Unexpected Fun...

I wasn't sure I wanted to be back at RollerCon but I'm having a great time so far! My flight was just great. I picked up my brand-spanking new rental (baby blue Accent, with no power anything)l and then sat in traffic (you can't escape it!) - and then stood in line after dropping off my luggage - to register for my classes, insurance, etc. Bess and I headed off to the store to buy food snacks (we both love yogurt and granola for breakfast and IPAs - woot!) Then back to the hotel, over to a class and then to Fremont Street scrimmages - which are held in the older part of Las Vegas and are generally amusing. Back to the hotel, cleaned up for a banquet and then headed to Black & White scrimmaging - on polished cement. It was hilarious - and crazy. Polished cement is so slippery to skate on - it's the great equalizer. We were all bad at derby all of the sudden and it took many jams to get use to the floor (if you ever did.) The crazy fast, running everywhere in the first day - it's felt intimate and not so overwhelming. I'm glad to be here - at RollerCon - in this hot, crazy, totally unsustainable, fake city that everyone loves. It's fascinating.

Heading to Vegas...and now for something completely different.

I'm heading to Vegas for my 3rd RollerCon. I'm not quite sure what got into me or why I'm doing it but I'm sure I'll have a great time. (I decided to go on a complete impulse.) It's going to be HOT. And I hope in all this head, I clear my head, learn a thing or two more about derby and have a great time.

Tonight at a major donor event, I had "oysters in a half shell". Really. For the first time ever in my life - and they were delicious. It was honestly like eating the ocean (and not the gross part with syringes, plastic bags and beer cans.) What a fun experience.

The underlying tone....

This week has been a busy and rather overwhelming week at work. Part of it is because it's work and it's hard environment to be raising money but another part is that a co-worker's music partner (they are singer song writers together) was stabbed this weekend. Someone broke into her house over the weekend and stabbed her and her partner. The partner died. It tragic, horrible and random. The community is dumbfounded, outraged and scared. More than one person I've talked to thinks it's a hate crime (they were lesbians after all) and the murder did nothing - he didn't rob them, rape them - but stab and murder them. How random? Who knows. It's been tragic to see a coworker at such a loss. It's been a reminder about our work and just how much violence women experience.

Kill Your Mother!

Is what one of the blockers from the Seattle Derby Brats was shouting to the jammer on the line this past Saturday. Yes. Lily Lightening was up against her mother. And yes, a common saying in derby is "Kill the jammer." And when the jammer is someone's mother it made sense to shout, "kill your mother!" It was so funny and so wrong at the same time.

They have become quite a force to be reckoned with - the Seattle Derby Brats. Skaters between 12-17 (ish) who play, now, full contact derby. They're a wile group of gals with agility and the ability to jump a skater's leg in a single bound. They're totally serious and when you knock one down, your first instinct is to make sure she gets up and then you look at the row of parents staring at you and you're hoping none of them are shooting lazer beams at you from their eyes. And they aren't. They want their girls to be the best they can.

You just don't want to smoosh them.

* my friend Arson sent me this picture today (from our 7/11 bout) with the caption "I am reaching for a hug. Look how cold you are!" which cracked me up. (For those who don't know, what she is about to do is so illegal. He he he.)

A Win! (finally)

Carnies pulled off a win last night against the Hellbound Homewreckers of the Dockyard Derby Dames. Last year we lost by one point against the Marauding Mollys (of the DYDD) and I wasn't sure what the Homewreckers would bring to the table. It turns out that they brought a good bout but we weren't having any of it. We absolutely wanted to win this bout. The tension on the team the last two weeks had come to a head and we absolutely had to win. It was 30 minute mini bout - surely we could pull this off - surely the "fun team" could actually win a bout.

And we did! It was a great game and we worked hard with the 10 people we had on the floor. Everyone played hard and everyone put their hearts into it. It was great to win. And it didn't feel the same way it felt to win against one of our own league team but its a start and maybe we're turning a page and will go from the "fun loving team" to the "fun loving winning team."

The rest of the weekend was fun summer times. We went to Georgetown Brewery (turns out you can't eat there) to drop off banners as they're league sponsors next year - they're the makers of Manny's - the most delicious and ubiquitous microbrewery in the area - had happy hour snacks at Smarty Pants. The bout took up most of Saturday (as they usually do) and today was visits to the Ballard Farmer's Market, grocery shopping, cleaning up the apartment, late lunch and rolling off to practice.

I am so loving the summertime! I just wish Mondays didn't come...

*lovely 1951 Chevy in the Ballard Market parking lot...

One of those weeks...

I don't know how many times one can have "one of those weeks" in life - but I've had one too many. We did finally get the server up at work and the challenges of trying to get everything done that you had set out to do weeks before (had even been motivated to do) fell by the wayside as you tried to get caught up and remember why you needed those reports so badly - whose phone numbers you needed, what needed to happen. Eventually a week was cobbled together - intermixed with some derby and derby drama - it was a long long week. And a hot one!

This is probably the best summer I've had since I've been here (summer #4). The first summer I was here (having arrived on Thanksgiving in 2005) was absolutely gorgeous! It was sunny and warm - there were mountains to be hiked, there were films to be watched, there was derby to discovery, there was open windows and warm nights, there were tons of visitors from the mid-west and new friends to be made. It was absolutely wonderinful and I was sold on this place called "Seattle" and the "Pacific Northwest." The next two summers, along with the next three winters made me wonder if I had bought in too early as it was only sunny on Wednesday and sometimes it never broke 80. This summer is making up for lost timing! I could hardly believe when it was raining this week that I was actually grateful!

It's been a beatiful summer - and one of the busiest ones!

*super cute dress at a designer's shop just next door to Smarty Pants in Georgetown.

One of those weeks...

That you don't want to write about as you find yourself completely frustrated by the lack of a server at work (for the second week straight) yet still managed to find enough for you and a bunch of other people to do so that they could get paid (stressful.) You start each day working from home but then end up going in or going in thinking you're not going to do much (because it takes 3 x as long ) but end up staying a whole day anyway. You find yourself emailing board members at midnight and give a crappy presentation when you're cut short and have to run off to yet another meeting. You end up running into the office because you won a big case and it's means great things for people in Washington and the phones are dead that day - you manage to boss around a bunch of people and get the word out but you don't see any credit in the press - from anyone to anyone. Bew.

But at least I have a job to complain about.

*Fezzy ate my felted ladybug this week - one of the partial days I was working from home. Bad Fezzy.

My most relaxing weekend...

... with just a little bit of work and Fezzy tried to help.

9 to 5

The Brand Flakes have this great mash up song including Dolly Parton's "9 to 5". I also have the regular Parton song on my ipod. Stumbling across it a lot lately, I decided to rent the film to see what it was about - it came out when I was a kid (1980) and I really didn't remember it. Of course, Blockbuster didn't have it and I had to open an account at the local "Rain City" video - because they had it and many other great films (left with 3 of them).

It was pretty funny - the fashion - particularly. What was a little disturbing was that there are still some many of these things we're still working on - like equal pay (thanks Lilly Ledbetter). Don't get me wrong - a lot has changed. I wouldn't want to be a woman working at a different point in history - but some of the crap going on in the film still goes on. There's still a lot of work to do... in the workplace.

However, today is a day for fireworks, BBQs and other fun things. Social justice doesn't take a break on July 4th - it just gets moved to the back burner.

(Today - got a new HP laptop and now I have no excuse for not writing in my blog.)

blurry...

Heading into another short week - I went to work Monday exhausted from a long weekend that included a team garage sale, hosting a birthday BBQ for Louise at Golden Gardens, and the Pride Parade on Sunday.  It was a wonderful weekend that wore me down to the bone.  And then I went into work ready to pound out 4 days of serious work when the server went down.  I cleaned my desk, read a couple of articles and then we all went home while the consultant worked on it.  Turns out the server was DEAD - completely and utterly dead.  The "mother board" called it quits. There was nothing to be done but to order another server - of course the week of a national holiday.  (Once again, one of my lazy habits of saving files to the desktop, saved me some time as I could salvage some work as we were going to be down for more than a week.)

I saved these random files to my portable hard drive, made a plan with my coworker who said "I wonder what it looks like for you to walk into my office over IM?", made some plans with my boss to do as much as possible and headed home.  Of course, the Mac at home didn't talk to the portable hard drive - so I couldn't do anything from home.  Today, I headed back to work - with my Clearwire and printer in hand to create a pseudo office.  But I couldn't get the printer to work.  It was a long day - where everything took twice as long to do everything.  Janet swung by and we decided to go have lunch at McCormick & Schmidt's on South Lake Union.  The food was OK but the sunshine and company is what made my day.

It's blurry - trying to work from home - with limited technology.  I am going to take off in the morning to go on a hike with Weedy.  I'm going to sit and work on a mailing tonight.   And finish up some spreadsheets over the weekend.  Working from home.  It gets blurry.