Emptiness Dancing

It’s a lonely, dreary, rainy Friday afternoon here at the ol’ Litterbox…. I’m all alone at the apartment listening to the pitter-patter of steady drizzle on my windows. I just hate when my day off gets rained out… and even Ting-Ting seems unusually lazy…. snoozing on the back of the couch and in no mood to be played with. What’s a bored lil’ Catgirl to with herself at a time like this? Why take the time to do another quick diary posting to pass the afternoon away….😉�

(Psssssttt!! That’s your cue to “Read On“ for those of you new to how things work ’round here…..)

Yep…. August is finally upon me and with it the last vestiges of Summer Fun before our local colleges open back up for their Fall semesters probably stealing away all my free time… and Carolyn’s as well…. but while there are still cool mornings and warm days to spare, yours truly is trying hard to make the best of them.

While swimming hasn’t become one of my new accomplishments yet, I have had at least some success with my re-awakened interest in Tai-Chi and my desire to finally learn to actually use the sword I had languishing in the back of my closet all these years. Yep…. there I’m having much more luck. As well as a bit of excitement to boot……

Our Martial Art classes on Monday and Wednesday nights are fun… but to really get any better you have to try to practice daily the movements, both the solo forms as well as “pushing hands”, which works well for us since we are both taking the classes. It gives me an eager live-in training partner to help with learning as well as motivating me to keep it up. We usually do this first thing in the morning…. having both made a routine of getting up just before dawn to head down to the local park by the river where we can relax and enjoy the fresh, clean morning together for a good hour or so, running through our exercises. Then, as a lil’ reward for being such good girls, we stop back by our favorite coffee shop across the way for a quick cup or two before heading back to the apartment and getting ready for work.

Mind you… it doesn’t always fit in to our schedule, and Carolyn in particular has to head in to work far too early some mornings to do it with me everyday. On those mornings…. if I’m not a complete slug… I still try to do it by myself. Being me though…. without Carolyn to keep me focused and grounded and “on mission”… my mind sometimes wanders as I go through the Forms and takes me to the silliest of places…… Last week, I had one of those mornings.😉�

By now, you’ve probably figured out that this lady has a particularly vivid imagination, given to whimsical notions and goofy flights of fancy…. I daydream…. and indulge my silly imagination coming up with all sorts of nutty scenarios. Given that, it wasn’t hard to let my mind wander one particularly cool and foggy morning as I went through the sword form…. only to realize I wasn’t alone.

I had brought with me my CD player… to provide soothing meditation music while I went through my routines… and a bottle of water, both perched atop a rock nearby, but that particular morning I also had with me a quick morning snack in the form of a chocolate granola bar. It wasn’t long before that particular item caught the attention of a cunning sneak, bent on stealing my early breakfast for his own. The dreaded chipmunk ninja of Mount Wulan…..

Yep…. don’t let those cute lil’ stripes and shiny eyes fool you. Chipmunks are evil…… and worse, they know ninjitsu… take this Catgirl’s word on that. One minute, the peaceful sounds of a bamboo flute lulled me into harmony, my movements graceful and measured, just long enough for the cunning lil’ fiend to strike!! But… luckily my highly trained Wuxia senses alerted me that something was amiss. (Mind you… the CD player also happened to run it’s batteries dead at just that moment causing me to glance that way, but that was merely a coincidence… honestly.)

So there we were… locked in that deadly stand-off you see in all those films. Me, shooting a steely eyed stare down the length of my sword in the lowest stance possible…. him perched on that rock, nibbling away for all he was worth on my yummy treasure, and giving me his own “thousand yard stare”…. My mind wandered to every silly Kung-fu film I’ve ever seen and naturally, I just couldn’t resist flourishing my blade and saying loudly in my most intimidating Wuxia accent, “So, then…. You want to fight? Your Kung-Fu is weak, puny chipmunk…”

Now…. at this point you have to remember it’s early dawn… in a shadow dappled deserted wooded park in the middle of town with faint wisps of fog hanging over the river… and I’m dressed in my silk Tai-Chi outfit and armed with a sword. Yep…. a real live  honest-to-goodness sword. And I’m threatening a chipmunk…. Hey…. Nobody’s really supposed to be up and about at that hour…. What’s the worst that could happen?

How about hearing someone say from the path leading in from the gazebo nearby, “Is there some sort of problem here, Miss?” followed quickly by a much more urgent and less friendly, “OK…. Wait a minute now…. just put the sword down Miss and step away….”

Yep…. Of course this wee Catgirl can’t be acting all goofy and foolish without the local police wandering by at just the wrong moment on a special patrol looking for teenage vandals who apparently started messing around in the park the last few weeks. I don’t know who was more scared at that moment…. me or the strange policeman with his hand on his holster and the confused look on his face as he glanced nervously about for my “opponent”. There were several moments of uneasiness while he shouted for his partner and kept a sharp eye on “Kung-fu Lady”… (Somehow I just know that’s my new nickname at the local police station…. d’oh!!)…. who did indeed drop her sword and stare right back like a deer caught in his flashlight.

His partner arrived… and him I recognized, thank goodness… There was a couple of minutes of embarrassing explanation… and since that second officer had seen both Carolyn and I practicing here before, he was able to convince his partner I wasn’t some sort of dangerous kook that needed a quick trip to the psych ward. Thank goodness we live in a college town…. I just can’t be the weirdest thing this policeman has ever encountered in the course of his duties.

Actually… after we got it all sorted out and they explained why they were there so early that morning, I was somewhat amused to find out that Steve… the second cop… had actually been making a habit of wandering by the park most mornings to see Carolyn and I practicing while working up the nerve to introduce himself. Seems all this time he’d really wanted to ask Carolyn out on a date!! I didn’t have the heart to tell him about us…… just telling him “my roommate” was already seeing someone seriously.😉�

Carolyn got a kick out of all this, of course once she got home and I told her the whole thing….. although she made me promise not to indulge in anymore early morning solo practice sessions. Ahhhh….. and I’ll be using my wooden training sword from now on too… just to make people a wee less nervous should they encounter Wuxia Princess Neko by surprise. And the chipmunk? Well he got clean away…. with the police never having caught even a look at him. I seriously think they doubt his very existence….. Ninjitsu skills, the ability to cloud men’s minds and walk (or scamper) within shadows…. see, I told you!! But…. as with all good ninjas… some other foggy morning, I just know…. when the granola is right… he will return to continue our rudely interrupted duel.

Anyway….. despite the near arrest for practicing Kung-fu without a license (or public possession of a deadly weapon, I’m not sure which…)… the whole incident did give me the idea for this month’s Theme Review series….. “Martial Art Mayhem”. I’ve already posted one for Brazil’s capoeira historical epic “Besouro”, and within the next day or so you can expect one for Rina Takeda’s latest film, “Karate Girl”. Later on, if the Movie Faeries are kind, the Indonesian Martial Art action blockbuster “The Raid” due out next week here on Region 1 DVD complete and uncut!! Yay!!

So that’s my Diary for this time out…. and until the next time I do something else silly worth sharing, I leave you all with a warm “Meow, meow for now”……