Thursday, August 19, 2010

Laundromat love...

Ok, I have to admit that title makes it sound like I'm going to write a cheesy romance novel here, but the truth is, I tried to start this post while I was stuck at the laundromat this afternoon. For some reason I can't get past the title on my iphone now, I will be writing to the Ombudsman about that, rest assured.
My local Laundromat is actually very unromantic, but it is somewhat interesting, with the walls plastered in signs advising how to use the machines, the prices, what you're getting for your money and also a nastygram to whoever it is who keeps washing greasy clothes to stop it, for god's sake man, think of everyone else who use the machines!!! After reading this, I imagine a masked washer, filthy from his greasy job and donning a balaclava, sneaking into the laundromat at 3 am, high on the thrill of getting someone else's washer dirty instead of his own, and all for the bargain price of three dollars.
Anyway, this cannot be a long post, because kat is due any minute and will be less than thrilled to find me doing this and thus eating into date night time.
So, I thought I would write about roller derby camp! Adelaide Roller Derby League among other wicked things, runs a camp each year in Mylor. It was my first time. I will admit, I planned poorly. For someone who constantly rubs their iphone and all it can do in the faces of those unfortunate enough not to own one, you'd think that I mught have consulted either of the TWO weather apps I have and packed better. You win this time, non iphone owners.
So, it rained a lot. Thankfully I did have a brolley in the car, so it wasn't all tales of woe there. Kat on the other hand only packed one pair of shoes which became soaked in the first two minutes so the poor lil kitty had to borrow Kit Cat Krunch's wellies.
Anyway, so we got there, bagsed a bunk and sat down to hear the rules. I didn't really listen. Then, we went to watch some footage from the girls who recently went to Rollercon (jealous) which was hilarious but overlapped into the time allocated for swingdance lessons by the Swing Sesh dancers. This was something I had been waiting for. Dancing like that always reminds me of my Dad and the stories of his teenage years, dancing the night away, the cha cha, the jive, the jitterbug...
So off we went. I gotta say, those Swing Sesh folks really know how to git 'er done! We had to take our shoes off as a rule cos it was raining, so I was in socks. They had no holes in them. First, we did the charleston. It was reeeally hard for me at first, on account of my general unco-ness, but it started to get better, and I was having a ball. I had to take my clothes off so that I was only in my jeans and singlet, cos we were working up such a sweat. We then had a short break and got into the jitterbug. I had to learn lead as there were only two boys present. It was unbelievably fun, and I'm sure I freaked out more than one person with the smile plastered on my face - it never wavered. By the end of it, I had a hole in one sock, the bottoms of my big toes hurt and my legs felt weak, especially my calves. As we left the hall, I stopped to stretch them, thinking 'boy, my calves are a little tender'. UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR!! After a few hours had passed, it became evident that under each big toe was a blister the size of a 5 cent piece, and my calves had frozen up. They stayed that way for four days, Monday I couldn't even lift my feet whilst walking!
Anyway, although walking was painful (to say the least) for the rest of camp, the fun didn't stop there. We had a talent show that night. Earlier in the day Krumbs (the queen of team building games) had given each person a slip of paper with a name on it. The point of this was that you had to do a good deed for the person on the paper. I got Vaderella *claps* so I decided to write a song for her and sing it in the talent show. By 'write' I mean rip off the song by The Mouldy Peaches from Juno, Anyone Else But You. I put appropriate words for Vader in there, and did it as a duet with Mims. Vader liked it, she may have shed a tear even. I was stoked. Also, myself, Mad Dog Mims, Kitten Affliction, Belli and D'Juana Fight me put a lil number together, an interpretive dance somethingorother to my Australian accoustic rendition of Ring Of Fire. I had to look towards the crowd only, because the dancing was so funny. The line 'I fell for you like a child' somehow evolved so that Belli would jump into the arms of Mims and JuJu and pretend to be suckling from Mims. I don't know actually, if it was more disturbing than funny, but the crowd seemed to like it. The last chorus I shouted instead of sang, and I could feel my face going beet red. Good at shouting, I am.
Canon Wonderful also put on a cooking show as her talent and made a potato gem casserole. Now, as a rule, I don't eat gems on account of the fat and wheat, but later that night I made an exception. The festivities had been going on for some time, and after all but the die hards had gone to bed, I found myself in the conference room with GoGo Fiasco, Belli, Canon and Mims. GoGo, Belli and I were astounding everyone (and by 'everyone' I mean Canon and Mims) as we performed Heart And Soul together, it was actually phenomenal, GoGo and I were swapping parts and overlapping hands even! After we tired of that, Belli and I seemed to naturally gravitate to the table where the leftover casserole was. In hindsight, we were always meant to end up there, I think. So, there we were, a coupla drunkards, scooping out the most revolting looking glop in the history of cooking with our bare hands and exclaiming how gooood it was!
So, that was that. We slept, woke up, discovered that Hell Grazer, Vaderella, Psycho Fox and Marshall Stacks hadn't slept, cleaned up, helped Mims look for Belli's keys that she'd lost the night before, rejoiced when they turned up in Foxy's jacket pocket and left for home.
Camp overall? Complete success. My life will never be the same, and now I'm only more hooked on derby if that's even possible.
Peace and potato gems!
Tx

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Greetings from the other side of 33...

Ok here we are again, this intimate relationship we have, you sitting at some form of computer, me sitting on my lounge icing a part of my body that I injured at derby. Today it's hammie. I could've called it hamstring, but the expression 'pulled a hammie' really lends a feel of sporting prowess to the situation so I'm going with that. I pulled my hammie last night at training, in the last jam I skated where I was also the jammer. I looked considerably like a grand fool as I was halfway through the pack and yelled at my blockers to trap someone behind them, so the wall of three opposing blockers in front of me would 'pull a twenty' and have to let me by. Right after I yelled that, I fell over my own feet in the weirdest manner. I didn't notice it immediately, I finished the jam and then was preoccupied with a teammate who I had thrown into a jammer earlier, causing her to injure her knee.
I'd like to elaborate on that. I know there's 'no saying sorry in derby', but sometimes you just have to. We've been taught a move that involves pushing one of your fellow blockers into the opposing jammer if you can't get to them yourself. I did this twice last night. The first time it was funny, I tried to push someone sidweays into a jammer, but she went forwards into an opposition blocker instead and got a major back blocking penalty for it. I found it hilarious and just kept playing. The second time: not so hilarious. I pushed her into a jammer again, but probably too hard and she really flew. She did take out the jammer, but also herself, and she twisted her knee in the process. This all happened in a flurry and I also got a finger in the eye at some point, I lost a few lashes but I'm ok. Anyway, the girl I pushed was (understandably) very angry at me. I apologised maybe twenty times, but I felt just so bad, and still do. Nobody came up to me and said that I did the move wrong, so I have no idea whether I did or not. All I know is that for the first time in my derby career, I am responsible for injuring someone, and it feels wretched. I also have a slightly squinty right eye but I really do think I'll recover.
Ok, so now to less melancholy business. Last week I had a birthday, I turned 33. My sisters and I have a little arrangement going where we have a joint bank account into which we each deposit $10 per week. This facilitates the travel of one or two of us (depends who is having the birthday, two of us live in Adelaide) to the city of the birthday girl so we can all celebrate together. I'm pretty sure it's the best idea I've had.
So, my older sister came over from Canberra on Thursday night. We shopped and had lunch and generally hung out on Friday, and Saturday we drove to Hahndorf. I would like to share an exchange that happened on the drive that I found particularly amusing. Let's call my big sis 'Snowy'.
Snowy: 'So I've been getting right into season 7 of UFC's The Ultimate Fighter.'
me: 'what's that?'
S: 'It's where two fighters or ex-fighters train up a bunch of fighters each and they battle it out'.
Me: 'Oh. Like Pokemon.'
*silence as we stare at each other, me suddenly realising how utterly absurd that comparison had been, she trying to decipher what I just said*
S: 'what's that?'
Me: (realising I actually know very little about pokemon) 'well... kinda similar, a trainer has a little creature he keeps in his pocket and then he meets up with another trainer and they open their pockets and the creatures do battle...'
S: (with narrowed eyes) 'I don't know what you mean...'
me: 'have you ever heard of pikachu?'
S: (brightening) 'I've heard of peek-a-boo!'
At that point I felt it was better to let her steer the convo and just keep my stupid mouth shut.
Something else I'd like to talk about is op shop stuff. In my experience there are two schools of thought with regards to the clothing they sell: those who believe that they wash them all before selling them, those that KNOW they don't (as if they have the time). I usually wash things I buy there if they are going to make contact with my skin, for example a t-shirt or hat, even. There is a running joke in my family about me 'airing' things I buy at op shops, which originated when I bought a jacket once, was cold so I wore it straight away. We always have a laugh at me 'airing' things as a method of washing them. So, Friday, Kat bought something from an op shop, skirt I think. Snowy saw her wearing it Sat morning (Kat's gunna kill me but I just gotta say that she had it on backwards first and I had to turn it around for her hehe) and said 'Skirt looks good, I hope you aired it nicely.' To which Kat replied: 'Oh yeah, of course.'
...'in a plastic bag...'
Hahahaha now I am no longer the worst op shopper ever.
Ok, so now let's get to Saturday night - the party. Myself and two *Awesome* derby mates Lady Cadaver and Van Slam'er (spelling? sorry if I ballsed it up Slams) had it at Slams' house. Caddy n Slams bought all the ingredients for the ultimate punch, which they put in a small wheelie bin with a ladle attached. As a surprise my lil sis Michi brought her trio to play there and they absolutely ROCKED!! As the songs played, we all got progressively drunker and I did some of my specialty dance moves. Then my sister asked me to get up and sing. I was surprised at this, because I don't sing well, not at all. But, being the wildly intoxicated attention loving leo that I am, I went up. Now, I can't remember how many songs we sung and in what order, but I think I remember that Foxy and Wild thing were crowd favourites. I also sung Hey Joe and had to make up 90% of the words. I may have thrown in the line 'punched her in the tit' in lieu of 'shot her down' even. When it came to Wild thing, I did something that I have never done in my life. I started to like, scream. Not like I was having limbs torn off, but how a full on rocker would sing that song. I think it sounded alright and I really enjoyed it! Odd. I got some really cool stuff for my birthday, on of our fan brigade made all three of us personalised t-shirts! The same kid that drew the picture in not my last post but the one before.
Ok, well as usual I am late to meet Kat for date night, so I must make that all, but it's probably long enough anyway!
Kindest regards old chap,
Tx