It was the worst day of my life. I've never felt so much hurt ,in fact, I never new one person could experience that much emotion. I certainly had not expected to feel so broken up inside. During the past week I had felt extreme anger, sadness and even a little bit of disbelief. Now I just felt numb all over except for the very center of me where there was a very intense pain. A pain that made it hard to breathe.

I cried as I watched you dying. I didn't want to admit it but I was reluctant to let you go. I held your hand and prayed for the first time in years. We didn't have the best of relationships. We were always fighting, always arguing. It never stopped untill I left home for good, moving so far away I thought I would never find my way back. But I didn't have to because you found a way to reach me. You wrote me letters and emails but you never called. I suspect you knew that phone calls would be awkward and unsettling. No it was much better to write. That meant we could pretend to be civil and you know something, it really worked. I grew up and learned to see the world from your point of veiw. I realised you had feelings and opinons that mattered but of course I was so stubborn I would never admit that you.

And now here we are years later where the arguments don't matter and there are no petty differences. I can't believe I wasted so much time. I can't belive how much you have to come to mean to me. I'm standing at your graveside while everyone else drifts off. It's actually a nice sunny day. I can hear the birds singing in the trees. The uglyness of death has no place here. I am worried I will forget you. You were my own personal gaurdian angel in disguise and I don't want to say goodbye for good. But I have to leave soon and live my life and learn to deal with the pain. So goodbye Angel. Goodbye Friend. Goodbye.

So, tomorrow is the last day, senshuraku, of the Natsu Basho - the May tournament. I am of course talking professional sumo here. Those of you poor, innocent souls who have had their mornings/evenings/nights punctuated (and a little more than that, at times) by sumo chatter in the catbox may be happy to hear that it is ending. Some of you are not. Some of you actually profess to liking "the Sumo Hour" (named so by tentative).

So, if you do like sumo (and "Sumo Hour") here's what is at stake tomorrow, after some exciting bouts today:

• Yokozuna Hakuho and Ozeki Harumafuji both have a score of 13-1, after Ozeki Kotooshu, very beautifully and quite surprisingly, beat Hakuho today.
• Yokozuna Asashoryu and Maegashira Kisenosato both have 12-2, after Asashoryu, equally surprisingly, lost to Harumafuji (neither Rapscallion nor I saw that one coming)!
• So if Asashoryu wins his bout against Hakuho, Kisenosato wins his bout against Kakuryu (I think he does), and Harumafuji loses to Kotooshu (he might very well)... well, that gives us four sumotori on 13-2, and that is a very interesting situation.

When two wrestlers have the same score on the last day they go head to head in a play-off. I have only seen this once, a few years ago, namely in the 2007 Haru Basho, where Asashoryu and then Ozeki Hakuho both ended up with a 13-2 result. Hakuho won their final bout and collected the grand prize: The Emperor's Cup (for the second time in his career). But I, personally, haven't seen a case of four wrestlers being tied, and I sure would love to!

So here's hoping for a very exciting last day, and then I promise that you poor catboxers will have peace. For another almost two months. The next basho, the July basho (Nagoya Basho) starts while I'm in Oregon, just as HD6 is ending. So I'll be sumo chatting from the US for the first couple of days.

Thanks for your patience - and here are some awesome nodes for y'all.

Originally listed under Mad as a Hatter and sent to Node Heaven

Some think me as Mad as a Hatter
They hunt me with horse and with ratter
It's true that some foxes
Can't be kept in boxes
I distract the damned dogs with my patter