Even with Scout’s sneaky attempt to get me blogging again, I’m afraid this will be my last blog entry for awhile. On Wednesday I’m having surgery on my left wrist. I’m being told I will be in a fingers to shoulder brace that locks out all motion for the next four months. Remember the wrist injury from last April? I spent most of last year with the doctor telling me it was bruised. I finally saw a hand specialist in December. Turns out it’s actually not a bruise (well duhhhh.) So anyway, it needs some surgery to repair some torn cartilage. I was trying to get out of the surgery and begging for some non-surgical options, which did not work. By the time I realized that wasn’t going to work, we had come within weeks of my favorite karate tournament. I fought in a tournament in the fall with this injury successfully (Two seconds and a first place) and thought I could pull that off again. Alas, no. The tournament was this past weekend and I entered a tough division and was so limited in what I could do, I lost in the first elimination round. Sigh. It’s been really tough to realize that I now have to sit out months of karate and hapkido on that note. Devastating, really. And I’m terrified because they are operating on my HAND. You *need* your hands! *I* need them to hit people! ;)

I’m not sure there’s ever a convenient time to lose the use of one of your hands, but my 40th birthday is in a couple of weeks. I told Steve in December that I wanted to do a big party for my 40th, but with the uncertainty surrounding my surgery and what my limitations would be, it made it impossible to try to plan something. :( I’m not sure what I was thinking anyway, we all know about the birthday curse. So we’ll just all pretend that it’s not happening and I’ll stay 39  29 for another year.

And just so you know? I got fuddruckered again. This time at a mexican food restuarant at the tournament. We went out to dinner with some people from the dojo. They found out about my meat poisoning problem and were cracking jokes. When my vegetable fajitas came, Sensei cracked that washing casting iron ruins it and wondered out loud if they had washed my cast iron before putting my vegetables on. The following day I sent him a text message that said “In case you were wondering, they DON’T wash the cast iron at that restaurant.” Apparently they were driving home and almost ran off the road because they were laughing so hard. I spent most of yesterday doubled over and moaning “I haaaattttteeeee meat!!!!!!!” Sigh. 

On a brighter note, Steve and son #2 kicked butt at the tournament. Steve placed 2nd and 3rd, and son #2 won first place in both kata (forms) and sparring! Son #1 is currently in a hip to ankle leg brace and unable to do much of anything. Oh, yes, it’s been tough around the Teixeira household lately!

So anyway, I’m afraid I’m not going out on much of a high note here either for the next few months, but as with all things, it is what it is. And I must remember what a wise man once said:

“The ultimate aim of karate-do lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.”
- Gichin Funakoshi