take a fist to the face if you do. (We’re told to use an “egg shell” hand, not a closed fist, so it’s not going to knock you out if you screw up the defense. But it still won’t feel good, and sometimes you do get hit hard inadvertently. In a group drill I caught this one woman with a solid elbow to the head. Luckily, it was the top of her head, and she’s tough, so she barely flinched.) A bunch of advanced students and instructors came to watch the end of the test, and they were all cheering for us when we finished, and I gotta say, it felt good.
What didn’t feel good was reading a text from S waiting for me when I finished:
Fantastic. I was worried about this. It was going around the boys’ school, and the other night when I checked in on Lil’ S2, he was scratching his head furiously in his sleep. S confirmed it. While I was testing, she went through his head with a fine-tooth comb (literally) and found some bugs. She then called a service called The Lice Doctors, recommended by a friend, and they sent somebody over, who confirmed that everybody had it and began treatment. Unbeknownst to S at the time The Lice Doctors (not actual doctors) are a “natural” service, so instead of using a “chemical” shampoo they use olive oil. In theory, I don’t have a problem with this – it seems kinda Gwenyth Paltrow-y to me, but as best I can tell olive oil is a legitimately effective treatment for head lice. In practice, however, it’s quite awful, as olive oil is ridiculously messy, and it will leave permanent stains on clothing and furniture. On the plus side, everybody’s head smells like an appetizer at an Italian restaurant.
The idea is that you douse your head in olive oil for eight hours, four days in a row (with a couple of spaced-out follow-ups), and this will suffocate the lice and nits. The problem with this is that the only eight-hour stretch you can do this is in the middle of night, so we have to put the kids to bed with olive oil in their hair. (Try getting a hyperactive three-year old into bed with a head full of oil without dripping or brushing up against of something.) Then in the morning we (I, really, S is at work already) have to get them showered, and wash and dry all the sheets on the bed. It's hard enough to get them out the door on time without any added tasks.
And it's even more annoying: After talking with a friend skeptical olive oil would actually work, S went out and bought lice-treatment shampoo, and she also applied that to the kids’ hair, so we are now double-bagging treatment, I guess. I’m not totally sure why we are doing this. I suggested we stop the olive oil treatment, since it’s such a hassle, but S said she wanted to keep doing it. When I asked her why, she got upset and said I don’t listen to her and that she had already explained everything. So, I still don’t know why exactly. The reason might be that she spent money on the Lice Doctors and doesn’t want to “waste” it. But it wouldn’t be wasted because the specialist already spent hours picking through everybody’s hair to remove all the lice and nits, and even if she didn’t: sunk cost fallacy.
This is one area in which S and I don’t mesh well. Often when I question why she did anything the way she did it, she takes it personally and gets upset with me either because I had an accusatory tone (inadvertently, if so) or because I’m not listening to her, even though I am. I might not be understanding her logic, but I’m listening. And then she does this thing, where she gets snarky and starts sarcastically overexplaining everything like I’m an alien who has no concept of life on planet Earth. It’s super irritating. I think the bottom line is that she just really doesn’t like being questioned or having to explain herself. I mean, nobody does, but I think she’s especially sensitive to it, and unfortunately explaining yourself is a big part of a marriage -- especially when you are married to somebody as annoyingly pedantic as me. I’m trying to get better about letting things go. I'm not perfect, but unless there are major stakes on the line, I try not to push back too sharply – even if it means putting olive oil in your kids’ hair for a few nights.
As for my head, I don’t think I have (or had) lice, but I’m doing the shampoo treatment anyway. I don’t have an itchy head – or at least I didn’t until S sent the text. Immediately after that every little tingle on my scalp was freaking me out. I got my head shaved nearly down to scalp, I’m already nearly bald on top, and most importantly S didn't find anything when she examined my head, so I think I'm good.
You know what I just thought of – the phrase “picking nits” is quite misleading. It means finding fault for small things, but picking nits is actually very important if you have lice. It should be a phrase for being thorough and giving the proper attention to detail. If you don’t pick all those nits, things are just going to get worse.
On that note, until next time…
The test is no joke. I never thought I was in fear of failing (they won't let you test until you can pass), but I still had to do it, and doing it was fucking hard. It was perhaps the most physically taxing thing I've ever done in my life -- certainly so since high school wrestling. It started at 1:00 pm and didn't end until about 5:30 pm. We got fewer than ten minutes worth of break total throughout the entire four and a half hours. We went the last hour and a half or so without any break at all. I'm not exaggerating. It was basically Krav Maga drills nonstop. You had a chance to catch your breath a bit when you were holding the pad for your partner, but you still had to expend energy absorbing their strikes, especially if your partner was six foot three, 250 pounds, as mine was.
[One of the greatest parodies of all-time]
Before the test the instructors gave us the spiel about “pushing through to the next level” and “you do this because it’s hard, not because it’s easy” and “if you think it's uncomfortable in here, imagine what it would be like on the street.” I always find this kind of thing super hokey when I’m just standing there listening to it, but when I’m thirsty and exhausted and some big dude has his hands around my neck, I buy in 100%. As a normal, boring, office-working family man, I don’t have the chance anymore to compete physically in a way I did as a kid. It’s something I miss and something I find satisfying. It’s the same reason why people run marathons. But for me something like Krav Maga is better than running, because with running I can (and do) always slow down. If you have to defend somebody throwing punches at your head, you can’t slow down. Well, you can, but you will likely take a fist to the face if you do. (We’re told to use an “egg shell” hand, not a closed fist, so it’s not going to knock you out if you screw up the defense. But it still won’t feel good, and sometimes you do get hit hard inadvertently. In a group drill I caught this one woman with a solid elbow to the head. Luckily, it was the top of her head, and she’s tough, so she barely flinched.) A bunch of advanced students and instructors came to watch the end of the test, and they were all cheering for us when we finished, and I gotta say, it felt good.
What didn’t feel good was reading a text from S waiting for me when I finished:
Fantastic. I was worried about this. It was going around the boys’ school, and the other night when I checked in on Lil’ S2, he was scratching his head furiously in his sleep. S confirmed it. While I was testing, she went through his head with a fine-tooth comb (literally) and found some bugs. She then called a service called The Lice Doctors, recommended by a friend, and they sent somebody over, who confirmed that everybody had it and began treatment. Unbeknownst to S at the time The Lice Doctors (not actual doctors) are a “natural” service, so instead of using a “chemical” shampoo they use olive oil. In theory, I don’t have a problem with this – it seems kinda Gwenyth Paltrow-y to me, but as best I can tell olive oil is a legitimately effective treatment for head lice. In practice, however, it’s quite awful, as olive oil is ridiculously messy, and it will leave permanent stains on clothing and furniture. On the plus side, everybody’s head smells like an appetizer at an Italian restaurant.
The idea is that you douse your head in olive oil for eight hours, four days in a row (with a couple of spaced-out follow-ups), and this will suffocate the lice and nits. The problem with this is that the only eight-hour stretch you can do this is in the middle of night, so we have to put the kids to bed with olive oil in their hair. (Try getting a hyperactive three-year old into bed with a head full of oil without dripping or brushing up against of something.) Then in the morning we (I, really, S is at work already) have to get them showered, and wash and dry all the sheets on the bed. It's hard enough to get them out the door on time without any added tasks.
And it's even more annoying: After talking with a friend skeptical olive oil would actually work, S went out and bought lice-treatment shampoo, and she also applied that to the kids’ hair, so we are now double-bagging treatment, I guess. I’m not totally sure why we are doing this. I suggested we stop the olive oil treatment, since it’s such a hassle, but S said she wanted to keep doing it. When I asked her why, she got upset and said I don’t listen to her and that she had already explained everything. So, I still don’t know why exactly. The reason might be that she spent money on the Lice Doctors and doesn’t want to “waste” it. But it wouldn’t be wasted because the specialist already spent hours picking through everybody’s hair to remove all the lice and nits, and even if she didn’t: sunk cost fallacy.
This is one area in which S and I don’t mesh well. Often when I question why she did anything the way she did it, she takes it personally and gets upset with me either because I had an accusatory tone (inadvertently, if so) or because I’m not listening to her, even though I am. I might not be understanding her logic, but I’m listening. And then she does this thing, where she gets snarky and starts sarcastically overexplaining everything like I’m an alien who has no concept of life on planet Earth. It’s super irritating. I think the bottom line is that she just really doesn’t like being questioned or having to explain herself. I mean, nobody does, but I think she’s especially sensitive to it, and unfortunately explaining yourself is a big part of a marriage -- especially when you are married to somebody as annoyingly pedantic as me. I’m trying to get better about letting things go. I'm not perfect, but unless there are major stakes on the line, I try not to push back too sharply – even if it means putting olive oil in your kids’ hair for a few nights.
As for my head, I don’t think I have (or had) lice, but I’m doing the shampoo treatment anyway. I don’t have an itchy head – or at least I didn’t until S sent the text. Immediately after that every little tingle on my scalp was freaking me out. I got my head shaved nearly down to scalp, I’m already nearly bald on top, and most importantly S didn't find anything when she examined my head, so I think I'm good.
You know what I just thought of – the phrase “picking nits” is quite misleading. It means finding fault for small things, but picking nits is actually very important if you have lice. It should be a phrase for being thorough and giving the proper attention to detail. If you don’t pick all those nits, things are just going to get worse.
On that note, until next time…
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