Sheesh.

I am not able to sleep in much anymore.  I made it to 8am today and that was nice.  It was a long day yesterday.  I drove a van of kids to a debate tournament and spent the day judging debate rounds.  We left at 6am and got back at 9:15pm.  Oof.  I came home, dropped my bag on the floor and lay on the lounge and watched tv while I ate swedish fish and drank wine.  I could not talk.  My bran was still running and I needed to shut it down before I could sleep.

I expected to sleep in this morning, but I got up, took care of animals and read the paper.  My to do list is sitting here next to me (I did not put "blog" on the list, but I am doing it anyway).

(I am at that point in my blog drafting where I am realizing that I am going to go in a different direction than I intended when I sat down.  That happens to you, too, right?)

I judged all day yesterday.  I didn't get a single round off.  It was exhausting.  I have been out of debate for over twenty years and while it is the same in many ways it has also changed.  My beloved Lincoln Douglas debate has gotten more "policy debate" like with kids running crazy arguments and speed talking.  I prefer a more genteel and persuasive style.  I like the arguments to be logical.  I felt a little crabby about it at first and I worried that my ballots would cause problems for my team (sometimes judges get reputations and can even be vetted by a school if there is a reason to do so).  My daughter's coach laughed when I brought this up and told me that everyone loves my ballots and that I just need to judge my way and it's ok.  I was on two panels yesterday (quarter finals, semi finals and finals are judged by three judge panels) with new style judges (all college kids, who, frankly, intimidate me with their intelligence) and both decisions were 3-0 decisions, meaning that we all picked the same winner.  We gave an oral critique that definitely showed our differences in judging, but really we all made a decision based on the same things.  That was interesting and reassuring to me.

I got some time to visit with my old coach about stuff - Obamacare and retirement and how fun it is to hang out with debate kids all weekend.  He's thinking about an early retirement and working in a less time consuming way with debate - maybe at the middle school level.  He had little kids when he was my debate coach and I think back now and realize that he and his wife worked all week and then he was gone all day Saturday and sometimes more if we traveled overnight.  I am grateful that I had him and others like him.  I am aware that my daughter's team looks up to me and now I have kids from other teams who recognize me and chat with me outside of rounds.

I have a day of to do list tasks - housework, pay bills and spinning class this afternoon.  None of these will exhaust me as much as sitting on my ass and listening to smart teenagers argue.

My son won't put his bike away.  He rides home from school around 3:30 and parks his bike at the end of the driveway in front of the garage door.  I come home at 5:30 and can't pull all the way in because the bike is there, and really, I should be grateful that the bike is there and not stolen, because it could easily be stolen.  I ask and ask and ask.  The bike is there every night.

I used to drop my bike in the front yard when I got done with my paper route.  My dad got tired of asking me to put my bike away, so one day he "stole" it.  He hid it from me and I had to walk everywhere for a week or so until the neighbor living behind us asked me why my bike was parked behind the garage.

I thought about stealing my own son's bike.

I suggested another plan.

"Do you know what valet parking is?" I asked him when I walked in yesterday.

"Sure.  That's where you have guys in tuxedos park your car and put the keys on a little board so that when you come back they can run out and get your car for you."

"Do you know how much that costs?"

"No."

"It's expensive.  It costs more to use valet parking than to park your own car because you have someone else doing the work.  Does that make sense?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if I have to put your bike away every day I am going to start charging you.  It's going to cost you 50 cents for me to valet park your bike."

He studied my face to see if I was serious.  And then he went and put his bike away.

Giant Civil Liberties Union (yes.  them!) attorney is meeting with me about filing an amicus brief to support my appeal.

Last week I ordered red heels to go with my navy blue suit, which I think will look really good for oral arguments.

Plus I'll be sitting next to a fancy pants nonprofit attorney (as opposed to a private practice fancy pants attorney) who argues in front of federal appellate courts.

This is getting very interesting.

I should figure out what I am going to say at some point, huh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4lgOiHBZo

I have been obsessed with this OK Go video for months now.  It all culminated with (finally) quitting bellydance (my final performance was in August) and meeting a table of tangueros who dance in a coffee shop on Friday nights.  Tango is both completely simple (walking) and potentially very complicated.  It reminds me of the tribal style bellydance that I did for so many years - there is a leader, and as a follower you notice the changes in weight and anticipate the next step - steps which have a base and then a variation.

I dance at the coffee shop every Friday and on Mondays I take actual lessons.  It might seem weird that I am doing this without a partner, but there are actually more leads than follows in our tango community.  And because it is a social dance everyone changes partners anyway.  Practicing by myself is a challenge.  Last night I practiced a step called an "ocho" which is the woman's feet making an eight on the floor.  I put the laptop on the top bunk bed and gently balanced myself with the railing as I mimicked the feet on the screen.  A basic and then variation after variation - lifting the foot on the pivot, dragging the foot on the pivot, pausing with a lifted knee on the pivot.  Argentine Tango is an opportunity for two people to have a conversation in music.  It is much more flexible than the ballroom dance I did years ago.

It's also much more intimate.

My husband knows I am dancing Argentine Tango and I think he's not so sure what to make of that.  I have invited him to come and he won't.  I am very aware that while it is not sexual it IS intimate and that is part of what I like so much about it.  Bellydance was less threatening because although people think it is sexy and provocative, it really isn't.  And bellydancers are more into bellydance than men are.

I can't get over how easy it is to find a subculture when you find a new interest.  I have new friends who have welcomed me and included me in "The Tango Scene."  I didn't even know Lincoln had a tango scene!

"You want to dance with other men?" he asked.

"I want to dance with you," I said.

Mostly I dance with the bunk bed railing.

German Immigrant food is seriously fucking cheap.  A head of cabbage was 44 cents!  I also got three pounds of ground beef, a bag of onions, and a bag of potatoes.

Today is my Veteran's Day (observed) which means that I have the day off from work.  The kids were supposed to be at school, but one has the stomach flu and he is on the couch playing video games and the other had a headache and got a late start (I did get her to school).  So. Armistice Day.  And a recipe.  Runza is actually a restaurant here in Nebraska.  They sell these sandwiches and people who have lived here and had them pretty much love them.  My mom gets frozen ones to take to Oklahoma with her.  My high school friend who now lives in Michigan always wants a Runza when she visits.  They are incredibly simple food.  I couldn't believe there were so few ingredients.  But these taste just like a Runza Restaurant runza.  Technically a runza is just a German peasant food that the German homesteaders made when they came to Nebraska.  It's an empenada or calzone.  But it's German.  Here's the recipe:

2 lb ground beef

1 large onion, chopped

salt and pepper

1 medium head of cabbage, chopped

2 batches of bread dough

Saute the onion in oil.  Add hamburger and saute.  Season with salt and pepper.  Drain the grease.  Cover the meat with the chopped cabbage and cook for 45 minutes.

Roll the dough into small rectangles and put the filling in it and roll like a burrito from Chipotle (tuck in sides and fold lengthwise).

Bake 20-25 minutes.

Then go plow a field or make a house out of sod.

Happy Armistice Day!

Yesterday I was sitting in the sun in a tshirt and bare feet and today I am bundled up and making chili.  Crazy weather, this.

I have the day off tomorrow and my family will be gone - kids at school and my husband at work.  My favorite kind of holiday.

If you are not into college football it is hard to explain.

I love the space of Nebraska.  I love that even in the city I do not feel the crush and rush that I feel in other cities.  And yet there is this space.  We smash in here and: We are NOT Penn State.  Ha!  (I just had to get that joke in there.)  Seriously, it is fun.  And it is good to be with friends and my son.  It's also good to win a football game.

What I love about Nebraska football?  We love our Defense.  We cheer our defense and appreciate them.  And they win games.

I started my "stroke refinement class" a/k/a "grown up swim lessons" last night.  I was really nervous about it.  I worried that I would be the slowest swimmer and have a panic attack in the pool and get pulled out by the instructor.  When I showed up I was one of 2 women.  There were six men.  I was definitely the fattest.

We got in the pool for some drills, and to my surprise, not only could I do them, I did them well.  I was relatively fast - on my back I beat everyone else in the class by half a length - on my front I was still the first one to the other side of the pool.  Apparently I have good positioning in the water.  My weaknesses are my breathing and my stroke, which is why I signed up for the class.  I am absolutely over the moon about all of this.  I am proud of myself for signing up and going despite my anxiety.  I am looking forward to the coming classes.  I can really see how the drills that we're doing will develop my stroke and help my breathing.  "We'll have you flying across the pool by the end of the session," my instructor commented while I waited at the end of the pool for everyone else to finish their lap.

I believe him.

Last night the oldest daughter stayed over.  It's actually nice to have her visit these days.  She and I chatted while I baked cookies.  She updated me on her job and voting for the first time.  She observed that she didn't know her dad was so political until she moved in with him.  It was easy conversation.  We didn't talk about life goals or household chores or argue about money.

Then she help me set Fandor up on my Roku.  I have had a Fandor subscription, but I have only been able to watch it on my laptop since I couldn't figure out how to add it to the Roku menu.  (And incidentally, I really love Fandor.  There are so many more options than Netflix - the type of stuff I like - foreign movies, documentaries and independent films.)  We joked about how I am old enough to need help with this sort of thing and she assured me that she would visit me when I am "old" and help me set up my tv.

We settled on "Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" which was visually interesting - black and white, very little dialogue, unclear setting, etc.  It was a very simple story done very well.  We chatted for a bit after the movie about why we liked it and what we thought happened to the characters at the end of the movie, and then we brushed our teeth and went to bed.

Normal is wonderful.