I don’t do a lot of fund raising on Sarah and the Goon Squad but this is something that I believe in.
Choralis is a first rate community based choir in the Washington D.C Area. Besides being kind enough to let me in, they also provide scholarships to 12 students each year. Gretchen Kuhrmann is an amazing director and I suggest you come see us perform if you are in the area.
Of course if you can’t I understand.
But, I promised these people I would raise $100. Running a choir isn’t cheap, providing scholarship is expensive.
I figured that if I could get each of you to give $1 (or $5 if you are loaded or really into choral music) we could probably raise $100.
I know things are tight, and I know we aren’t curing cancer, but I figured you guys could all spare a dollar for a noble cause.
The paypal button below will let you donate directly to Choralis leaving out the middle man. If you feel more comfortable going through me, my e-mail address is goonsquadsarah at gmail dot com and I can get the money to the choir.
If you want to know what stops my heart it is a mom in Ian’s class telling me that she read my blog.
I don’t keep it a secret. I am not anonymous. I am mostly pretty proud of my work here, but this was this morning and I happen to know I wrote a post this week about testicles and I only know this lady from kindergarten class parties. I have no idea what is coming next.
Fortunately it was ” I read your post about your underwear falling down at Tae Kwon Do. I was reading it at work and I was laughing so hard I was crying. I can completely relate.”
I got lucky. This particular mom is very cool and has a sense of humor.
Now two parents from Ian’s kindergarten class have approached me about my underpants issues. I am thrilled that they are reading me and like my work, but I have two concerns.
1) If you google my first and last name and, I don’t know, zip code, is the first thing that comes up The Saga of the Traveling Underpants?
and
2) Am I going to become known as the lady who had underwear problems at Tae Kwon Do?
I guess these are the risks that you run when you tell all of your most embarrassing stories to the internet.
I’ve been trying to quit Tae Kwon Do for about a month now.
I signed up for Tae Kwon Do back in December. I was taking with my kids and it was fun… ish, but then it turned out that even though I was in a class with my kids we were learning different things. They needed one skill set to get their yellow belts and I needed another, adult, skill set that involved blocks and things I don’t understand. So I would be separated from my kids in class if there were two or more instructors.
If there was only one instructor that day I would just do whatever the little kids did.
Just as I was becoming more and more frustrated it was time to test.
I was not ready for my yellow belt testing. The kids were all set. They could count to 10 in Korean, they knew the focuses and they knew the pattern/yelly thing that probably has a name that I don’t know and they were prepared to break some boards.
I just wanted to use that 30 minutes to walk over to Trader Joe’s to get something to make for dinner.
I kind of stopped going, but the master shamed me into coming back.
But it gets better – or worse. It costs $50 per person to test for a belt.
$50 x 3 = $150
Each person needs their own sparring gear once one advances to the yellow belt. Each set of sparring gear costs $190.
$190 x 3 = $570
Here comes the math joke.
$150 + $570 > Sarah is willing to spend to make an ass out of herself in front of people.
I don’t mind spending a lot of money for something my children enjoy. Hell, I don’t mind spending disgusting amounts of money on things that I enjoy. I figured I was not getting $240 worth of enjoyment out of Tae Kwon Do and so I should quit and spend that money on a nice gym membership.
So I tried to quit again.
Again, the master shamed me. Do it for the children!
Fine.
But I went home and thought about it. How is he going to argue with me if I don’t have the money, because really, isn’t that why he wants me there in the first place?
After The Goon Squad earned their yellow belts I took my children to the little kid class. The ones adults aren’t supposed to go to. I am very tricky.
The master asked me why I wasn’t coming to class.
I told him it was too much money to buy all of the equipment for sparring and that I didn’t know my blocks and I just wasn’t feeling it.
HE TRICKED ME AGAIN!
He told me that I didn’t have to test and I didn’t have to buy all of the equipment and that money should not be the thing stopping me from setting a good example for my children. He said if it came down to it and I really couldn’t afford it I could help out by answering phones there in the studio.
He was so nice! He was so reasonable! I don’t have to give him any money!
The problem is that I really, really just don’t want to do it. It isn’t that I am lazy. I have been out walking almost every day and I do my elliptical at least five times a week. I just don’t want to do this.
I was driving my five year old twins and my nine year old neighbor to Tae Kwon Do today. They were talking about “Jackmania” which is the imaginary kingdom of next door so I was pretty much ignoring them when the conversation took a turn that made my ears perk up.
“Hey Ian!” said the older boy. “You know how squirrels eat nuts?”
Because I think like a nine year old boy I could see where this was going a mile away.
He continued “Ahhh! Squirrels are after my nuts! They are in my pants!”
Ian laughed, but he was clueless and the older kid knew it.
“Get it? Because I have nuts in my pants!”
Ian asked “Why do you have nuts in your pants?”
“Because your nut is your penis!” neighbor boy replied.
I had a conundrum. Your nuts are not your penis and I know this. I don’t want my kids to go around with bad information or making jokes that don’t make sense. On the other hand, I don’t really want to talk about scrotums with a random 3rd grader. I am friends with his parents, but I don’t really talk to them about testicles that often so I don’t know how they would feel about me giving their children lessons about anatomy and slang.
I am not a patient woman, but I bode my time. I was a relatively mature adult and I waited until we got home and I was alone with my children.
“Listen guys,” I said “Remember when Jack said that your nut was your penis? That isn’t exactly true.”
I said penis. I had their attention.
“Your nuts are really your scrotum,”
*blank looks*
“your testicles”
*blank looks*
“the thing under your penis. You know what I am talking about?”
Claudia said yes and walked away.
Ian said “Under my penis?”
I was always under the impression that boys were obsessed with their balls, but here is my son, almost six years old and he forgot that there was something under his penis.
I said “Yeah, the thing under your penis.”
Then I actually said “Put your hand in your pants and feel under your penis.”
He figured it out. I am an excellent mother.
So far there has been no further discussion of the nuts, but I have a feeling that this is nowhere near over.
