Nerves, Blood, and One-Eye

Once again, Gabriel was the man of the evening when it came to sparring.  In this photo, he spars with Keith.

Gabriel also took on Orrest.  Orrest was reaching up a lot, and connecting often, but I told Orrest to go under Gabriel's long reach and go for the mid-section.  This sparring session was stopped quickly because Gabriel's nose began to gush blood.  It wasn't Orrest's fault; Gabriel's nose tends to do that each time he's in the ring.  Alan got towels from the washroom to wipe Gabriel off.  I used some of the other towels to wipe blood up from the canvas.  Gabriel's shirt had a lot of blood on it, too.  "My nose bleeding ain't nothin'," Gabriel said, but Alan made him stop sparring for awhile.  Orrest stayed in, and Matthew sparred with him.

Later, Phil sparred with Gabriel.

I didn't spar.  My stomach had been acting funny since mid-afternoon.  Alan told me he thinks it's nerves, and he's probably right.  Once again, I hadn't eaten much.  Plus, I'm still burned up about being fired last month, and that has had a negative effect on my health as well.  I wish I didn't hold grudges and stay angry for weeks and months on end, but I am my mother's child in that way.  Ma held on to stuff for decades.  They say that carrying anger shortens the lifespan, but Ma was close to 80 years of age when she passed on last year.  At the rate I'm going, I'll live to be 100 years old.

Look closely, and you'll see that Alan's left eye is very, very, red.  Nope, it's not the result of him sparring with anybody this time.  Yesterday, Alan had an operation on his eye.  He walked in the gym with that eye practically shut.  I expected him to have a patch on, but the doctors removed it hours later.  He said it didn't hurt badly, but light bothered it.  He actually drove -- very carefully -- to and from the gym.

A rerun of "Community" was on when I got home.  It was a Halloween themed episode, and the lead actor was dressed as a boxer.  If I still celebrated Halloween, that would probably be my costume.  But then, people would say I wasn't being original enough.





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