Cleaning The Crimson

Jeremy sparred for the first time with Jamil last night.  I watched them during their second round.  Jamil caught Jeremy a few times in the nose.  That was the first time I ever saw Jamil bloody someone up.  Jeremy was bleeding a lot, but he stayed in the ring. 

Alan said that Barry was concerned about blood he had seen previously on the canvas.  "We've just got a lot of bleeders," Alan told me.  Jeremy's shirt was stained with crimson, and some of it did make it onto the canvas.  Near the end of the evening, I got some paper towels from the women's washroom and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol off of the coach's desk.  "What are you doing?" Alan asked, as I wiped up the canvas surface.  "I figured I'd clean up the blood from the canvas.  There's a few spots," I answered.  "How much of my blood is on there?" Jeremy joked.  "Eh, don't worry about it, Hillari," Alan said.  I saw a broom in an odd spot and picked it up.  "Now what are you doing?" Alan said.  "I'm just moving the broom over to the garbage can," I said.  He thought I was going to start sweeping, which would not have been a bad idea, judging by the condition of the floor.  "There are maintenance guys for that.  We'll coach, and we'll let them clean," Alan grinned.  Jeremy had also gotten blood on the sparring gloves he had worn.  I rinsed those off in the washroom.

Some readers might be saying to themselves at this point,  "No way!  How can she do that?"  I've gotten used to it, and I'm not very squeamish.   Besides, I'm very careful when I'm in contact with blood in the gym.  Unfortunately, one has to be very careful when in contact with any body fluids these days.  The sparring gloves are used by everyone.  There have been many times, when I've put on a pair, only to discover that someone else has used them recently, and the gloves are sweaty.  I noticed a cut on my left thumb right before I got into the ring with John last night.  Before I put on a pair of gloves, I pulled out a bandaid from my gear bag and covered my thumb with it. 

I wore makeup and nail polish the day before, as I attended church and attended the church's annual business meeting afterwards.  Of course I didn't wear makeup to the gym, but I hadn't removed the nail polish.  I like the contrast of the polish on my fingernails peering out from my handwraps.  It's funny to me. 

While at work yesterday morning, Alan called to ask if I could print out the Chicago Golden Gloves registration and bout schedule and bring it to the gym.  I was in Pastor Roger's office at the time; we were talking to Pam, who expressed an interest in doing volunteer work at church.  Pastor looked at me, trying to figure out if the call was for him when I answered it.  After a few moments, he told Pam, "That sounds like she's talking about boxing stuff."  Alan chuckled when I told him about it later that evening.  "Sounds like you're making a boxing fan out of the pastor," he said.  "No, he always tells me that he doesn't understand much about the sport," I smiled. 

Alan told John that the cut off age for registering at the Golden Gloves used to be thirty-three.  Now it's 35 because the Chicago version never seems to support a Masters' division.  John is 34 years old.  "Man, that would be something if after getting all hyped up for the tournament, I couldn't get in due to age!" John exclaimed.