Excellent!

I even had beets in my sala!

When What Not To Wear says you shouldn't wear miniskirts over the age of 35, do they mean any skirt above the knee, or specifically shorter skirts?

I wear WAY more miniskirts now than I did before I turned 35! I don't even have really good legs (I mean, I do in that legs-to-build-an-empire-on way, but not in a traditional way). But this fall, I've been wearing really short corduroy skirts with tights and my black boots. I don't know why but it makes me happy. And I like short skirts because I'm pretty short.

Beets! NOM!

I made a tortellini soup that was delish. Had it with french bread from portos toasted in the oven. Tomorrow's dinner is going to be cream of parsnip soup. Or maybe that will be monday. Maybe tomorrow will be meatloaf with panko-crusted cauliflower? Dunno yet.

We have been housebound today because neither kid has been feeling great. We did make 10 dozen cookies (no seriously) so I'm all cookied out for the moment. We'll decorate them on Tuesday.

Aw. I broke natter.

Bad Kat!

You didn't break Natter, it was merely resting.

I am impressed with you for cooking before T-Day. Also for baking 12,000 cookies. I barely managed laundry today.

I didn't manage laundry though. There was only minimal yelling, but also some growling with the cookies.

HOW am I going to occupy twins tomorrow? Indoors again? THIS is why I couldn't live somewhere with snow!

Definitely don't ban above the knee skirts over 35, even if you are banning mini-skirts. Those are not the same thing. I have a couple pencil skirts I just bought that hit right above the knee, and I don't think of that as short.

HOW am I going to occupy twins tomorrow? Indoors again? THIS is why I couldn't live somewhere with snow!

Right there with you. I've been wondering how to keep the kids busy and happy for a whole frigging week without school.

Do your kids like to draw? Crayons, paper, maybe scissors and tape and my kids are busy for hours.

all the testees got caught in the thunderstorm during the start-of-the-test run from the school to the Berkeley Marina and back, and staggered in drenched to all their bones.

It's krav. I'm sure they arranged it.

It was pretty brutal. Emmett was by far the youngest person there at age 14. I think the next closest testees in age were at least a decade older.

The original run was much harder than I had anticipated because of the downpour.

They ran two miles to the Berkeley Marina. Half of that was on loose gravel alongside train tracks.

Then they had to run up a construction site's big hills of dirt. Five times. In a downpour. With the mud pulling their shoes off. While doing a fireman's carry of somebody of comparable weight. (Emmett's partner weighted 160.)

Then an army crawl across the gravel. Then an army crawl through a drainage stream. (His clothes are so so filthy that they made the tub water I rinsed them in almost black.)

Then another two mile run back in the rain.

A short break to change clothes, eat protein bars and drink sports drinks.

Then three hours of review of material. Punching, kicking, falls, breaking choke holds etc.

Then they get the test. Which didn't last an hour but more like 80 minutes.

Fortunately Emmett's partner was close to him in weight and was very patient, since as Emmett got tired he was hitting more grazing punches as he had less control.

At exactly five hours and fifty minutes into it, Emmett briefly lost his shit. I could see he was crying and his partner asked him if he wanted to stop. But he took a second to compose himself, and slowed his breathing, and then came back to finish the last half hour.

I thought it was just breaking from fatigue but he told me later that his throat closed up a bit and he was having trouble breathing and it scared him. But the regulated breathing got him back on track within a couple minutes and he was fine.

He doesn't have asthma as far as I know, but he generally has problems running longer distances, and certainly running in the rain didn't help.

Anyway. He did it. He finished. And he didn't just flop around, he was still doing hard punch combinations and reminding his partner of proper technique, and how to do each drill up to the end.

Not too shabby for fourteen years old. His teacher (a hardass Israeli military type) said, "He did great!"

After the test they celebrated. They wolfed down BBQ wings, and after we traversed the Bridge I got Emmett into a hot tub, and gave him some Ibuprofen and he was very, very, very happy indeed to get into his bed.