All the things that make a (good) weekend...

There are those parts of the weekend that are worth writing about - like finally getting to spend some time in my P-Patch! Even with SNOW falling on the city of Seattle Friday afternoon (woot! Love the snow. Then sun. Then snow. Then rain. Then snow. oy!), the weather held long enough on Saturday afternoon for me to sneak away and actually work in my P-Patch. Of course it's one of the few growing dandelions as opposed to actual vegetables. I hoed it up and made a goal to plant half of it (the other half covered with mint that I needed to deal with) and I was thrilled to at least get half the plants in.

I went back home to head up to a pool tournament fundraiser for my team. The turn-out was pretty low (and that damn snow had returned! Covering my poor lettuce!) Most of us ended up playing and we made few bucks on the night. Early Sunday morning I found myself awake with a splitting headache at 2 a.m.. Maybe it was from the wine from Friday night when I had some friends over - though we had a great evening, the sulfurs in red wine will often give me killer headaches. Maybe it was from the stress of work and other things. Maybe I was just having a killer headache - at 2 a.m. I did what my mother use to do when I was a sophomore suffering from insufferable insomnia - she would suggest we sleep in another room. (I have no idea what her logic was on that at the time, now I think it was to get me to quit thinking of whatever it was that was keeping me awake and to get me focus on my new surroundings. Whenever I woke her up at 2 a.m. complaining that I couldn't sleep and what should I do, she would suggest we sleep in the den or another room. Whatever it was, it worked.) I got up and curled up on the couch with Monkey. It was freezing cold (snow) but felt better and somehow I managed to crawl past that headache and to sleep.

Today there was no time for P-Patches thought the weather did brighten up a bit (still very cold). I had a team meeting and practice which had it's own aggravating elements. A friend took me out for a beer after practice and sang the lyrics of a Gnarls Barkley song emphasising my own elements of frustration (and we weren't even drunk) and I couldn't stop cracking up. Plus my usual bar tender - Katia (not Katie because there are like a million of them) was there to keep me laughing. Because that's what good friends are for. And P-Patches. These are the things that make you happy some weekends.

Not quite the weekend I was hoping for....

And here it is Tuesday and I'm still wallowing in the fact that I didn't get to play in my P-Patch on Sunday. Saturday was a stellar, absolutely beautiful day where we laid out our new roller derby track, cleaned it all up and then loaded it back in. It was warm, sunny and a great turnout of skaters (which meant that it actually ended on time!) I went to the RCRG bout that evening, cheered on some friends, watched some good derby, when back home for snacks and generally could call it a productive, fabulous evening - cool, sunny, almost spring.

I woke up on Sunday ready to lay my garden out into 4 sections, plant "starts" of lettuce, and seeds of lettuce, corn, peas, carrots, beans and flowers. I couldn't wait to get started on my New Year's resolution but it was pouring down rain and about 40 degrees out. Pneumonia was about the only thing I would get if I went outside. The sun managed to break through about 4 p.m. as I was supposed to be heading to West Seattle for homemade salad and pizza for "Easter Dinner".

Damn.

Today in the sun, rain, sun, rain, sun, rain that has become characteristic of this spring, I did end up hanging out with a friend I know from my days in Cleveland. It had been nearly 8 months since we had last seen each other. He's one of those people that can tell a good story, has had amazing experiences, can tell you a good story about those amazing experiences, and you're convinced he'll have plenty more - you might have even been a part of them yourself. He's a law professor, he's traveled all around the world but some of his best stories are about watching films on the sides of houses in his small town where he grew up in Pakistan. He makes the world feel very small. He's one of those people you like to be around. And I'm glad we're still friends. Even across the county, in the same city.

Pictures of skatin'...

I've had this conversation with a few people - I'm just not a "pretty" roller girl. I mean I don't know how to be cute while racing around the track at top speed or hitting someone but others seem to manage it. I don't. I also don't get too bothered about it but when the photos of our bout come out the day after, I'm excited to see what great hits my teammates laid out, or what great jams they did sprinted - and of course, I look for my rainbow socks to see if I was doing anything interesting that was captured on film. And usually I'm not. It's usually my beak nose (or just plain nose), red lips covering a mouth guard and a determined look on my face. This time around that is a super funny shot where I am acting as both jammer and "referee", calling a skating who was about to clobber me for "20' rule violation". It's a hilarious shot and has been cracking me up all day. I didn't fall down from this hit but I can't really remember the outcome. Either way, it's pretty funny.



Plus I have this sushi bandaide on the finger I'm using to point, and it's very ET like.

I am amused.

Ham sandwiches, a "murder of crows", cabbage juice

All kinds of rollergirls have all different strategies about what to eat before a bout ranging from "power drinks" to bananas and nuts and a zillion other things in between. I'm a pretty light dinner eater on practice nights and I use to have a secret formula to eating the day of a bout but I found something better. At the last bout, because we spent the whole day setting up the floor, laying out the space, etc, nuts, bananas, and granola bars just didn't do it for me. Cia, one of my team skaters, brought some sandwiches from QFC and I easily ate half of a store made ham sandwich. It was my "ideal" prebout meal but honestly gave me me "energy" since I was rather tried out. So I requested another store bought ham sandwich, ate a few bites, and felt great again. It's not magical food to help you win (because it sure didn't last night) but truthfully, the fancy stuff isn't going to make you win the game.

Today, the day after my bout, (where we got lost pretty hardily), I went to the Best of the NorthWest Craft Fair. It was downtown at the "Qwest" events center and seemed pretty massive. Today was part of my secret (read: drunk) New Year's resolution to "do fun and crafty things with my friend Glitter" - who was also a rollergirl. And though we love rollerderby, we find that we need other things in our lives like more art and crafts. We're both crafty people with very limited time. Looking at the website, I thought everything was going to be too pricey and break my budget limit quickly (of $100). We ate some veggie burgers for lunch and headed downtown in the wintry Seattle weather .

It was like many other craft shows but because it was a juried show was seemingly a more "refined" level of craft. Many artists were frustrated though. They use to have this event at Hanger 27, also where Rat City Roller Girls use to host their bouts, and the city kicked everyone out of this affordable event space to allow it to be renovated into a sports complex - which has now fallen through. Anyway, it wasn't a lively festive arts fair that it once was but one that would fit more in a suburban mall. Not that there wasn't great art - there was so truly fantastic stuff. There was an artist, Don McMahon, who was just as funny as his pencil sketches were. And though I tend to think of birds as "flying dinosaurs" (and I mean really, they are) I was taken by a "murder of crows" - which is what a group of crows are called (like a gaggle of geese). It cracked me up and it was completely different my other art work which is comprised of mostly photography, art by women and a series of "f*ck you" pieces. So at the end, we went back and got a framed print. It's already found a home on the wall. http://www.birdsonthings.com/drawings.php?offset=8

The day after a bout I usually feel one of two things - a derby hangover (from getting the shit knocked out of me) or a general hangover (from drinking too many beers on a nearly empty stomach). Today I didn't feel either except an ulcer and a jaw ache. The jaw ache came from one of my own teammates who flung her arm back (while clearing space for me when I was jamming) and hit me square in the mouth - most knocking me over. (I have four teeth dents inside my lower lip.) And then there is an ucler - which upon doing all of this research is caused by bacteria but agitated by STRESS (read: roller derby, being team captain, my new job and not being able to get to the gym much in the last week) and taking things like millions of Advil last year for my knee injury, comes into play. It's self diagnosed but I'm 100% sure that is what it is and it's completely aggrivated. One of the most wonderful people I've met in derby is a second generation organic/natural foods family store owner and she recommended all kinds of things include Aloe Vera juice and DGL (licorice pills to help digestion) to help with the symptoms. But in doing all of this online research I've also found that I need cabbage juice. It actually seems to cure ulcers - which is what I need because anything that takes away my love of coffee, drinky drinks and spicy food must go. But cabbage juice? Gross. I mean cabbage isn't that fantastic anyway - it's a pretty bland vegetable that good as coldslaw and in peanut stew - oh with tons of vitamin C and "vitamin U". Who knew? Do does anyone have a juicer?

The people we admire most...

There are plenty of people I have looked up to in my life - who have been a pivotal influence, a great mentor, boss, a Samba dancer, roller derby skater or someone who amazes me - and I think it's a good thing that they keep changing as I grow in my own life. However, when it comes right down to it, the person I admired most is not a world leader, musician, artist, or writer but simply my Aunt Jane.

She was actually my mother's aunt (my grandfather's sister) - she owned cabins up on the South Platte River in Colorado near the town of Twin Cedars in the Rocky Mountains. She had a bar/restaurant and "general store" right near the state route that ran along the South Platte. We went up there for fishing tournaments. She always hung up all of the crazy things my brothers and I would draw and mail to her. She gave us gumballs. She let us tromp around the forest. She hired a gaggle of teens for the summer to help manage the cabins and all of the fishermen.

Her husband was a drunk. She had no children. She was a "blue blooded Democrat" (and the way the rest of my family said it you would think she was the devil.) Her oldest sister died of the Great Influenza of 1919 (which killed 20-40 million people.) Her other brother (not my grandfather) killed himself. She owned this property. She was the heart of that area. I don't think I knew what I loved about her when I was younger and I'm sure I'm romanticizing her life now, but I admired who she was. I admired her independence, as a woman up in the mountains, all the work that she did and all of the people she knew - her closeness to the land.

The US Gov bought her property though the power of eminent domain - the plan was to dam the South Platte consequently flooding Twin Cedars. She moved down the mountains to the town of Castle Rock. She was older, though she seemed to get even older out of the mountains. She died when I was in high school.

I admired her feisty spirit. I admired she had her own business and going against the grain.

And I still admire her now.

Accosted...

I have this very increased and heightened awareness of my surroundings since a Sierra Club organizer was stabbed to death on New Year's Eve. When it first happened, all of us who do any kind of organizing were convinced that it wasn't a coincidence. It has to have been someone who was on either side of the environmental issue - either a passionate radical environmentalist or someone completely opposed to everything the Sierra Club represents. It was a horrible tragedy and it turns out it was horribly random! Since then, I am just more aware than I was before.

Last night I was walking home from the gym, stopped by the grocery story for a snack and walking home I was just trying to be more aware when I was completely accosted by a tree filled with spring blooms! And there were two more in a row. That is one thing that I can't seem to get use to in Seattle - spring has sprung and it's the first week of May! The magnolia trees are in full bloom and there are random pink lollipop on the sides of the road letting us know that we just need to be a little more patient because summer is just around the corner... after a few more 30 degree mornings.

Ha! And to be so naive....

To think that people change... over night. Because you don't - usually - though sometimes it becomes obvious to the rest of the world over night. He voted for Hillary as a vote against McCain - which I should have known - because Mark voting for Hillary because he believed in her would be like me voting for McCain because I believed in him.

And I just don't see that happening.

Anytime soon.

Politics and Religion...

I have always been told by someone, like many people, you don't talk about politics and religion at the dinner table. When I was interviewing for an international scholarship to travel all around Europe, I got chastised when I said some important discussions were "around politics and religion." Didn't I know you weren't suppose to talk about that?! Of course I did, that's just not reality.

In reality you often talk about it. It does not mean you get into heated debates or impose your views on another person but you're bound to talk about it. The imam's children and I would often get in heated discussions about the role of Islam in modern culture. I have friends who have shared my love of holiday candy (easter, valentines and christmas) but maybe not the love of the holiday itself. I have tried to divorce myself of sibblings over politics at the same time volunteering 80 hours a month leading up to an election. Politics is what I talk about at work. The electric company guys and I, when I was in the Peace Corps, use to wage bets on when the country would be overthrow or go down in a coupe - these were serious conversations about what we saw going on in our community. I won the bet of when the coupe would happen... before the new year.

I am trying to steer clear of politics and religion on my blog because there are other blogs dedicated just for that and this isn't one of them. But I won't let my family off the hook (which should be another one of those thing you never talk about - politics, religion and family. All the same in some cases.) But when I came home from Happy Hour tonight my older brother (calls himself a neo-con but not cool-aid drinkin' one) left me a message saying that he and a bunch of his Republican friends had voted for Hillary that evening and what she had to say was amazing. I'm honestly baffled. Truly. And I called him to make sure I heard him right but he didn't answer (and it was super late). And even if I completely misunderstood him, people are allowed to change their minds and are allow to change their views in politics. Even if it's completely unexpected and unprecedented.

And I'm allowed to blog about it.

Fall City...

Last night I went to Fall City (east of Seattle and slightly north) to hear a rollergirl friend of mine sing in an "idol-esk" competition at the Raging River Saloon. She has been invited to compete with a bunch of other contestants who had also been invited. There was a cash prize but she need a group of friends to cheer for her - like in American Idol. So about 5 of us rolled up to Fall City. It's was rural Washington - kind of like rural Ohio - I knew small town bars.

Well you would have thought we were 5 aliens coming to visit our 6th - instead of 5 cute and fun roller girls coming out to support their pal. A table of women stared at us from the corner. A crazy drunk wouldn't leave us alone, didn't understandwhy we wouldn't get him buy us drinks, or why him standing in front of us while we were playing pool was a problem. I became the "asshole", my other friend the "anti social cunt bag" and the other two, besides being "twins", and straight as the day is long, were "men hating dykes". We tried to defuse the situation but eventually ended up laughing at it (though the "anti-social cunt-bag" was afraid a gun would be pulled.) A waitress tried to make us feel at home adn another one of the contestents invited us to different party. We cheered on our alien and she ended up winning the Idol-esk event including the cash prize! (She had the best stage presence - never mind her fantastic voice!)

We stayed for a follow-up performance, walked each other out to the car and took an "over the river and thru the woods" drive back to I-90 to Seattle (the other way goest thru Cleveland to Boston). It was a super fun road trip and it's been a long time since I've been called anything close to "asshole, or anti socia...." Gosh, anyone who knows me knows I'm a completely social cunt bag.