Thursday, July 25, 2013

FREE TIME IS WEIRD WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

yeah.  It's only been four days and I'm like I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING GOING ON AND I'M NOT GETTING ELEVENTY THOUSAND E-MAILS THIS IS NOT NORMAL

so because I am a complete glutton for punishment, I'm contemplating running for a board position in September.  NOT TREASURER AND NOT PRESIDENT though.  I've been talking with our current league VP and he's not running in the fall....so maybe.  I've been going to the board meetings in my position as Ticket Queen, and I really miss being behind the scenes on decisions and stuff. 

We'll see.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

weekend recap

This is all stuff I've mentioned before, but we had two bouts this weekend.  The first one, on Friday, was a fun bout for our city's Pride Week.  The theme of the week was "There's No Place Like Home", so our fun bout was called "Friends of Dorothy" and we had the Ruby Red Skaters vs. the Yellow Brick Rollers (my idea, Kansas [where everyone dressed in shades of black, white and grey] vs. Oz [everyone dressed in crazy bright colors] went unchosen).

So I made helmet covers, as I mentioned a few times before.  Here's a picture of the jammer covers:

FEAST YOUR EYES UPON THE SPARKLE

(the pivot covers were similar; rainbow stripe with sequins on each side.)

They went over like gangbusters.  Everyone kept saying how awesome they were, which made me very happy.

Anyway, the bout.  I was a Yellow Brick Roller and we lost.  One of our fantastico jammers couldn't get off work so we were short in that respect, and then the refs didn't make a few calls that they should've, but whatevs.

Saturday was an actual bout.  And it was amaaaaaaaaayzing.  We all just clicked as a team, we had each other's backs, we did our THANG.  I bridged like a mofo, keeping my teammates in play as the jammer tried to escape.  I didn't play that much in the second half, though, as I fell badly on my right shoulder and was like OKAY I CAN FINISH THIS JAM BUT JUST BARELY AND THEN I'M OUT.  It's still sore now.

We won, of course.

Now I'm on break.  The season starts up again on August 8, but I'll be out of town.  Then I have, like, a week and a half of practices until my surgery and I'm out.  Boo hoo.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

whee, I say! and whee, and whee again!

BOUT WEEK WAHOO, and it'll be my last bout for a while 'cause of the surgery and whatnot.  BOO HISS.

Monday's practice went well; I may be a one-trick pony with my spinning but dammit it's a good one-trick pony to be. 

I NEED TO REMEMBER TO SWITCH MY TOESTOPS.  They're flattening out majorly.

Monday, July 15, 2013

blech

so I went to Sunday practice because we were told it would only be our team (the A team was participating in a tournament) and it would give us extra time to practice together and we really really really needed to be there.

There were, of course, only eight of us.  GAAAA. 

I was sooooooooooooooo bitchy during the off skates workout.  Mr. Hyde would've looked at me and said DUDE YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN.  Things improved once we got on skates, though.

We had one skater with us who'd passed her assessment but hadn't been rostered to a team yet, and we sent her through as a jammer for part of a light scrimmage.  She did pretty well but then had to stop and puke.  I felt bad for her, and it made me realize how far I've come in my endurance and whatnot.

Then I went home and slept for four hours, which *ALWAYS* happens and which is why I don't go to Sunday practices usually.

Anyway.

Friday, July 12, 2013

ow ow ow OWWWWWWWWWW

Scrimmage last night.  Had some awesome moments (had the opposing jammer pushing up against my chest for almost the entire straightaway, earning our jammer valuable time; swooping up to where one of my teammates had a jammer trapped and knocking her out of bounds; clipping another jammer right on the turn so that she ended up so far ahead out of bounds she just called it off rather than skate back).

Then there was this one screwed up moment where I was up on one skate wildly, my second skate went out from under me and I fell on my right butt cheek.  I don't know if I hit nerves or muscles or what but it hurt SO MUCH that I could barely get up afterwards.  I finished the jam and sat out for a good ten minutes with an ice pack.  It's still pretty painful now (at least I can sit).

Thursday, July 11, 2013

bingo, bango, bongo and irving

So our final bouts of the season are being played in connection with our city's Pride Weekend, and the theme of our intraleague bout is Wizard of Oz themed - the Ruby Red Skaters vs. the Yellow Brick Rollers.  So, of course, I volunteered to make helmet covers.

They're going to be shiny red and shiny yellow, with stars of striped rainbow fabric, and the stars will be outlined with sequins.  I started working on them yesterday.  I'll need to redo the first one 'cause it looks crappy, but I've started the second and it looks pretty good so far.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

HRAPY ANIVARSERY

Five years ago tonight, I strapped on my high-boot roller skates (that had been languishing in the garage for several years previous) and stepped onto the rink at Adult Skate Night for my very first roller derby practice.

What a long, strange trip it's been.
------------------

Practice last night went well.  I worked on doing my "spin to avoid a block/get past a wall" thing during actual play, rather than just in drills.  I had to jam a few times (there were only ten of us at practice) and I worked on it and was actually relatively successful.  Our assistant coach complimented me on a few of my moves.

We had a particularly grueling interval thing in addition to our usual warmup (15 pushups, 20 situps, 25 squats, 20 lunges, 80 jumping jacks* and a one minute wall sit - repeated) so my legs are a bit sore today.   Gaa.

I think I figured out how to lace my skates so that my toe guards stay in place, though I have to replace my laces because one of them is hanging on by two little threads.  (Lately I have been banging the bejeezus out of my left big toe; I have no idea what I'm doing differently, all I know is that I finish for the night and it really really hurts.)  It will be weird/admittedly nice to be able to take a little bit of a break.

*I did not do the jumping jacks for obvious reasons

Monday, July 8, 2013

the end is in sight, or something

so the season is winding down - only two more bouts to go (an intraleague scrimmage and one official bout in one weekend).  Then about three weeks off before home teams start.

My surgery (and holy hell I cannot WAIT to have that surgery ZOMFG) will throw a monkey wrench into that, though.  Our first practice back is a league meeting on August 8 (I will be out of town), with the first home team practice on the 12th.  I'll only be able to do a few practices before the 21st (the date of my surgery).  I wonder if it's worth paying dues for that month (who am I kidding, of course I'll pay dues and go to practices).

I'm a bit worried that I will lose the semblance of fitness that I have amassed over the past whatever, too.  I've been told I can't lift more than 10 pounds for a significant period of time afterward, and can't do any sort of abdominal exercises for the same.  I could probably swim, but I don't know about submerging myself in water after that sort of procedure.  I'll have to ask.

(In a little bit of amusery, my husband and I got into a pick-up game of kickball on the 4th of July.  The next day he was complaining about how sore his legs were; I was like "oh yeah, that's right, I played kickball."  Heh.)


Friday, July 5, 2013

so! ECDX!

we lost our bout against the Philly Block Party (a pickup team of theirs), 139-70. 

EXCUSES I COULD AND WILL MAKE:

We were down a lot of our key players for one reason or another.
They played a lot of A team people.

It was fun, though.  I have no regrets.  Well, I do have one - I regret that I couldn't jump right into the pool (uniform and all) after the bout, but that was because it was raining and the pool was closed.

But yeah, ECDX was soooo fun.  Lots of derby to be watched, lots of stuff to buy, lots of hanging out with friends.   I definitely recommend it to anyone in the Eastern time zone.

I did buy new Radar Diamond wheels, and good LORD I needed them:

exact same type of wheel.  old one on the left.  EEP
 I made sure to label each one as to where on my skate it is (RIB = right skate, inner side, back wheel; LOF = left skate, outer side, front wheel, etc.) so that I can actually keep track of how they wear down YES I HAVE BEEN SKATING FOR ALMOST FIVE YEARS AND I'VE NEVER KEPT TRACK OF STUFF LIKE THAT.  It was a little wonky skating on them on Monday 'cause they were so new, but whatevs.

I also got purple Shwings because I'm a dork.  Between that and my new toe guards my skates are way over accessorized.

I am, however, running into a problem with the toeguards - the way my laces set and the way the loop you put your laces through on the toeguard run, the toeguards move around a lot.  That plus the fact that the tongue on my skates moves around all the time makes me think I should sew some sort of elastic to keep it in place.  But the problem with sewing elastic is that sometimes I do need to move the tongue completely out of place (like when I'm putting new insoles in or whatnot).  WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO.