This one time, at Ninja Training...

I had a hard time staying awake during my first day of Ninja Training.

The room was dark and warm, the voices were soothing, and I was running so late that morning (due to circumstances beyond my control) that I didn't have time for coffee.

I KNOW.  Like it's even remotely possible to be a Ninja without coffee.  (It isn't.  It's the first rule of Ninja School:  1.  Drink coffee.  I can't tell you what rules 2 through 10 are, because then I would have to kill you.)

It has been riDONKulously cold here.  Naturally, everyone has been reminding me about all the bitching and moaning I did last winter, when it was uncharacteristically warm and un-snowy (if I'm going to be stuck in the northeast, dammit, it had better freaking snow, especially after the hell, humidity and mosquitoes that is summer)... But you guys, my hair froze yesterday morning when I took the dogs out.

My hair froze.

I'm not sure you are understanding the enormity of what I'm saying, so I'm going to repeat myself one more time:

MY HAIR FROZE.


I had to get up uber early so I could shower, shave, get dressed, do my hair, beautify America (it's the least I can do), etc.  Unfortunately, when I get up, so do Javi and Maisy.

Maisy and Javi, respectively.

And when they get up, it goes like this:

Javi:  "Arf!  Arf!  Arf!  Arf!  Arf!"


*In case you don't speak Pomeranian, that means "I want to go out!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!  Now!"


And he ARFS until I take him out.  It's nothing short of really, really irritating, as his sharp little-dog barks are akin to having someone stab you in the ears repeatedly with an ice pick.


Since I had just gotten out of the shower, my hair was wet.  I nudged and whacked Dan with a pillow to try to get him up so that HE could take the dogs out, but he managed to fake sleep longer than I could tolerate Javi's relentless "arf"-ing, so I put on my clothes, coat and boots, muttered an obscenity at my husband, and stomped down the stairs with the bouncing and arfing critters, who had no friggin' idea how cold it was outside.


This is how cold it was:

The second I stepped out the door, my nose sealed shut, my eyes started watering, my ears began burning, and my hair froze.

Exactly like this.

Little Javi, who weighs 4 lbs, hiked his little leg to pee and literally froze in place.

Maisy refused to pee anywhere that snow might touch her delicate epidermis so naturally, she squatted on the porch.


(Well, wouldn't you?)


I started my car, checked the temperature (I don't have anything as mundane as an outdoor thermometer... when I want to know how cold it is, I turn on my car) and it was minus 9 degrees.

I wondered if that meant my training was cancelled.  I mean, seriously... who the hell expects anyone to leave the house when it's minus 9 freaking degrees?  I consulted my husband, a native New Yorker, who woke up long enough to laugh at me, mock me for all of my whining about it not being cold enough last winter, and tell my California ass that businesses don't close and people still have to go to work when it's negative degrees.

Seriously?

Californians have way more sense than that.  That's all I'm saying.

Shut the FRONT door... the HELL you say!

Suck it, bitches.  //word

Anyway, so that's why I was running late and didn't have time for coffee...

Because my hair froze and it took me half an hour to warm up my car long enough that I wouldn't have to scrape the ice off myself.

(Ninja's do not do their own ice scraping.  It is written.)

(I don't care if I have to warm up my car for three hours before I go somewhere... I'm not standing out there in the frozen tundra of northern New York with an ice scraper.)

Long story short, falling asleep aside, my first day of training went well.

I managed to revive myself by drinking two cups of the scorched coffee that was available and drink a bottle of ice water.

It's amazing how awake you can stay when you desperately need to pee.


I'm pretty sure I missed the entire last hour of the seminar because all I could focus on was how full my bladder was and wondering how long it would be before I suffered a pipe bursting.  (Can that even happen?  Can your bladder explode?  I mean, I'm sure it can, but CAN it really just because you drank too much coffee and water and have to go to the bathroom but are in a really boring seminar and wonder what the protocol is about getting up in the middle of a lecture and going to the bathroom?  What IS the protocol on that, anyway?  Do you raise your hand?  Do you just get up and nonchalantly saunter out as if you own the place?  Do you announce, "I need to pee... hang on a sec."  I really have no idea.)

GAHHHHHHH!

Other things that crossed my mind during the seminar:

1.  Cool... I'm not the fattest person here.  (Always a concern of mine.)

2.  Dear God some of these people are ugly.  (I know, I know... I'm shallow.  Shocking, I'm sure.)

3.  Who the fuck does their hair??

4.  Black girls should never wear a tan sweater with tan slacks and a dark brown scarf.  (Don't ask.  Just know that it's true.)

5.  Who the hell has a seminar without offering snacks?  (Not that I would eat any... I don't eat in front of strangers.  I figure if maybe they don't see me eat, they'll assume I'm not really this fat.  But still, it would have been nice of them to at least offer.)

6.  Why do fat nerdy guys always have the most bad-ass tattoos?  Like Fatty Geekboy over there is gangsta.

7.  I'm wayyy more gangsta than Fatty Geekboy.

8.  My Betty Boop tattoos are soooo gangsta.  Suck it, Fatty Geekboy.

9.  Dayum, there's a lot of fatties here.  Hmmmm...


Word to the wise:

Come the Zombie Apocalypse, a lot of really fat Ninjas with bad hair will be coming to your rescue.

Now you know.

BOOM!