Unused Gi Bag and Fatty Birthday Cake.

Wow. As soon as I wrote that Tuesday/Thursday were sacrosanct judo nights, I was wrong. I had my judo bag in my truck. Left at 6 PM. CRAWLED through Seattle traffic to get to Steve's Birthday party by 6:30. That's not to be. From 6PM to 6:30 PM was stuck in traffic at the I-90/I-5 merge to go underneath the Convention Center. For such a modern city, there is only effectively 2 lanes of I-5 northbound through Seattle Proper. I-90 terminates at I-5, West Seattle Bridge ends at I-5, and city traffic gets routed through I-5. It narrows down to 2 lanes. READ THAT 2 LANES in the heart of the city and then expands again. 2 LANES!

I digress, I CRAWLED through traffic. I got to Bothell at 7:30. Normally it takes about 30 or so minutes to get there. Basically my plan was show up 6:30, do a meet and greet, bail at 7:15 and head to practice. There's no such thing as showing up rather fast, do a meet and greet and bail at 7:30. I was already late. Meet and greet, took 30 minutes and before you knew it, it was already 8:10. The bow-ins would be already done, and the warm up started. If I left now, I'd make it around 8:45. Which would be utterly useless, since effectively I missed half the practice already.

Regardless, Birthday Boy showed up only a couple of minutes before me, so even if I left then, I was already late.

So with that aside, I went and popped open a beer. Got to meet up with some folks. It was Michelle's last night before flying back to Australia, so it was really cool to get together again and talk to her before she flew out.

The party was cool. Missing practice was not.

I really don't know how real judo players do it. I have a hard time fitting in regular life and judo.

Bah, what was even worse, was the fact that people at the party were asking about my judo, and well.. I can't say much since I'm not at practice.

So for now, my gi bag has been sitting in the back of my truck for 2 days now, begging to be used.

Oh well. Tomorrow, I got a tennis workout scheduled and this weekend I've got a hike to Soda Peaks. When I get back on Sunday, I'll be headed to Seattle Jujutsu for some mat time. Then Tuesday/Thursday would be back on regular schedule.