My girlfriend, Alicia (aka Tacoma Chickadee), said she was going to start doing roller derby. I thought that might be fun seeing as I’m dumb and all (not that roller derby girls are dumb). Then I started talking with her about the cost of it all and it was beyond my price range. For that much I could play hockey and well… hockey is just better. Needless to say I said no.
This week is Spring break. The boy is staying two glorious nights with his Auntie. To honor the childlessness we went out to “dinner” (I wouldn’t really call it food) and pool at a local tavern with NEAL and Alicia. We had to meet a little earlier because it was derby night. After 1 very large glass of wine and very little food later I had somehow agreed to go with Alicia to try out roller derby.
Now I’m a pretty good skater. On ice that is. Any pitfalls that may (or may not) have happened were NOT because I had been previously drinking.
First of all, roller skates weigh a metric ton. Have you worn skates outside of 1986? I hadn’t. Oh mah hell are they heavy.
Second, roller skates don’t slide of the floor. Ice skates do. Sliding side to side is how you stop.
And third, there is a big fatty rubber thing on the toe of the skate that can be treacherous to anyone who skates while dragging their toe.
I should also say that Alicia and I had a conversation about what to wear (cuz you know I have to look hawt… right) and protective gear. She said a helmet and knee pads are handy, but not required. In a haste to leave the pub I didn’t grab my helmet (which was in my hockey bag in the back of my truck) and I didn’t have knee pads. Alicia wielded the power of her iPhone and informed me that a helmet and knee pads would magically arrive for me to use. I was proud, I didn’t want to wear a helmet. Once we got there I was convinced otherwise.
I put on the skates and tried to get a feel for them. After about a 10 minute warm-up I was mostly good to go. I could perform a decent crossover turning left. All that time of playing right wing really helped. I wasn’t the fastest skater, but I wasn’t bad.
Things were going well until I lost focus… (oh look butterfly!) and started dragging my toe on the turns. Dragging toe + giant rubber thing on toe of skate = Elle landing face down on the floor. Yep, I’s hit mah head. I hit is so hard it dented the foam in the helmet and gave my forehead a nice helmet burn. I pretty much laid on the floor for a while trying to determine if everything was still attached and that nothing was broken. Had I not been wearing the helmet I would have ended up in the ER.
Now being the moose that I am I shook it off and continued with the remainder of practice. I fell again later, but on my knee (also kissing the knee pads). This morning I have a raging headache and feel like I’ve been hit by a mac truck.
Will I go back for derby? Not sure. It was fun, but the prospect of falling down with very little padding on scares the bejeezus out of me. I might just stick to co-ed ice hockey. It’s safer.
We all know my love for Winter Olympics. It’s not just that I love sports such as luge, bobsleigh, skeleton, or curling. I do loves me some curling. The Winter Olympics is home to gems such as snowboard half-pipe and of course… hockey.
I have been eagerly waiting for the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics since it was announced way back when. In 2006 I swore I was going to save my money and buy tickets for the entire hockey tournament in 2010. I had grand plans of living in Vancouver the whole time and living hockey. Then we found out that Americans couldn’t buy tickets unless we drove up to Vancouver and waiting in line. Even then we weren’t guaranteed to get tickets. Our Canadian friends even tried to get tickets. They couldn’t because they didn’t live IN Canada. My Olympic hopes were dashed.
I had (begrudgingly) come to grips with my disappointment and moved on to excitement of watching the Olympics on TV. That was also a huge disappointment. The first clue in there was when the opening ceremonies were on tape delay. We live 2 hours away from Vancouver, but we were watching the ceremonies on a 3 hour delay. Such is the rest of the network coverage. What’s worse is that CBC lost their bid for coverage to a station that isn’t shown here. So we can’t even get the Canadian coverage.
The other night the trusty husband came home to say Lindsay Vonn had won the gold in Women’s Downhill. Ok. That left me men’s snowboard half-pipe that night. I tuned in for the quarterfinals and the trusty husband and I got to talking about some of the hockey games. I logged on to NBColympics.com and the first thing on the front page, “SHAUN WHITE WINS GOLD.” Well shit. So we watched something that was Tivoed.
Yesterday I checked the listings for Sunday’s hockey games. WTF? Outside of the the gold medal game the two best games of the entire tournament were happening on Sunday. Russia vs. Czech Republic and USA vs. Canada. The Russia v. Czech game was scheduled for 12:00 p.m. TV coverage? Didn’t start until 3:00. 3 hour delay. That was ok since I had a meeting at 12:15. I did some yard work and came in to watch the game and had planned to flip back and forth once the US v. Canada game started. At 4:30 it was the end of the 2nd in Russia v. Czech so I turned to the US/Canada game. On the screen… the final score of the Russia/Czech game. feck.
The only thing that is keeping me from beating NBC programming execs to a pulp is that they showed the US/Canada game live. However, in my opinion the West coast coverage of the Olympics is one giant FAIL!
I’ve always been of the mindset that if I didn’t have something to write about it was better to not force it. I’m pretty sure I’m right about that. I always hate it when people apologize for not blogging in such a long time and then they stop again. Man alive that’s annoying.
My lack of inspiration comes from my brain being totally fried because of excessive yard work. Somehow shoveling dirt makes those last two brain cells work extra hard rendering them useless in any other capacity. Or maybe it is because they are running around saying, “what do we do?!” while watching my child romp and play on a pile of bark dust (in shorts and no shoes). Doesn’t that make you cringe just a little bit? It does me because I picked about 400 splinters out of my feet yesterday.
So since you always get an update on me I’ll do a little on on the remaining members of our household.
The trusty husband:
He too contracted the not-swine-flu-although-we-now-think-it-might-have-been. He was a saint and took care of the child while I lay on my death bed. When I got a little better I took care of the child so he could die in peace. Luckily neither of us died, but the child still gets chips for snack. In the test of wills I won as Derek caved and went to the doctor. He was diagnosed with a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics. I, however, continue to incubate the super virus. In addition to being sick I roped him into a gardening project where this weekend he will have to build 2 small retaining walls. He will do it because he loves me, but will secretly plot to smother me in my sleep.
The boy:
For sale: 1 small child. Only whines, argues, cries and sasses 90% of the time. The remaining 10% he is an adorable little angel. This time I’m actually joking.
He has gotten to the age where you can almost reason with him. Although we have our moments. Like how he refuses to believe that there are not chunks in his strawberry yogurt despite us telling him every day that the chunks are in Daddy’s yogurt, not his. He still plays mostly alone, but is figuring out that friends are pretty cool. He is no longer afraid of pine cones. The exact opposite really. He now collects them. That was pretty annoying at first, but is becoming more fun. He is discovering that there are different types and pretty soon we’ll pull out the book learn the real names of the trees (insert plant geek language here).
Naps are becoming fewer and fewer, but that will be ok in the summer. We have plenty to keep us busy.
He has become quite the little hockey player. He now works with his coaches instead of clinging to his father. It took the right wording to make that happen. He also skates the whole hour with his stick and is finally trying to go after the puck. We figure by the end of next year the NHL should be calling.
Fat & Dumb:
still fat and still dumb only with 20% more throwing up.
So you’ve heard me talk about Dr. Awesome before. How I love my OB/gyn and that he actually listens and that despite being a man he is sensitive to the fact that I can’t have children and gets it. I’ve gotten over the fact that he said the dreaded words last year of, “I think it might be time to see a RE”. I forgive him for that. I know I need to. It’s ok.
I’m pretty sure I also told you that while I was going through my post-surgery appointments the subject came up that I played hockey. Come to find out that Dr. Awesome also played hockey. In fact, he had recently transferred to WA from San Jose where he happened to be the doc for many of the wives of the San Jose Sharks. Yeah, Dr. Awesome is not only awesome because he’s a good doc, but because he delivered Evgeni Nabokov’s baby and Owen Nolan’s baby. The team threw him a big party when he left CA. It was all a great story that I could tell people. Because I have an awesome doc.
I also learned that Dr. Awesome happened to play for the hockey league that I had previously played for. In fact, he played for one of the opposing teams. I had played against him, but didn’t realize it.
Then today happened.
So I’m sitting in the locker room at the rink helping to get the boy dressed. Moreover, I was waiting for the team manager to get there so we could do things like gossip about other parents and the like. I know bad, but hey, it’s what makes freezing my ass off in a meat locker more fun. So I’m sitting there and in walks this dad behind the team manager. I’m thinking, “hey, I know that guy…wait, I KNOW that guy”. You guessed it. Dr. Awesome walked into the locker room.
Evidently, his son is now old enough to join the class that the boy takes.
The good and bad news is that he didn’t recognize me. Funny. Guess it was the wrong angle.
This should make my annual exam in April much more interesting.
There is a list of holidays that I believe are a big waste of time. New Year’s for one. The point is to stay up late and get drunk. Hell, I could do that on a Tuesday. Valentine’s is another. I guess this is partially because of my history with one of the companies that helped perpetuate Valentine’s. When the holiday came the day after Christmas it lost all of it’s flair.
Needless to say we don’t do much for Valentine’s. I would much rather spend it with my boys sitting around at home.
This year we had the opportunity to do something very fun. One of the coaches for the boy’s hockey team arranged for the Mini Mite program to skate during the 1st intermission at a Seattle Thunderbirds game. It just so happened that the game we were given was on Saturday. Valentine’s Day. So I spent my entire weekend engrossed in hockey fun. I couldn’t think of anything better.
Saturday morning we had practice. Hour and a half of hockey fun. That evening we had to be at ShoWare center by 5:45. Game started at 7:05. We arrived promptly along with the other 106 people in our group. The trusty husband had the pleasure of escorting the child to the locker room to dress and get ready for the “big event.” We had spent the past 2 weeks prepping the child for this. He has become quite the good little skater, but does not like to skate with his stick. We talked with the coaches about him wanting to do it, but being afraid of him wandering aimlessly by himself. He’s not quite a team player. They assured us that they wouldn’t let that happen. We also told the boy that daddy couldn’t go out onto the ice to help him. Oddly, he seemed ok with this.
During the whole first period the child kept asking if it was his turn yet. “Not quite yet,” we’d tell him. He was so excited when the coaches told them it was time to go. I was so nervous for the boy that my stomach was in knots. I’m rather glad that his father was the one to get him dressed.
In the end he did a great job. I have a few photos of the event and a video of his time on the ice, but for some reason Wordpress doesn’t like them. So you get this one (sort of blurry) photo. This is after they are done skating walking back to the locker room. Derek took it as he had that vantage point.
Believe it or not… he is all smiles.
