Sometimes I am a little slow.

I don't mean that I do things leisurely. I mean that sometimes I don't GET things quickly. Messages that are abundantly clear to most are hidden to me. Lessons that other learn right away take me a long time to learn. I think it has some relationship with being gullible (which I am). People fool me all time

The thing that I have finally realized is this: it is not enough to pay the fee or tuition for your kids' school or club classes. You are expected to volunteer your time to help run the organization. It has taken me about 4 years of fencing and ballet classes to realize this. I had inklings of it. Sometimes I sensed there was "something more" going on. Perhaps I was living in la la land. That land where you just want to pay the exhorbitant fee for the class and have your kid take the class and be done with it.

But no. There are all these extra needs: fundraising (that's a big one), PR for the school, general organization, billing, arranging travel for others (yikes!) and so on. Being "asked" to volunteer my services really means, "You are expected to pull your weight here, you'd better pitch in."

Naturally I picked the job that requires the least contact with people and the most contact with a keyboard. I write press releases for ARG's fencing team. Though there are only so many ways one can write "So and So won the gold at the Blipity Blip Tournament" or "Four fencers from our club won medals." Snore. I feel sorry for sports writers.

This weekend I deftly deflected a hard sell on becoming the overall billing, travel and organizational "assistant" for ARG's fencing team. The mom who did it before is moving away and was trying to fill the spot. I was a big girl and I said NO. Even if I wanted to help out, I know my limits. I'd mess up big time. I am just not detail oriented. And during school time I just don't have any extra energy or brain power to spare. And that's the truth!

But the good news is I got the guy from the HMB Review (whoa we're in the big time now!) to come to this week's National Championship in San Jose. That's something, right?

And yes, you can certainly look forward to more posts about ARG's fencing and me peeing in my pants.