Fevered still: chess, epee and sex on a spoon?

Wow, this fever just won’t quit. But neither will I.

I have been watching anime again, a series called Shion No Ou about Japanese Chess (Shouji) and three female players. The excellent storytelling slowly reveals the motivations, desperation and weaknesses of each player in life using the stategy within the Shouji Matches. Shion aged 14 is the youngest professional female player. She was adopted by the professional Shouji player and wife next door after her mother and father were murdered in front of her at age five. The killer stopped when he saw her over the board, and she was left alive, but mute, blood over her Shouji board. Shouji is and has been the one constant in her life. The killer was never caught.

That is the start. There are many twists and turns, but I won’t tell.

It reminded me of my father playing me chess as a child. And the year I spent, age nine, playing chess every lunch period with the math teacher, the Vice Principal. I liked it, but like math, it simply wasn’t enough for me.

I remember the tension at four or five, when my father was my father irritated with me, because I did not ‘think' and had made a poor move. He never held back and it took some years to win a single game, then years more to win constantly.

I supposed I could be bitter, or frustrated, and I probably was, but I learned that losing is a path to learning. And that to face someone stronger, and be defeated is the road to become stronger myself.

In the end I wanted to face the people, not the game, and I think it was Epee that finally gave me the taste I had been waiting for: to fail, be outmatched, to train, to overcome, to face again, using experience, the broad view, and the narrow view. To know that joy of suddenly losing to a lightning move IN a 15 point bout that left me perplexed: the challenge of trying to analyze, discover, deduce, determine, and try to change your style entirely was a greater engagement than the matches where everything I trained months for came together and I won. Those seconds, mind racing, telling my heart to calm as I walked to the line during a sudden reversal required complete mental and physical commitment. I was coming up with strategies, rejecting them, adapting others, comparing styles seen and determining what to do while the body trembled and sweat ran down me. Yes, these are great memories.

I never really thought I would be able to be strong enough, recover enough again to go to boxing. But I am. And I am bouting again. I may be far weaker than before. But that, like the wheelchair, is just one more slight disadvantage to overcome.

Tomorrow I want to come back and talk about the big craft faire on the weekend, and some of the purchases we got there. Linda, who seems maybe horny herself, got ‘Sex on a Spoon’ jam here and is pretty happy about it. That should worry me, right?

I’ll see you then!

Market (with a Schacht Spindle) & Craft Store, plus a little scare

Hey, woke up this morning with some painful heart erratics. So needed to take some meds to sleep. But once Linda got her 10 hours of sleep (Linda is very possessive of her channeled Sloth during long weekends), we were up and off to a Town Market. More pics on that later including our fresh peas and vegetables. While Linda was fresh veg loading, I, however, was talking to this woman and not just because her yarn spindle a Schacht.Turns out Schacht no longer sell spindles having the dark wood inlay but still costs $1,000. But this woman has been spinning yarn for over 30 years. Now in Canada that doesn't make her THAT unique...until she started talking about her SHEEP.

Yes, that’s right, ever since her child got into 4H decades ago she has kept first a flock and now down to just four sheep which she shears in the spring and then makes into yarn. Talk about doing it the old school way. She had lots of terms that went over my head, about double spinning the yarn and how she dyes it but I enjoyed talking to someone who takes such delight in their craft. She likes her Schacht but is in love with a New Zealand Spindle which apparently is the spindle dream machine.

After that we went to a craft store because Cheryl wanted to look at the inks and I wanted to look at the rubber stamps. I only found one company (again) that was up to my quality level but ended up buying a LITTLE bit (Linda says my “mad money” for next two weeks is reducing quickly, sigh (“Go ebay sales go!”)!

Afterward, I had a series of seizures, both taken home and at home and then some serious problems with my heart and my body stopped converting oxygen. That whole problem took up about five hours. There were moments of “Should we go to the hospital” and “Can they even do anything? (Hospitals can't MAKE a person ON oxygen convert it if the body isn't)” Also it seemed that one kidney might be shutting down. So that was like, not great.

But this wasn't MY FAULT! I didn’t actually do anything bad or crazy, it was just started as a punky day, had heart problems before getting up so this is just probably a continuing part of that.

Later I will talk more about the moments of mortality I had when I stared at my hands while they turned purple (fingers, thumb), when my heart was like stabbing ice as it couldn't beat for more than a few seconds without just failing and fluttering. And my blood pressure was so high and my kidney and heart hurt so bad I could only scream. But I am still paralyzed from Seizure number X. That wasn't a great head space.

Either way, I still got out, I had fun, I talked to some people and right now I have to run because I am working on some postcards.

See, a little brush with Mr. D. isn’t going to keep me down.

I hope you are having fun days (and I did have fun parts!). Or if not, giving tomorrow another chance. I'll be back tomorrow with pics and stories. See ya!