Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!!!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas weekend

Stay safe

That kind of reasoning makes way too much sense

BABY POWER

I was wrestling around with my favorite little man, my grandson Julian. He is 7 months old. I was not taking it all that easy on him. First I put him into a wrist lock (nikkajo). Immediately the look of surprise and pain on his face followed by pulling his hand into him, dragging mine along and then proceeding to bite the crap out of my finger. Then he is on his back and I am gently slapping him around “So what are you going to do tough guy”…. He didn’t wait around too long… he just delivered a powerful kick right to my nose. Good thing I blocked or it might have been broken. So that’s the way you wanna play? Here a side mount for you little man, just you try and get out of that. I outweigh you by 100lbs, there is no way you are going to move me. The little twerp proved me wrong in less than 30 seconds. He first pulled my necklace so tight, he choked me. Then he pulled my hair till I rolled off.

First of all I have to admit that I was impressed. No one is going to bully my little man around when he grows up, I don’t care how much bigger they are, he can take care of himself.

Second, lesson learned for me. Babies are not trapped with blinders and mind set and impossibility thinking. They grab whatever tool is at their disposal, they hold on for dear life until something better appears. Babies are great at looking for opportunities. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s available, it’s close at hands… it’s theirs. And dear God, their grip and strength is incredible. Why…. They grab like they mean to. They hold on and do not let go until it’s time to. They use their whole body, their core…. They pull their little elbows in and use everything at their disposal (hmmmm, I think I heard that somewhere before). You pull on their grips, their whole body follows.

So I will vow to be more like my grandson when I grow up.

Be smart, be childlike, stay safe

SUBJECT: Places where bad things happen

Lessons from wire hangers

This time of the year is once again upon us.. time to trim the tree and get the house ready for the Christmas festivities to come.

I love our tradition of going out as a family and cutting our own tree, bringing it back home and decorating it. They even made a movie about us: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

So the tree is up, the lights installed, time for the bulb. I pull out a brand spanking new package of ornaments hangers. They look so pretty, all tidy up in a neat little package. Then I open up the said neat little package and it’s like an explosion happened when the hangers touched air. The entire contents gets tangled up like a stack of stupid coat hangers. … sighs…. OK , no biggy, I’ll just pull a few out and start hanging bulbs and treasures. Easier said than done. The more I struggle to gently pull one out, the worse they get. I keep going for a while, keeping my cool and patience. Then I lost it and start to irrationally pull and yank using inappropriate Christmas verbiage.

It’s getting worse. Time to take a deep breath, this is only a small pack of hangers. They can’t possible get the best of me. In that calm moment, an idea (a divine inspiration?) comes to me. I just pick up the tangled mess with 2 fingers and gently shake it. Poof…. 5 hangers fell easily on the counter, ready to be used. Yeah… could it be that easy? I did again… same results. I was able to un-tangled the entire pack in less than 5 minutes. No frustrations, no temper loss.

Sometimes the solution to our problem is a lot easier than we make it to be. It’s all too easy to get stuck on a mindset that “this is the right way, the logical way to accomplish the desired results”. But sometimes, thinking outside of the box we can get much better said results. Don’t close your mind to simple opportunities.

Be smart, stay safe.

The Elevator Rapist

The Elevator Rapist

Nice to see a young girl fight back and not get raped!!!
A few things would have made this situation better. I know it's always easy to sit back in our chair, eat popcorn and pick things apart to see how much better it could have been. But let's use it as a learning tool. If you pre-think those situations it makes it so much easier to react in the best possible manner. So let's do our pre-thinking!

1. She did very well in looking back to see who was behind her. If she felt as uncomfortable as she looked (she should have had her spine tingling), turning around and making solid eye contact to let him know you are onto him and his motives. Perhaps say something like "Stay the heck away from me" and mean it!

2. She fought valiantly. The attacker was pretty much of a wimp. If it would have been a larger, more motivated attacker he probably would have been able to take her down and knock her out when she was standing over him. If your safety is on the line and you need to fight, don't slap him around... fight like you mean it. Put all your body weight into it, use your legs and feet to kick.

3. NEVER run after an attacker. Call the police and let them deal with him. Be a good witness. Give accurate description of his looks, clothing, scars, tattoos, accent. Look to see which direction he went, if he is driving a car, which kind.
If you follow him you can get yourself into some BIG troubles. First of all you don't know if he has accomplices, if he will get his second wind and get really mad and decide to punish you.
Remember: self defense is not about revenge or punishment. It's about keeping you safe. The minute you are able to run toward safety... DO IT!!!!

Be smart, stay safe!!!

What's stopping you?