It's being a bit of a year.

I'm 53 years old and have three kids.  Not that they're really "kids" any more--the youngest (who tentatively identifies as non-binary) is 16, and the others are Simon (24) and Luke (22).  What with Covid, and the job/housing market, Simon, although he has graduated, is still living at home, as is Luke, who has been going to university.  Though he's taking a year off at the moment.

Luke in some ways is the classic middle child, being the one who's been most likely to help out around the house, which is helpful in this likely undiagnosed-ADHD-ridden household.  He has had his ADHD diagnosed, and anxiety, and has gotten his own medications for those.  He got a part-time job as a parking attendant, which is more than Simon has managed.  (Simon took a Comp.Sci. degree and wants to get into game development, and has been fruitlessly job-hunting since he graduated, but has been largely unwilling to apply for jobs outside of software development.)

A couple of years ago (not quite sure when it started, but as of last August it had definitely been a thing for a while) Luke started getting lower back pains.  So he started trying to fix his posture (he's quite tall, so probably had a bit of a tendency to slouch), he tried to be more active, and of course he went to doctors.  They couldn't figure out what it was; one of them thought maybe it was a problem with his gluteal nerve being inflamed or something, and there were some plans to try to deal with that.  They did an MRI.

Then they did a biopsy.  And apparently this is a more loaded word than I had thought, because this was when my wife started getting anxious but I remained clueless.

Because what they found was cancer.

They weren't 100% sure about it, but it looked like something called a "Ewing sarcoma", a rare bone/soft tissue cancer which often appears in the teens.  Apparently in Luke's case it had shown up in his sacral area.

My wife had a cousin (once removed) who got cancer young and did not make it.  My mom went through breast cancer a few years ago and came out of it okay, but her husband's bout with it a few years later was not as successful.

So we went in to the Cross Cancer Institute, a local institution which is pretty state-of-the-art, to talk to the oncologist and her team.  They had to do some more scans to try to see if it had metastasized, which is of course always the big question mark and a major determiner in how screwed you are.  They didn't find much except a tiny spot on one lung, which they eventually concluded was nothing to worry about.  Which was a relief, given how long it had been since the pains started, and we started to relax a little bit.

In about March they started him on an aggressive chemotherapy schedule--chemo every two weeks, alternating between a week with a half day of treatment and a week with three full days of treatment.  Which got to be a bit of a grind, especially for a one-vehicle household in a city that doesn't have the greatest public transit infrastructure in the world.  And of course after a full day of getting toxic substances pumped into his veins, Luke didn't particularly want to have to get home on his own anyway, so we tried to juggle things so that one of us could pick him up.  I'd been back in the office since October 2022, but I started taking more WFH days, with the approval of my immediate bosses who are, luckily, entirely sympathetic.

Luke's hair fell out; he wore a wig briefly while it was still patchy, but has pretty much given that up by now.  He had to get some pricy medications, which were generally covered by the Blue Cross plan I have through work or by his student healthcare plan (Canada healthcare is good enough that we weren't even charged for anything apart from that, but our pharmacare is still vestigial), and they have "drug coordinators" to help fill in the gaps.  He quite his job right away, and finished his university year in April but didn't sign up for the next year, because that had been enough of a struggle.  One of the drugs, Lapelga, was designed to try to help his white blood cell count, because of course the cancer-fighting drugs also beat those down too.  (My mom's white blood cells apparently got really low during her treatments.)

We're now into the second half of the treatment.  His white blood cells have also gotten low; he started off by getting an actual blood transfusion to try to bring them up, and he's now on chemo every three weeks to give him more recovery time.  But the cancer is getting beaten back.  He's now starting on radiation treatments as well (anecdotally, radiation is supposed to do quite well against Ewing sarcomas, so here's hoping), but that schedule looks like it'll be even more grueling: treatments every day (well, every weekday) for six weeks.  (What happens when they overlap with the chemo days, I'm not sure yet.)  His energy levels are up and down--chemo weeks he'll spend more time sleeping, but he still tries to hang out with his friends from time to time, often online.  I'm sure he understands that his job right now is just fighting cancer (or hanging on while the cancer is being fought, at least).  And presumably when the chemo and radiation are done, what's left will be a tiny thing they can surgically remove.

Apart from when we first got the news, the mood in the house has been generally positive.  The doctors seem optimistic (though of course maybe they always do that, to keep people's hopes up), they do seem to be making progress, it doesn't seem to have metastasized...  It's a lot of effort, but maybe it'll just be One Bad Year and after that things will be Okay.  I am a little vague on what the cancer is actually doing to his bones--are they going to need to be repaired somehow once the tumour is gone?  Will he still suffer pain there for the rest of his life?  And, of course, the lingering question of...will the cancer come back?

One of the books I'm reading right now is Risk, a.k.a. The Science of Fear, by Dan Gardner.  At one point he's talking about how people often deliberately exaggerate numbers to make something sound worse than it is, because that way they can convince more people to do something about it.  And cancer is one of those things.  A lot of work has been done on treating cancer, and it's not an automatic death sentence by any means.  And one reason we're getting better at treating it is because it's been treated as a serious problem...but the better we get at treating it, the less serious the problem becomes?  I'm glad that chemo and radiation treatments are getting as effective as they are.  I'd heard a thing recently about using these newfangled mRNA vaccines to get someone's immune system to attack cancer cells; sounds like that might work better with someone whose white blood cell count was up to the task, but it sounds promising.

Last summer we lost our cat (to what I believe was lillium poisoning after we stupidly got a stupid free bouquet from the store).  We've talked about getting a new one, and maybe now is the time.  Bring some cheer back into the house.  (Which means, of course, we'll probably be biased in favour of getting a cute kitten rather than a mature or elderly cat which may have its own health problems.)


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Oh my. Thank you for sharing, and give thanks for both modern medicine and for Canada, where medical expenses aren't the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy.
 

Did y'all go to Betsons or something? 

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Nah. But I did swing on down to Hammonton...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXMULgKVyfM



...On my way to Unclaimed Freight, and its (probably unlicensed) use of Korngold's excellent overture to The Sea Hawk...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULt9TvIrLzc (Sorry, it seems comments are only catching the first link. But it's worth the copy/paste, people!)



...Though I did make a pit stop on South Street.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p72BLc69gG8&list=PLB00C2C6F31782717

Well, obviously. It’s the Store of the Stars!
 
 

So. Went for a hike a couple days ago. Target: the Motion Path portion of the East Coast Trail, a 13.8k “moderate to difficult” hike from Petty Harbour to Bay Bulls. (Or is it?...)

We’ve had a dry spell: terrific for hiking, as most of the nearby woodland trails include “prominent water features” (low areas that with a drop of rain become virtual ponds due to adjacent bogs) requiring waterproof-to-shin-height footwear, off-roading into thick, pointy brush to skirt the flooded patches, or the soul of a duck to endure. And the “heat” had broken, with an expected high of 22C/72F. Dry! Cool! Nice! Perfect, even!

I’m a soft old man, but I do likes a hike. Even the trails closest to town don’t disappoint. I’ve done the Quidi Vidi (southern) half of the Sugarloaf Path (view here) and the South Side Hills (western) half of the Deadmans Bay Path a few times. But why “halfsies”? Ah.

For those out for casual day hikes, the main concern is transportation to/from the trailheads. Metrobus (the only regional service) is limited to the St. John’s and Mount Pearl areas, so for trails that go beyond you must be willing to hike a round trip to your car or arrange private transportation to/from at least one end. I’ve gotten around this a bit by exploiting the Route 18 bus, which does dip its toe out of the metro area, specifically with stops in Kilbride and The Goulds. (I’ve also done the easternmost portion of the tRailway walk a few times, as far as the Double Ice Complex in Paradise, where I can get a Rte 30 home; this bus only runs in the early morning and late afternoon, so I have to time my walks appropriately. West of this, there’s no public transit option.)

I learned to use the Kilbride stop after my first attempt at walking Old Petty Harbour Rd down to, you guessed it, Petty Harbour, with the intention of having a mooseburger and beer at Chafe’s Landing, then either reversing the trip or walking the main road out to the highway, both of which get me to the bus. Of course, I didn’t use the bus that time, but instead walked from our old address to the trail, adding six uphill kms. The first and last thirds of the trail are kinda groomed, more like access roads. The middle part, what I call the Mud Flats, a brown patch visible from space that is a lot of fun for ATVs and zero fun for hikers, is where I lost the trail. (Even now, after making the walk a few times, it’s still hard to find the proper way through that muck.) Not believing they’d “force” anyone to cross that barren oozing zone, I stayed west and climbed a ridge, learning too late that I had found a beautiful dead end. (The ending “dot” here is where I wound up, but the blue line wasn’t how; I followed the trail between the dot and the start of the blue line to the north.) Very tired, kinda frustrated and hungry, and realizing that doubling back would cost at least forty minutes, I decided it would be "better" to get down off that ridge through the “wilderness”. Oy. It took me an hour of pushing downhill through brush, jumping across the same stream more than once, ducking branches, and some light bouldering to get to the bottom, then almost going on all fours under that big pipe, then a scramble up to the road. That still left 5k (gently uphill) to the highway bus stop. It was around 3:30pm by then, and the sun was barely over the hills. Did I mention this was December and the temp was just above freezing? I almost called Michele for a rescue. I was soaked through with sweat (undershirt, shirt, jacket liner, and jacket), and by the time I got to the bus stop I had trouble walking and was shivering uncontrollably, possibly entering hypothermia. Can't imagine how I smelled. Total distance about 17.5k, total elevation gain about 280m, duration around 6 hours, calories burned approaching 1400 thanks to the pioneering, total IQ loss about 8, also thanks to the pioneering.

This wasn’t the first dumbass hiking move I’d made. No, that would be the “easier” round trip that was closest to our house, part of the Deadmans Bay Path. Eagle-eyed folks clicking that link will note that the total elevation gain is 419m; this is actually two climbs of 210m, and two descents. I went north first, to the trailhead by Fort Amherst, from where it’s a whole lot of rocky wooded steepness up to the top of Cahill Point and the Big Dam (spoiler: it’s not very big). The descent to Freshwater Bay is just as steep, almost treacherous in places, and maybe harder to navigate down than up (as I would learn later, when I did this trip in reverse). I didn’t go further than the Bay because, again, there’d be no convenient transportation back, so I headed up toward Shea Heights, a distinct neighbourhood on a ridge above the city, an easier leg and not so steep, but uphill all the way. This was summer, so no hypothermia, but I wasn’t prepared for the climb, the UV, or the heat (it was more like 25C/77F; I’m sensitive, okay!); by the time I reached the base of our street, looking at that slope, I pretty much figured I’d call a cab for that last half block. This excursion taught me the value of naproxen. But it didn’t teach me much else, it seemed.

(Technically, the first stupid hike would be fifteen years ago, an ill-conceived all-day walk in new shoes. I lost two toenails. But I’m much better now.)

I’m often guilty of overthinking, over-packing, and over-preparing; every trip to the States is an exercise in stuffing my soft suitcase until it's rigid. But, weirdly, I’m also often guilty of misunderestimating (“For Buddhism, see Buddhism”) the difficulty or scope of an exercise, especially when it’s, you know, exercise. Despite carrying too many pounds and not pumping great cardio, I look at the mileage and think, “No problem!” I pack a light bag that could be lighter if I didn’t overthink it (did I really need to bring a poncho? An emergency whistle? A change of shirt and socks? Mints?), but not pragmatic stuff like, oh, say, a hat, sunscreen or bug repellent. Really, do I need a hat when it’s cool out? Like: the fuck, guy. Enjoying your first visit to Earth?

These were several years ago. Before Covid, in fact. Since then I’ve done the proper trek to Chafe’s Landing, and the reverse Deadmans Bay, without ado. I’ve driven to Bay Bulls a few times to make a round trip to the lighthouse (which Google can’t calculate because much of the East Coast trail isn’t on the map for some reason). I push myself a little because it's good for me, and I enjoy hiking, but have managed to not go too far again.

That was, until...

There was no real hike last year; I was involved in an occupational training program and short-term work contract that kept me at a desk seventy hrs/week from the end of June through mid-November. Immediately afterwards we were getting ready to move to our new digs, so my time was spent packing and organizing. Then there was the move itself before winter reamed us, so my exercise until March was moving boxes and literal tons of snow. I did get a few walks in mid-June 2023, but nothing big. I’ve been jonesin’ for an excursion, and had one specifically in mind: the Motion Path.

I’d gotten close before. I’ve taken the 18 bus to the Goulds and walked both Shoal Bay Rd and Pipeline Rd to the coast to pick up the trail northeast, heading toward Petty Harbour and my mooseburger. But I haven’t been able to spot the Trail from there. Looking north there are rocky cliffs, so the trail must go up, not around the point at sea level. Where did it connect? I know it does, ‘cause the East Coast Trail people mention these roads as ways for folks to enter the Trail. Even Google notes it, though it doesn’t map the Trail itself. Did I miss a branch somewhere uphill? There aren’t any markers around the rocks, so...huh? I never did find it. So I figured the only way to work it is to start in Petty Harbour where the trailhead is grandly stated, and head south to Pipeline Rd.; thereafter, I’d know how it’s done, so I could start south next time. Cool!

Per the East Coast Trail site, the Motion Path to Bay Bulls is a “moderate to difficult” 13.8km. But I’d only be doing about 40% of that. Pipeline Rd itself is about 5.5km, half of which is up, but okay. I could take the bus to the road that leads to Petty Harbour, then walk the 5km in, but walking the roadside is kinda dull, and I already know the 8km Old Petty Harbour Rd, which is a bit more interesting and pretty easy. So I figure the real trick will be that climb from sea level up to the top of the hills at Petty Harbour (200m or so), which is about 90 mins into the trip. That’ll be tough, but I’ve got all day. Then it’s roughly, what, 6km of coastal highland vistas before descending to sea level and the Pipeline Rd. Roughly 20km total, much of it easy, only some of which is ascent, including one steeper climb. Okay! I got this!

I packed two granola bars, an apple, a banana, a litre of weakly-flavoured Crystal Light (because plain water sucks) and a half litre of cold coffee (mmm!). There’s a convenience store near the Petty Harbour trailhead, so I can stop for an extra snack or drink if I feel like it. Clear sky, relatively cool with some fog hanging about the coast – what else do I need? Oh, yeah: my prescription sunglasses! (Progressives, so it takes a few minutes to find where my legs end, but it’ll be fine after that.) I took a naproxen before leaving the house, and brought one to take with lunch. Smart, smart. What else... Nothing! Nothing, I say!

No hat. No insect repellent. And this is where misunderestimation and NOT USING MY EYES collide.

See, the 13.8km, 5-8 hour “moderate to difficult” Motion Path from Petty Harbour is NOT all the way to Bay Bulls. No, AS IT’S CLEARLY STATED ON THE EAST COAST TRAIL WEBSITE, it’s only to Shoal Bay Rd; the distinct path from there to Bay Bulls is an “extreme” hike of 16km. Which means I’m not doing 40% of the 13.8km – I’m doing the hardest 90% of it, an extra 6+km. Also, and I can't overstate this, I misunderestimated what was deemed "difficult."

I got off the bus in Kilbride about 10:10am. Ate my apple an hour into the first leg. Had a granola bar, my second naproxen, and the last of my coffee in Petty Harbour (where I got this sample view of the height I was about to climb, and yes, those are wisps of fog there), and set off for the trailhead with a song in my heart and smile in mind, but without stopping at the convenience store. I was fine, after all. The climb wasn’t any worse than the one by Fort Amherst, so okay. After taking this video of the fog-lapped overworld, (please forgive the sketchy tweening text; it’s my first go at Davinci Resolve), where you can hear me huffing and puffing, I took my first swig of “drank” (as Michele calls my artificial flavour crap). It was 12:25pm when I set off south.

The stupid-ass Trail doesn’t stay at the top of the coastal hills; it goes down to just above sea level, again and again. And this goat-humping path isn’t just meandering, it follows every contour of the coastline. This includes ascents and descents through angry, spiky evergreens (at least I wore jeans, not shorts!) and dense brush where you can’t see your feet, but where you do find roots, divots, and sudden steps down disguised by the greenery. I mean, it’s like a fucking hike all of a sudden.

I snapped more pics as I went (soon to be posted to FB and IG), but stopped when I was wearing out and becoming concerned I had made a mistake somewhere in the process; the trail just seemed to keep going and going, Pipeline Rd always beyond the next inlet, and I couldn’t be sure whether I was past the point of no return to Petty Harbour. Down to near the water. Up. Down again. Up. I never noticed my skin turning red, but did put my extra shirt over my head because every time I stopped, which was with increasing frequency, the flies and mosquitoes would pester me. Really, it was the bugs that kept my motivation up. No cell signal. I ate my food, started rationing my “drank”. I thought, “Well, this is where I live now, at the top of the world, eating frogs and drinking whatever rain and dew I can collect until Michele calls 911 for search and rescue.”

When I met two hikers going the opposite way, I put on a brave red face and ensured the length of my penis by saying I was doing great. They seemed impressed that I’d walked from Kilbride – they with their big backpacks and coming from Bay Bulls only what, 8km away (?), those fit young bastards. They had a trail map, and said I was about 1km from Pipeline. Huzzah! But that last kilometre? Sucked. The hardest part since the initial climb; in some places, a dip in the foliage canopy was the only hint of a trail. Mud, fording streams, drops that required hands, the whole shtick. When I made it to Pipeline I could see that the trail really is invisible from there. Consarnit.

I was spent. Breathing hard for the last hour, soaked through, two swallows of “drank” left, leaden feet, sore everything despite the naproxen, somehow famished, 5km to go, half of it uphill another 150m, and two hours behind schedule. And two ponded washouts to avoid via rough woodland passage. I stopped often, and remain surprised that I kept going; I badly wanted to call it. It’s the second most exhausted I’ve been, topped only by that hypothermic experience. Fortune smiled on me then, for the bus arrived minutes after I got to the stop; 6:18pm, sun still high-ish. An unexpectedly eight hour day (minus breaks, obvs).

I felt stupid and shitty. And I’m comically red, including under my thinning hair. Had I not learned? The hell! I know I’m out of practice, but how am I so destroyed when two thirds of this trip were familiar and relatively easy trails? Did I really lose so much stamina, so much health, in the last year? Is this what aging really feel like? ‘Cause fuck this shit.

I solved the mileage mystery the next day, and realized I had in fact done a lot more than planned, or would have planned: an estimated 28km, an accumulated ascent of 700+m, 1900 calories burned, IQ -12. So now I’m also kinda proud, in a stupid way. This turns out to be the second longest “straight-through” walk/hike of my life. The longest was an 18-mile (29km) charity walk-a-thon when I was 17. FORTY YEARS AGO. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not fit, not even for my age, I think. But goddammit if I didn’t do 17 miles, including some for-realz hiking, after five months on my ass. I’m paying for the lack of prep, but yeah. I did the thing.

Lesson learned? I wish!

However, it does make clear that my to-do list hike from Petty Harbour to Bay Bulls (or reverse, for the mooseburger) is not to be taken lightly or without more conditioning. The combined Motion Path and Spout Path are 30km of moderate to “extreme” trail, estimated travel of 11-16 hours. There’s no bus close to Bay Bulls, and getting to Petty Harbour requires at least a 5k walk from a stop; better to coax Michele into driving my ass to and from. There are two campsites along the way, with no open fires allowed, which would mean toting camp stoves or ready-to-eat food along with a tent, hammock, or whatever. Sounds dreamy, sorta, but I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that commitment.

But I do know: time’s a-wasting.

Now: more moisturizer before my skin comes off in scales.

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As usual with your posts, that is one hell of a story. Glad you made it home alive!



But what I really want to know is: what’s a moose burger like?

Tasty. Gamey. Kinda. Really not much different than good sirloin. But I like things rare, so maybe it was, you know, bacteria or something. It was also smaller than the price would indicate. This lesson I did learn.
So it could be "mountain bite", or it could be "my puissant weapon made of steel cladding around a delicious chocolate-and-marshmallow core"
If you're referring to the penis portion of my woeful tale, then...yes.
 

Video screens and plastic letters on signboards are of no importance to the Menumaeads, regardless of the environmental impact caused by their manufacture.  No, they are only interested in actual paper that was made from the substance of once-living trees.  They inhabit these products, somehow, and they consider it their mission to grant the sacrifice of those trees some meaning, however small.  So whenever you are handed a sheet listing the specials of the day along with the everyday favorites, take a moment to listen for the voices of the Menumaeads.  They probably won't curse you for settling on your usual order, but they will appreciate your thoughtful consideration.  Take time to read each and every offering, and maybe choose the one that pleads to you, the one that no one would ever order if it wasn't printed right there in black and white.  The server may even give you a funny look, but it's okay.  Do it for the Menumaeads.

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The Menumaeds will set us free.
Bump bwaaam ba-wanap

Menumaeads, bump ba-dump bump

DAMMIT, BOUTELL
 

I came away thinking Biden kind of nailed it, as much as he could have. Except of course for the crazy name transposition in the beginning, but that's kind of classic Biden.

Maybe my standards have been lowered. I heard him making sense so I wasn't really thinking about whether he was meandering too much. 

I think they trained him to slow down, they figured out he makes more sense that way. 

I don't know that it will be possible to remove him after this, unless he really trips over himself between now and the  convention.

I wish he would step down but I no longer think it is likely.

Thank you for reading my op ed 

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I wanted President Warren, but she is almost as old as Biden. Now I want President Harris.



I will settle for President Not A Violent, Self-Absorbed Lunatic.
I am waiting with extreme impatience for AOC to turn 35.
“I heard him making sense so I wasn't really thinking about whether he was meandering too much.”

I wonder if, because you’re used to talking to neurodivergent people, maybe more so than ~40% of the population, you instinctively did the same, “yeah yeah” thing we all do when we listen to a friend, like glossing over their verbal mis-steps because you’re patient enough to let a friend make their point, instead of sweating the details?



And, maybe that 40% of the population is 99% political scientists and journalists? No, okay, that’s a broad claim.

But, I think the second time or first time you met Ted, you guys had a conversation about being vegan, where he named foods that were way out on the edges of your culinary no-fly zone and gradually moved species by species to “that means no chicken, beef or pork.” And you followed along, hopping from conceptual rock to conceptual rock until there was a pattern and it all made sense.



My point is, yes, I agree and I wish others were as charitable as you are.
 

I *know* I always feel good when I finish a project. Why do I instead sit on my butt most days and let inertia settle in? Dunno. But anyway, today I did a thing.

Sometime back I ordered some fast fashion for next to free from one of those websites. I can't remember if it was Shein, or Ali Express, or Temu or whatever. I have a young teen, who sometimes NEEDS OMG NEEEEEEDS! something or other from such a site. Sometimes I acquiesce to the need, then typically pad the order with several too-cheap-to-be-real items. And sometimes those items are clothes. But sizing is a crapshoot. I used to order off the site's sizing list, but almost always it came in too small. So I size up these days. Of the 5 dresses ordered, 1 went straight to goodwill (cause it felt like it was made from a shower curtain), 2 pretty much fit, 2 were sized for a MUCH heftier body than mine. And the one pair of pants were cut for a 6ft tall person. Ok, maybe a 5'11" person - and I'm 5' even.

And today, a mere 3 weeks after they arrived, and 2 days after retrieving the sewing machine from the depths of my basement, I hemmed the pants and took in the oversized dresses. The fun thing about altering cheap clothes is there is no pressure to get it perfect. I did not get it perfect - but it's perfect enough to wear. Yay me!

Tomorrow I'm hemming some sweatpants I've have for 3 years that I love but are 1" too long. And I also hemmed a pair of shorts for a neighbor. Doing the things!

So I'm feeling good about life just now (despite being stood up for a scheduled call). I think I'll get some wine and play Baldurs Gate.

colorful botanical fabric pants

Checkout the glorious pattern on this pair of $6.81 pants! (I looked it up. SHEIN.) And that straight hem!

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My kid has since informed me that we will not be ordering from Shein in the future, because of their purported sketchy business practices. Now I know.
 

Today I did the old-fashioned thing and filled out the good old contact the president form, asking him to please not run for reelection. It was a strange feeling. There is no drop-down choice for "please stop."

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That's because it's not a good impulse and you shouldn't send it.
I didn’t enjoy it. I ended with “I’m sorry.”



Did you see the new poll results today? Replacing him is a gamble, keeping him is admitting we have no chance.
Replacing him ends the election immediately; it's past the deadline to replace candidates in Wisconsin and Nevada. No democrat on the ballot. Good luck with a write-in campaign in those two states.
Not to mention, it would be nearly impossible to redirect and refund a new campaign when all of the funding and the promotional engine has been in place for months.

And keep in mind, electing Biden in the shape he’s in essentially *is* electing Harris.
She’s really been out of the spotlight, hasn’t she?
That depends on which spotlight you mean:



More from Biden-governors meeting, Kamala Harris concluded the meeting with a call for unity behind the president.



“This is about saving our fucking democracy," she told the governors, per three people familiar with her comments.



https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1809295913715663118
Can you cite something on this Nevada and Wisconsin claim? I can’t find anything reliable to support it and it seems unlikely to me given that the convention (and thus an official, final candidate) isn’t until August.

The only thing I’ve found on it were a couple of articles wherein the Heritage Foundation was saying they might try to bring legal challenges in those states (and Georgia) but you’ve gotta be looking at something more solid than “highly partisan and mendacious source says they might sue and thinks these are the places where their chances might be best”, right?
It would seem Paul is not correct, though the issue is complicated.

https://ballotpedia.org/State_laws_and_party_rules_on_replacing_a_presidential_nominee,_2024
Polls in July don't mean shit.
 

OK THEN.  After a very long weekend, Rose and I are home from the World Ninja League Season IX World Championships. Here's the skinny chonky:

Rose had an interesting choice to make at the very beginning of this season, after aging out of the Young Adult division. Does she compete against the Adults (18-40 years old…so, a few peers, but also, some ninja moms and aunties), or against the Elites (basically the pros, folks who have been on the American Ninja Warrior tv show, have sponsorships, show up on the marketing materials, and all that)?  With a little help from an unfavorable run-order schedule in her first competition of the season-- she had a theater obligation that conflicted with the Adult division run time on Sunday, so she HAD to compete with the Elites on Saturday, gosh darn it-- she eventually chose the Elites, on the (quite accurate, as it turned out) theory that she probably wouldn’t be challenged enough in the adult division.

Then her senior year of HS got super busy, with two plays and choir concerts (like last year) and a school trip abroad plus we took a vacation of our own this winter (unlike last year) and between it all, she only made it to two season IX competitions, total. Both of which she won 😂 which should have smashed that whole “what if I can’t keep up with the pros” question/problem into a million pieces, but she did not have much competition in those two late-season events; most of the elite women had already qualified and were either sitting out or nursing injuries. Still, winning any event qualifies you for the Regional meet.

The New England Regional went…ok. She qualified for Worlds, but finished off the podium, after winning the YA division last year and being picked by the Commentators as one of the favorites this year, even though she moved up a level. She was pretty happy with her runs, which included solving a brand new weird/fun/difficult obstacle on the challenge course, the donuts:

and getting a buzzer within the time limit on the flow course despite her shoes slipping on literally every other step for the whole last segment:

The Buzzer was kind of a big deal honestly, she hadn't gotten one in competition in quite a while!  The flow course has a time limit just like the challenge course, plenty of people timed out without reaching the buzzer.  So that was pretty cool.  She was pretty vexed, though, that every Elite woman fell on the same challenge course obstacle as her (they beat her because they got to that point in the course a smidgen faster). “We should be better than this. All these women are elites, they train like demons, SOMEONE should have gotten farther than me!” Those Boomerang Devil Steps were really hard though; way more slippery than expected and also a further back/up gorilla pullup than expected, and all the elite women fell either right at the beginning where Rose did, or else when trying to navigate between the up and down sections, which were not only 5 feet apart but also offset a few feet to the side.

Rose ended up 4th.  Some self-doubt came with this result, and she mentally prepared herself to get shut out of any awards or recognition at World's. I would have worried, but Rose has finally found a stellar therapist, and worked through all of this with them. She was good to go, whatever happened.

But also, a funny thing happened at Regionals: her home gym, the Vermont Ninja Warrior Training Center, qualified TWENTY TWO PEOPLE for the 2024 World’s. That’s more than double the amount they ever sent before, across almost every age group from 8 year olds to adults. A couple of those kids, including the youngest, took a summer camp where R. was a coach/counselor and decided to keep training. Some came over from gymnastics, same as R.  Some have just been training at the gym a while and put together a great run to qualify. Whatever! They all qualified, and only two of them couldn't make the trip (because of the cost...already thinking about how to crowdfund or otherwise fundraise a pool to help everyone get there next year).

We immediately booked a room at the Biltmore Greensboro again, and signed up for a late Thursday night open gym session at a place called LevelUp, so we could get registered and get our event wristbands without having to wait in the excessively long lines at the Greensboro coliseum.  What I didn't realize until much too late to make changes was: the WNL split up this year's event across FOUR full days instead of the usual compressed Friday evening -> Sunday evening spread. Whoops. So we weren't in town in time for the opening ceremonies on Thursday, and we missed some Monday night events, which was a shame as we knew two people still running courses at 10pm Monday night 😮

After landing and driving the 90 minutes from Charlotte to Greensboro-- one direct flight + some extra miles on the car that I will be renting anyway is a better plan, to me, than the possibility of missed connections in both directions, and it is usually cheaper-- we check in, say hi to the lovely staff at the Biltmore, grab a quick early dinner, and Rose starts asking me to check the run order again.

"You run stage 1 in wave 1 on Friday, which starts at 2"

"Yes, but who on our team runs first, and when?"

Well, shoot...I wasn't tracking all that. So we spend the time in between dinner and open gym clicking around the WNL website, checking run orders and wave start times across every age group. Her coaches made a spreadsheet with some of this info, but Rose needs more specifics: "If Roger runs skills right at 8am, we should be able to get over to Stage 1 in time to see Gwen and Finley, they run uhhh eighth and fourteenth and the stage 1 time limit is always at least a minute and a half...uh...soooooo...is it ok if we get to the coliseum early every day? I really want to support the team..."

Is it ok 🙄 Oh my sweet supportive sproglet, my only job here is to get you where you need to be, when you need to be there.  If that means we are in the building every day at 7, before people have to check in and warm up for their wave, then that's what we are doing! Even if that means a mediocre continental breakfast and marginal coffee. By the time we leave that evening for LevelUp, she has sent the group chat a list of everyone's estimated start times, across the whole weekend, and if people qualified for stage 2 or stage 3, she sent out regular updates as soon as the new run order was posted.

Level up is a fantastic if grungy gym in an industrial park, set up for pre-World's Open Gym with as many different kinds of obstacles as they can manage. Rose gets in her usual warmups, runs the balance obstacles, works on some cliffhangers, then finds a complicated apparatus that can be done normally or...hard mode, with a "flip this part then catch the other side and launch yourself to that tiny grip over there".  She sees the hard mode, tries it, falls.  A few more attempts, and now there are three other people lined up to try the same trick. Nobody lands it. One of the new folks is a girl close to Rose's age, they start chatting, turns out Lily is from South Australia, probably the furthest anyone traveled for this year's event! Lily is reserved where Rose is bubbly, lean where Rose is jacked, but she's obviously talented. They move over to the 15 foot warped wall, where Rose has a score to settle; she got her fingers on the rim multiple times last year but couldn't get up it.  This time, it takes her 3 tries and she is hanging from the top! Lily can't quite get up there but gains quite a bit of extra height with Rose offering suggestions. (Rose doesn't add Lily to the team list, but she does put her on her personal list of starting times, we wind up seeing 2 of her runs, Lily and her mom watch all of Rose's exploits, and the two of them were exchanging tips all weekend long. Super nice folks!)

Then, oh no!  Roger, one of the younger VT kids who qualified, was trying a big move and ripped a callous off his palm the size of a nickel 😕 Rose to the rescue; she has experience with this, and advice, but her kit bag of bandages, tape, and ointment is back at the hotel, so we will have to meet up with Roger first thing in the morning to help him get some protective cover on that rip. We send him and dad off with care instructions. Now we have even more of a reason to arrive right as things open in the morning, so we head back to the hotel and crash early so Rose can still get a full night's sleep.

Friday morning, and we are there right as the Coliseum opens up, along with the majority of the team, who saw Rose's schedule texts and immediately got on board. Which resulted in a weekend-long HYPE SQUAD. As much as the schedule permitted, the whole crew showed up to cheer each other on. They were completely obnoxiously enthusiastic about it. The Vermont crew was by far the loudest team here; several referees joked with the athletes about it as they waited on the starting block for the cheers to settle down.

(Yours truly might have contributed to the cheering. A little.)

In between events, the team clumped on the floor or in the bleachers or on top of the folded up bleachers until security told them to get down (ninjas…they’re gonna climb, you gotta hang signs or something if you want to deter it). R. used her Body Markers to draw flowers on everyone (she draws at least one full sleeve worth on herself for every competition; the body markers let her change colors as she sees fit). Obstacle tips were shared for people who hadn’t yet run a particular course. There was much laughter. In-jokes and memes were birthed. Much bonding. Very team. Wow.

She even kept one of the parents in line; Danielle, one of the more nervous of the bunch, new to Ninja, ex-gymnast, running in the teen division where they really crank up the difficulty...fell super early. She bounced up and ran out the clock, clearing some tricky obstacles along the way, but she was near tears the whole time 😕 She exits the course, and her mom is waiting and about to lay it on thick with the "We are still so proud of you" chat and Rose basically gave her a little kick on the side of the foot and whispered "No, shhh, not now, she isn't proud of herself, wrong time for that message!" (Mom confided in me later that yep, "Rose was completely right, I'm glad she kept me from making it worse, what a perceptive daughter you have, she is such a sweetheart to show so much love and care to all these kids, etc."). So Rose grabs Danielle by the elbow and leads her away to a quiet corner and told her all about her up and down history with World's: her first, she foot faulted at the start of the course and finished dead last (there were other issues with that World's which was run by the other, smaller, less-well-run, far-less-global Ninja league, UNAA). Her second World's, at this very venue, she got overly confident, fell on an uneccessary skip move on a trivial obstacle, and blew her chance to win the World Championship outright (some readers will recall this story from 2 years ago).  Rose was maybe the only person who could deploy this tactic, plus after training with Danielle 3x a week, she saw things to specifically compliment. Did everything magically get better? No, of course not, and Danielle and her mom had the kind of late night chat that Rose and I had two years ago. Maybe minus the cosmology and particle physics parts. But it helped, and Danielle came back ready to go for her Skills on Saturday.

That is just one example, but Rose was everywhere for everyone. Leading the cheers. Making sure every athlete got mobbed after a good run. Helping Roger with hand care, again. Telling the two 10 year olds on the team how to handle the obstacles that looked maybe a little too long/tall for them. In the warm-up area, I watch as Hannah, the young lady in my 2023 recap whom I believe Rose inspired years ago, find Rose, big smiles, now they are strategizing together, pointing at obstacles and miming different grips and tactics.  All of which, huh, funny, gave her incredible amounts of energy and also distraction and selflessness and a sense of community and a feeling of being present in this exact moment, and when her turn on the starting block came for stage 1, she said that for once, she really did feel like it was any given Saturday at the gym, with her friends loudly cheering her on but also…kinda…it was just her and the obstacles in front of her. Focused. Poised. Electric.

The spell was broken briefly though, because the woman running right before Rose took a very bad fall at the end of her run. A land on your neck, roll the wrong direction, oh god please wiggle your toes kind of fall. There was one of these last year too, they have on site paramedics who brought out the backboard and carried that kid out for x-rays (he was fine, but it was scary). This time...I dunno, they had her on her feet awfully fast for my liking. Rose looked like she wanted to run over and help (she did want to).  Rose also, for the second year running, sent in her post-World's survey with an impassioned screed to please for the love of god put cloud mats under the most aggressive obstacles! It's not only safer, it makes for a better competition, because athletes who feel safe take bigger risks!

They got the previous girl on her feet and off the course for some more evaluation, and now it's Rose's turn, and wow, ok, that calm any-given-Saturday feeling came back.  Cutting to the chase: she cleared stage 1, hit her first ever buzzer at the World Championships, and qualified fourth overall for stage 2! 💪 🥲 (yes, I cried a little…she has worked so hard for this, over the last 8 years, through injuries and setbacks, skill stagnation and renewal, varying commitment levels for reasons having nothing to do with her love of the sport…but on Friday she put it all together).  I did not know this until yesterday, but in the history of the WNL World's, it was only last year that ANY elite female got the stage 1 buzzer, and only 3 accomplished it. This year, only seven did. That is some exclusive company! Here is her run from my vantage point in the stands:

The WNL official photographer got this shot of Rose hugging her coach Chris, with the smoke from the buzzer wafting in the background, which is such a phenomally composed and tangibly emotional picture that they made it the cover shot for the day 1 recap post on Instagram!

Coach Chris and Rose embracing after she cleared the stage one course and hit the buzzer in the elite female division of the WNL Season IX Championships.

Seriously, it's one of the best pictures from the entire event, yes I am biased but come on, that's an epic shot.  We've been talking about her stage 1 run since, of course, and Rose admits that this buzzer really did reframe and recontextualize her entire experience with this sport over the past couple years. After Regionals, she was ready to not accomplish much and get blown off these courses by the pros. But "No, brain, you were wrong, I AM good enough to run with this crowd, I DO belong in this division, sometimes I fall or fail like everyone else and that's ok, it's a fundamental part of the sport." 

Case in point: Rose has always been exceptional on the balance obstacles, she trains them constantly, but she seems to be an outlier in this? Those narow rollers she ran through on the end of the first lane, before the ropes...they posed no problem at all for her. The first and fourth are locked, the middle 2 spun freely. Younger divisions had more rollers and more of them locked; I think the Teen and Elite male divisions had the first one locked and the rest freely spinning. Honestly, this was only an average/standard balance test, they come in much harder varieties, but it took out a HUGE number of people in every wave, even the Elites! Last year's elite male winner, Tyler Smith, the first guy to ever clear all three stages at World's, fell on the balance.  Joe Moravsky, a famous ninja I have written about before-- yes, I finally did catch up with him and thank/congratulate him for his compassionate and nuanced response to questions at a meet and greet 2 years ago, from a nonbinary kid who was looking for validation to run with the boys even though they were AFAB-- fell on the balance. Two time world champion and show favorite Isabella Wakeham fell on the balance. One of the girls who bested Rose at Regionals fell on the balance (the other two fell on the last obstacle with the big swings, maybe in part because they no longer had the nerve to go for it after seeing that awful fall before Rose's run). Failure is a fundamental part of the sport!

The rest of Friday was spent cheering on her team and getting random kudos and congrats from strangers everywhere she went.  She was the first in her division to clear stage 1, because her small number of competitions pushed her early in the run order; I don't think anyone else in her wave made it through.  Her coach Sonic was in the 6pm wave, so we stayed for that, but we knew her stage 2 wave started at 8am (even though she wouldn't run until after 9 because she is seeded so high, she still had to check in at 7:30). We left the coliseum as early as we could, stopped by Food Lion for fresh fruit, veggies, kombucha, and epsom salts, dropped all that at the hotel, and turned right around for dinner.

As much as we love our hole in the wall pizza joint, this seems like a night for healthier food with more veggies and less cheese. Score, there is a fancy taco joint across the street, and since it is just the two of us, yes, they can seat us immediately.  We sit down, I look to my left and the kid sitting there has a WNL Finalist wristband just like Rose! We start chatting, and what are the odds, it's another kid from South Australia 😂 His first Worlds, running with the mature kids division (10-11 years old), his event hasn't started yet, he's nervous, what group do you run in? Oh WOW, any tips for the candy cane obstacle on stage 1? What about the Swords? When do you do Skills? and we don't get our order in for like, 20 minutes, because again, great people and fun chatting.  At one point the dad says "Ok, Jake has skills at 10:40, so we should be able to come by and, what do you all say, you 'root' for each other?" and I'm laughing because ah, yes, Aussies do not "root" for things, and thanks to the internet I know why 😂 they say good night and leave, we finally get our fantastic food ("Crafted" in downtown Greensboro, highly recommended), then back at the hotel Rose gets in a quick epsom salt bath, and we are in bed by 9:30.

As is usual, Stage 2 was a long, almost completely airborn grip endurance test, and Rose peeled off at the intentionally designed crux point that took out 75% of the stage 2 athletes in every single age group. But she was fast enough to get through to stage 3; ALSO a first for her!  Her entire team is there screaming, and all the Aussies showed up to watch her and cheer as well.  It was very sweet.  Here is the video her coach took on the course while running chalk and giving advice; I love how, at the end, she was less bothered by falling than she was by the fact that she didn't get to try the big gears obstacle, which is the sort of thing very few gyms in the country have, you only see them at Worlds.

After her Stage 2 run, after being swarmed by her team, Rose finds me in the stands and we sit for a moment with our smuggled in fruits and veggies. Behind us, a young woman is explaining the Stage 2 obstacles to her dad, Rose pipes in with a comment, and we quickly figure out that Esperanza also runs with the Elite Female cohort, she fell on the balance on stage 1, she's only been doing ninja for 18 months after being a gymnast all the way through college, yada yada yada ok we are friends now. We get up to go cheer on somebody else over on the Discipline circuit when Esperanza's dad, with his heavy accent (not sure, some flavor of South American? not Brazil but perhaps Peruvian or Argentine?), tells Rose: "You, you have a great style and a presence out there. You dress different than all these girls, you approach the course different, you do the art on your arms. You don't see it, but I see it, all these kids watching, they are picking their idols, their heroes, who they wanna be like when they get older, and a lot of them, they are looking at you!  You do all this in a way, you stand out, people see you!  Some of them are gonna wanna be like you, because you, you have a style!" which I am very poorly paraphrasing, but the vibe is accurate. It was just the sweetest, most earnest bucket of compliments ever.

Later that evening. Rose gets to run Stage 3, the “fun” course with the amped up difficulty, no time limit, and new / strange obstacles. For anyone who cleared both prior stages, it’s also where the World Champion will be determined; but for all these athletes it is a mad ninja scientists’s playground. Or laboratory, whichever. She got about halfway through it before falling, but was DQ’d early on for what I would call a clever abuse of the rules, and they just called a fault.

That obstacle where you need to use the swinging platform to open the doors?  They said hands only on the cliffhanger and no kicking the doors. Rose thought maybe kicking the cliffhanger while still holding the prior obstacle would fly, but the refs disagreed. Ah well, it was worth a try.  She wishes she could have gotten that last cliffhanger going around the corner, but her grip is toast at this point.

More cheering for her team, another Food Lion run, another late dinner, another epsom salt bath, and another good 8 hours of sleep. I swear, she got more sleep in 4 days last weekend than in any whole week of school her entire senior year.

Sunday was the skills/discipline circuit, with speed, endurance, and technical challenges. Endurance, she moved through smoothly and efficiently and posted a strong time but eventually got knocked down to 10th;

The Tech discipline was another tactical mostrosity, with huge risk/reward vectors and multiple ways to skip sections; nobody was going to win this event without making some kind of incredibly risky move. Here is Rose's attempt, wherein she got 3 out of 4 points; she wound up 17th here.  Only 4 women hit this particular buzzer. Hey, also, remember this course, I will return to it in a separate post next week (he said foreshadowingly).

It's hard to tell, but that last obstacle before the buzzer, you are supposed to push the blue PCV tube through the holes in the blocks (which are completely out of play), while hanging from it, to get yourself segment by segment close enough to reach the buzzer.  Some folks pushed the tube forward while still standing on the platform, and tried to horse it with one big swing from the second or third gap between the blocking-boxes to the buzzer; others tried to swing on the rope hard enough to get launch velocity. Most of those folks failed because they lost all their swing when the rope collided with some part of the rigging, the skill was designed to discourage that particular move, but I DID see one or two people successfully hit the buzzer with just the rope. This was always going to be the part where people got dangerously creative, and I also saw people hitting their head, elbow, wiping out on the balance at the beginning, and falling in every possible way from the PVC in that last segment. 

By Sunday, it was pretty well known that the Speed discipline course had a known design flaw. Exploit? Flaw. It’s basically a straight line race, a balance test ->variations on monkey bars->more balance test->get past two 6 foot tall walls->12 foot warped wall. The 6 foot walls were propped up with triangular braces that came up about 3 feet.  Most people went straight over the walls, using a wide variety of techniques, but on the prior days a couple ninjas tried going around the side. You had to have a hand on the top; you had to start from the narrow blue mat beforehand and end on the (offset!) narrow blue mat afterwards without stepping off either side; and you could not so much as graze any part of the bracing/feet/stanchion with a tippy toe, or the refs would fail you.  After the first person exploited this, they cracked down HARD and judged that move to the Nth degree.

None of the women in R’s division had yet tried this move when her turn came, because either they weren't stalking the Discipline courses during their off hours and hadn't seen anyone try it (even though Rose was clearly working on variations in the warm-up area before her wave ran), or else they saw somebody fail at it, and didn't want to take the risk.  Whereas Rose saw opportunity, trusted her(recontextualized)self, went for it, got it. I have done you the courtesy of trimming the linked video below, to spare you my unhinged hollering after seeing that she posted the fastest time in her division so far 😂 Alas, there were still several very good ninjas left to run in her wave and now they were aware of the skip and considering it. Isabella Wakeham tried the move and clipped the bracing with her toe, failing; another athlete came around the wall so hard she spun out and stepped off the offset mat. But two others executed it quickly and safely, which bumped R. to third place overall.

Still and thus, even after stepping up into the most difficult division available to her, going against the best athletes in the world, Rose brought home a bronze medal 🤘

(as you can see from my camera work, I fully expected her to link the entire series of moves without any extra swings, but she landed the second wheel a bit crooked and felt that she had to steady it up).  Remember Esperanza's dad with the comments on Rose's style? Kinda obvious on the podium:

A world class athlete sticking her tongue out at her father from atop the podium after accepting a bronze medal.  "Daaaaaaaaad that's enough photos!"

(Yes I picked the "daaaaaaad that's enough pictures" picture.)

All told, she ended up:

7th overall in the Elite Female World Champion rankings (one spot higher than last year, even though she moved up to the big leagues)

4th on stage 1
16th on stage 2
17th on stage 3
…for 13th on “Stages overall”

3rd in the Speed discipline for bronze hardware
10th on Endurance
17th on Tech
…for 10th place on “Discipline overall”

And taking every placement above summed up and ranking low total to high, she landed 9th on “World’s Strongest Ninja” rankings.

Much much much more importantly: she had THE BEST TIME here. She competed to the level she always expects of herself; she took great care of her team, especially the littles (every parent made some comment to me about R.’s positive impact on their kid), she made new ninja friends (in her division and out, including all the Aussie folks), she got random complements for her style (aesthetic, athletic, and sartorial) from complete strangers…it was a comprehensively validating experience. Ten members of her team made it to stage 2 (!), and her coach Sonic was the first elite male to clear it!  Both of her coaches, Sonic and Chris, plus Rose, plus three other teen/YA kids made it to stage 3, which is a huge accomplishment for such a tiny gym.

Can’t wait for next year 🥰

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I was thinking those balance beam steps looked like something I might conceivably pass, until I realized "oh crap, they ROLL", so nope. I'd probably injure myself attempting those things.
You guys are my parenting heroes.
Thanks! but also, Rose has been like this-- the climbing AND the empathy-- since birth, I am just your humble scribe :) It's awesome to see her turn empathy into action, and awesome to have so many other parents see and compliment that...
dude, this kicks so much ass
I have no words. She's an amazing athlete... but she could be that and not be the lovely human you've raised and who got to be in this moment. I'm glad you got to share this with her.
I am too :)
 

Well shit.  We just got back from the 2024 World Ninja League world championships, and I haven't even told y'all about last year!  So strap in for another long one (of two) and let's review the 2023 WNL season VIII...

Rose made it to a handful of New England region competitions in 2023, easily qualifying for Regionals even though she never quiiiiiite got through an entire course to hit a buzzer. The WNL New England Regionals happened once again at Ultimate Obstacles in MA, a great facility with an amazing staff that we always enjoy traveling to. I hate to do this to you, but here is the official WNL video with commentary from her group...on Faceblech.  I don't know how to screen-grab the relevant section, and obviously FB won't let you save anything off the goddamn platform, so just FF to the 20:45 mark and enjoy her performance and the commentary thereto (no spoilers).  OH AND: you'll want to right click and "open in new tab" or else you'll have to hit the back button to return to OPW.  Because Fuckbook wants to take over your browser.

I suspect some readers are asking "wait, what's the big deal?" WELL. The "Circuit Board" obstacle is a grip and endurance killer; you have these little T-pins with short handles that you have to hang from and move around through slots in a horizontal board, 15 feet off the ground, to get from point A to point B around 10 feet distant.  It was taking the boys almost a minute to complete the obstacle, and all of them were wiped out afterwards; they didn't have any grip or bicep strength left.  IIRC, only a single young adult (age 15-17) cleared the entire course, and that kid is a horse. Rose knew she had to at least get through the Circuit Board to guarantee she would qualify, but she also knew the rules: once you clear an obstacle, you can continue to use it for assistance as part of the next obstacle provided you don't let go.  In her case, "assistance" meant skipping the circuit board entirely and going for a huge 10+ foot flying dismount. She still had to stick the landing on that pad for it to count, but that is the kind of one-ups-person-ship she and her crew and her coaches push each other to do after class every week. Nailed it! This was easily the most pumped up she has EVER been about a competition performance. She saw a legal but non-obvious move that played directly to her strengths, SENT IT, and landed the trick. Even after she showed everyone else how, only a couple boys even attempted the skip move, and nobody else successfully landed it! Cutting to the chase, and perhaps obviously, Rose won the Young Adult Female division for the New England Regional and qualified for Worlds.  Sick. The commentator in that video was still talking about this move a year later at the next Regionals (see part two).  "Rose is always a contender, for heaven's sake, she has an 11.5 foot laché [those swinging release moves from point A to B without landing] in her arsenal" 🤣

Long time readers may recall that the 2022 Worlds were an utter physical and emotional roller coaster, with an early mistake on the course nearly derailing the entire weekend before things happily turned around with a victory in the Speed Skill. Leading up to the 2023 Worlds, Rose had been a busy busy bee...She acted in both school plays, sang with the Madrigal group on weekends, missed a bunch of training, but still managed to get to a half dozen competitions. She had good runs and marginal runs, learned to accept what her body and level of exhaustion would let her do on any given Saturday, and was just generally in a much better head space. Lessons from 2022 well-learned and dare I say, almost internalized. She was happy to get to go hang with her sport-people, and she was gonna have fun at World's regardless.

Sidebar: Because I didn't want to jinx it by booking anything for Worlds before she qualified, we found ourselves shut out of all the WNL sponsored hotels. Oops. What to do, what to do. Oh look, here is a downright ancient looking hotel (with some obscure connection to the actual robber baron Vanderbilts?), in the middle of downtown, maybe a 10 minute drive from the Coliseum? This could work? Hey they have a room available, we're in.

Friends, the Biltmore Greensboro is a HOOT.  Every hallway and stair has big thick old carved wooden molding with 100 layers of paint on it. The elevator is an old-school "call for the elevator with an exceedingly mechanical clicky button, turn the doorknob then slide the grate sideways by hand to open and enter" contraption.  Watch the floors and doors scroll past as you ascend.  The room keys are actual, you know, big metal keys, like your great-grandmother's summer cottage back door key. The  queen bed in the room was a gigantic 4 post thing so high off the ground it came with a stepping stool. Posh looking art on the walls, maybe actual vintage? Or else, well done replicas.  A nightly staff-led $10 tour of Greensboro landmarks, which includes, I kid you not, the very spot where Vick's Vaporub was invented in 1894.  Upon checking in, the exceedingly fabulous front desk staffer, in silk-scarf, slippers, and brocade smoking jacket, asked if we would be joining them for the nightly wine and cheese tasting.  "Uh, I'm 17, so...no?" says Rose. Over the weekend we meet the rest of the staff and everybody is funny and queer and friendly with ink and weird color hair and they all want to hear all about Rose's exploits.

On the flight, then at the hotel, and with touch ups and additions all weekend, Rose uses temporary tattoo markers to don her competition armor:

A forearm, with tattoo-marker art of many blue flowers.

Our days are long, we wind up eating late dinners, but just down the street from the Biltmore is a local fixture, a pizza joint that has been around forever and in that same spot for 22 years, it ain't the healthiest food, but it's good NY style pizza in the deep south and they are open until midnight. THAT tatted and inked staff ALSO want to know what's up with the arm art, and wow you are here to do WHAT, that's awesome, how did today go? We become late night fixtures with our cheese and veggie slices and just water, thanks.

There are 51 young adult female ninjas in the competition.  Rose had a slightly different and IMHO better schedule than the year before; Friday night she was just a spectator for the 4 of her gym-mates who qualified (all young adult guys), worked on her sleeves some more sitting in the stands, then an early-ish night and some good sleep.  Saturday morning, she started with the Stage 1 course, then Skills in the afternoon/evening, then if things went well...more stage 2/3 course runs on Sunday.  Here is her stage 1 run:

Awww, dang, she came up ONE swing, literally 4 feet short of the buzzer! That knocked her out of the running for "World Champion", because several girls cleared stage 1. But that DID qualify her for Stage 2 in 8th place, a first! So she got to run another new course on Sunday morning with harder obstacles to try, could continue to progress on the "Course Overall" ranking, and her stage 2 (and maybe stage 3) score(s) would count for her "World's Strongest Ninja" placement also. No matter what else happened, this was a strong run that she was absolutely thrilled with.

That afternnoon, it's Skills time again. The first skill, "Tech", is this absurd connect-the-dots George of the Jungle thing, with a ridiculous "Slide a piece of PVC pipe UP a slanted pole while you are hanging onto it" finishing move and you know what? Words fail. Here's a clip of Rose's coach, Sonic, doing it pretty well, actually:

That attempt was 6 or 7 seconds or so...which placed him square in the middle of the pack.  54th out of 105 in the Elite Male division 😮 I mean, that looked pretty efficient, right? The winner got through that nonsense in TWO AND A HALF SECONDS and I honestly can't even. I didn't see it. I have trouble imagining it. That's one swing that throws your whole body UP.  Did he blind grab the far side mail slot on the middle box and just hurl himself out there?  Does he have an 8 foot wingspan?  HOW?!  Anyway, Rose...Did not figure out this particular finishing move.  Also, she got over amped to keep trying it aggressively, when for this particular skill, slowly grinding out one buzzer tap to get the extra point was way WAY more important than the time...especially in her division.  Ah well. She places 10th.

Second skill is "Dash", the "run on weird surfaces and swing from bars" one, where in 2022 Rose won the gold medal by not only being faster than anyone else, but by scoring an extra point completing two full laps on the apparatus.  This year, there were some extra obstacles built in, and she was still gassed from the Tech skill run; she got all 3 points, but a stumble and a hitch getting over a 6' wall slow her down, and she ends up 11th. 

Third skill is Grip, just what it sounds like, all variations on hand-stressing themes.  This was tucked into such an impossible corner of the facility that I couldn't get a good video, but  you should still see it:

Those obstacles, in order, are: Devil Steps-- last year the entire Grip challenge was just this obstacle, and she got the bronze medal for third place-- into a new weird Hand-Hop-on-pedestals thing, into Doorknobs, then Cliffhangers (2" wooden bars at various angles, tacked on the side of the wall you can't see there)...then she peels off trying to do another "the landing is higher than the start" move.  Note the smooth, continuous movement?  Skipping a doorknob or three?  This is her "Any Given Saturday" pace, and just like we discussed the year before, it is pretty damn good! Only 6 out of 51 got past the Doorknobs; nobody else got further than she did; and only two girls were faster, so just like last year, she brings home the bronze 🤘 Most kids got slowed up on the Hand-Hops, and stressed their wrists out so much they couldn't complete the Cliffhangers.

The fourth and final skill was the Power category.  Perhaps you have noticed, in these pictures, that Rose is kinda jacked, and enjoys being so, and only competes in tanks or sleeveless T-shirts.  Late in the weekend, she got to adding shoulder roses to her marker-armor and instantly love-hated them...becuase they REALLY brought out the contour of her shoulders, it looked amazing, but crap, now she would want to/have to draw them *every time*.  Anyway.  Pocket powerhouse Rose, the Buff Chipmunk, the Weightlifter Anne of Green Gables, the Cat with KGB Training (all things she has lovingly been called by her friends) approaches the Power Skill like so:

...and that's all you are getting, because she lost a shoe on the last move jumping up to the buzzer, and took so much time failing to get it back on her foot that she didn't complete another run within the time limit.  Which didn't matter, because her first and only run was the fastest in her division (so far) by almost a half second! By now it is late afternoon; I looked at the standings and almost all of the ninjas I would consider to be her competition had already run except for two, and I didn't think either fit the mold of a Power Skill person, so I was hopeful that her time might hold up. It did, first place, a gold medal!

Sunday morning, she got to run Stage 2 at World's for the first time.  Just like the way they progress skills on the TV show, Stage 2 is a mostly airborne affair, maybe a balance bit right at the start to slow some people down, then jump up, grip strength, laché, grip strength, laché, grip strength, buzzer, often with brand new, invented-for-this-competition obstacles that none of these kids had ever seen before.  Here is how it went:

I just now noticed: at Regionals, she finally fell on a "take this ring with you to the next hook" obstacle...but here on stage two she completed that move twice! Also, this is not the first time that Rose almost fell on a course, hung on by one arm, then kept going.  A short lived reprieve in this case, as her grip was really shot at this point, but...stage2!  and she got 75% of the way through it!  She was very happy, but we wouldn't find out how it went until later, so we left the coliseum complex in search of food, and now we come to a moment that still tickles me almost a year later: we are on this break in between rounds, out hunting for a light healthy meal. In North Carolina. Near a gigantic sporting complex that usually offers sixteen different fried and breaded delicacies, plus waffle fries, nachos, and Dippin Dots. So "healthy" is relative. Then...salvation? A vegan Mexican joint? Cashew cheese and Impossible beef and otherwise all the trimmings for tacos and burritos and bowls and whatnot? Sold! We go in, and of course the place is stuffed with other ninja families who had the same problem and found the same solution.  We are sitting down with our food when one of them comes over with her dad, another YA girl named Hannah, a year or two younger than Rose and basically the exact opposite body type; much taller and skinnier, super long blond braids (these are relevant facts, as you will soon see). Also relevant: Hannah is a VERY talented ninja.

Hannah introduces herself to Rose-- Nervously, maybe? but all these kids are teens (or younger), everybody is a little gangly and awkward-- I say hi to Dad, we are small talking about the course setup, where we are from, food choices (Hannah is vegan all the time, not "just looking for a not-fried option today" vegan), when Hannah says to Rose "Weren't you on American Ninja Warrior Jr. in Season 1? and you won a couple races, right?" which, yes, she was, and yes she did, and suddenly it dawns on me: skinny long blond hair-in-braids Hannah competes in Ninja as her chosen sport SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE she saw a skinny long blond hair-in-a-ponytail 12 year old Rose on ANWJR Season 1. So I smile, raise an eyebrow at dad, and ask "How long has Hannah been competing?" and when he smiles and raises an eyebrow and says "oh, 5 years or so" I am now 100% certain. I mean, the "we are a tribe" camaraderie in the ninja community is still one of the most pure things in youth sports, the competitive spirit almost never turns nasty...whenever one of these kids so much as says "hi" to another there is an instant bond, awkward teen or no awkward teen. But I am sure of it: Hannah was nervous introducing herself to Rose because Rose INSPIRED HER to do this sport. Rose is her HERO. This whole conversation is now ADORABLE, and Rose is completely CLUELESS.

When I tell her my theory later, it kind snaps into place for her too, and she has no idea what to do with this knowledge. She is flustered by compliments most of the time anyway (see: teenagers are awkward), but this is a whole different level of "what, who, ME?" that she isn't used to.  It's useful though, because later when we get back home, and she starts her summer job coaching camps at the ninja gym, there are a LOT of smol ppls who also look up to her, and now she knows a little of what to look for, and how to low-key be that role model and inspiration without letting it go to her head. Good life skill, that.

Back to the Coliseum to find out Rose finished Stage 2 in 9th place, and will only get to watch Stage 3.  Only FOUR girls made it through to this final stage (a group which included Hannah, it turns out; she winds up second both on stage 3 and on the overall world champion ranking). So three of them will get hardware, and one will get shut out. Stage 3 is, as always, insane, a real playground of difficulty. The first obstacle here has you pull on a rope emerging from a hole in a big anchored box, then haul yourself, standing on a sled, some 12-15 feet across astroturf.  The first competitor reaches down, grabs the rope, gives a pull...and discovers more slack line than she anticipated. She falls backwards, lands on her ass...and that's that. Done. Absolutely brutal. Not unexpected, or even contrary to the demonstration video they sent out, but jeeeeez what a time and place for a mental error. She is off the podium without even making any forward progress at all. (footnote, so I don't forget to mention it on my 2024 recap: This girl, Rebecca Harris, was again in the YA category this year, and she took home 3 medals, making it to Stage 3 and finishing second, then taking bronze in the Speed and Tech skills. Good for her!)

All told, Rose's tally for 2023 is:

  • Sooooclose to a stage 1 buzzer
  • Qualified for stage 2 in 8th
  • Finished stage 2 in 9th
  • ...for 8th place in the world in the Young Adult Female World Champion standings
  • 10th, 11th, third, and first in the skill challenges
  • ...for 4th place in "Skills Overall"
  • and summing all of that and ranking low total to high, she is 5th in the "World's Strongest Ninja" rankings.

...stay tuned for a recap of this past weekend, when the 2024 World Championships went down 🤘🤩

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Holy freaking fartknockers. I haven’t even watched the videos yet (I’m saving them for tomorrow when I can watch them on a bigger screen) but this whole situation sounds like two or three lives in a day.
I have never been able to do any of that because my delicate fingers are suitable only for typing. I did do some rock climbing at HOTT.BOB, but I'm pretty sure I was only lifting with my legs.
I hadn't seen video of Rose in a long time and no joke -- she is indeed jacked.
Also, PLEASE don't make us wait a whole year for the 2024 videos!!!!
I won't! Editing for YT and writing up a longer version than appeared on toot.cat.