Not-So-Crazy with a Brown Belt

My daughters in their new belts.

In keeping with my theme of titling the post “Crazy with a [color] belt” every time I earn a new Tae Kwon Do rank, I’ll just amend this one slightly since it was my daughters, not me. I could say “Not Crazy with a Brown Belt,” but since they’re my children, some of the crazy is bound to have been passed on to them.

A new belt means a belt ceremony, which means: baking something special!

How many of you just cowered a little in fear or internally groaned “Oh no”?

Thank you for knowing me so well.

Since this happened just before Christmas, what better than gingerbread men? And what better still than NINJA gingerbread men? Perfect, right?

Here’s what the ninjabread men look like on the package:

Surely we can replicate this.

Check out the goofy stuff written on the sides:

This poor guy in a tie must have a desk job… and somehow lost an arm.

That first line: Pun very much intended. Ha!

So, how did we do?

In process. One guy lost his head. (It just broke off.) So we worked with that by having another guy kicking it off.

Another view.

More high flying ninjabread fun.

With the rest of the batter, one daughter made a belt and a throwing star.

Now you may be thinking, “Okay… those actually look pretty… good.” And you’re right.

“But where’s something akin to the Great Purple Churro Debacle of 2022?” you ask?

All I can say is, they didn’t taste that great. They didn’t taste BAD, per se, but kind of, eh. The leftovers were tossed. But still! They were fun for the girls and Little Joe, who added beads. The best part is, we have the cookie cutters forever now. Maybe we’ll make ninja sugar cookies next December. [My girls will have earned their black belts before then, but I won’t. 😦 ]

I wasn’t going to miss this belt ceremony, so Hubby helped/carried me up and down the stairs, where I had the pleasure of experiencing Sensei’s abuse once more.

Since 80% of the non-instructional things Sensei says to me are insults, I’m generally used to it, can laugh with him, and dish it out almost as much as I take it.

But this was different.

“Funny. I thought I’d be handing out four brown belts today,” he said.

Grrrr.

“Don’t worry. When you get back, there’s a spot for you right here,” indicating the end of the line–the lowest position, whereas I used to occupy the top position.

Grrrr again.

What bothers me most about not being able to walk, has been not being able to do TKD with my girls. And I told Sensei that, so when he said the above, I wanted to backfist or knife-hand strike him.

But he was all the way on the other side of the room, so.

~~~

January 2nd fell on a class day, so there was some texting regarding whether or not we’d be having class that evening. I reminded him that we had decided pre-Christmas that we would. But then asked:

See? I can dish it out too.

But I also couldn’t let that egregious “ya’ll” go. His daughter, whose name I whited out below, went to college in Texas, briefly returned to help teach, and often said a newly adopted “y’all.” Therefore:

It took me a moment to get his joke, which was, admittedly, rather funny.

Later on, shortly before class, he alerted me of this:

Those of you who have cats, know I love cats. Just looking at that pic makes me say, “Oooosheeeboobooo” in my mind.

He did not, however, bring her. I had to use a lousy jacket on my lap to keep warm as I waited in the van. Super lame.

One of my daughters asked what the cat’s name was. Let’s see if you can guess. Here are some options:

A. Boots

B. Whiskers

C. Cheddar

D. Monkey

I promise not to send you a Betsy tattoo if you guess correctly. 😉

What did you think of those cookies? Not bad, right? Probably because I basically had nothing to do with the making of them.

Would you want that kitty on your lap?

Would you backfist Sensei too?

Let me know below.

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