Rating the week.

Fridays should be for looking back on your week and seeing how you are (mis)spending your time.   I should do it every week.

Work:  Wasted about 80% of my time.  Gotta work on that.  Had some quality naps, though.  Work my douchebag teeshirt today, which pretty much sums up the depths to which I've fallen.

Kids:  Used the F-bomb in direct relation to my eldest child.  Not as in "jesus fucking christ" like I usually do, but more like "you wretched fucking child".  Yeah, excellent parenting skills there.   And it happened twice in the same evening.  Some days their nonsense just washes over me and some days... maybe not drinking is the wrong approach.  Maybe more drinking is the key.  Something to contemplate.

Drugs:  Really, how much pain medication do I really need to ingest?  For the migraines, two high-dose rounds of aspirin; for the knee, enough advil that I ran out;   for the back, enough robaxacet that I ran out (though that seems to be nicely fixed); and my nightly dose of perc to make me sleep like a warm and fuzzy baby. Mmmmmm sleep.  Not to mention a day of agony because I forgot to take my hernia stuff for a few days and it takes a while to kick back in.  Cue the daily pill box,  I am becoming an old lady!!!

Derby:  Wrenched back on Friday night, skated Sat anyway.  That made it feel better.  Then skated Monday night with Michelle and that was good too.  It's the sitting on my ass that makes things hurt.  Played on the street with Calvin on Wed night, which was fun.  That kids rocks his roller blades.  I have to get him to come and practice with the girls - I bet he's make a great obstacle for us.  I should probably invest in some proper padding for him though.  Nothing after that though, except I ran yesterday which made my knee hurt.  Feh.

Boy:  What boy?  I know you're busy and all but really?  Is it always the same stupid story?  He did wish me a happy birthday but that's the last I heard from him.  Feh.


Food:  I have become a compulsive chocolate buyer - no, scratch that.  I am *still* a compulsive chocolate buyer.  This seems to work for me if I leave it at home since I don't have much desire to eat it there, go figure.  So I still buy it compulsively and it accumulates and occasionally I will eat some.  If I bring it to work I'm so bored I will eat. it. all.  Like I want to now.  Chocolate?  Anyone have any chocolate???

Overall rating?  Last Friday it stated around a C, peaked on Sunday night at A+ and declined steadily every since to today's low of D.  Nowhere to go but up, right???

Call *me* crankypants

Feh.  Kids are back and foul.  Why can't they be sweet loving little creatures when they come back, like they missed me or something?  I am a model of patience and tolerance and they are... evil.

My back hurts.  Physio helped some but I bet some Percocet tonight will help more. 

Had a massage and it was OK, but not great.  For the cost of them they'd better be great.  I think I'll have to do all Wanda, all the time.  Cheating disagrees with me.

Stupid motherfucking PoF keeps taking down my pictures.  First the sort of legitimate one.  OK, whatever.  But this time it was the one of me on the bed and all it is is a head shot.  What part about HEAD does their computer-generated moronic picture-screener not understand?  Someone must have it out for me cuz I'm sure they don't yank pictures on their own. 

And dude won't have more than a three word convo woth me.  (I only mention this because I'm cranky, not because I think it's an issue.)  We gotta get the communication pathways nailed down, though.  I can't go through this again. 

Bancroft dude seems to be over his knickerbunching about me screwing someone else.  Move along, dude  You're here for conversational purposes only.

Anything else?  I'm sure a million things, but nothing for now... I gotta go see a girl about a purse.

Wow

Now we know why the dorky guy always ends up getting the girl.  It's because he's freaking fabulo in bed, and packing to boot.  Holy Hannah. 

Frankly, I think that was a masterful piece of stage-directing on my part.  In retrospect I don't think it would have taken him too long to get there but I really didn't want to have to worry about that.  Not that I'm a worrier, or a control freak.  Who me?  Oh no.

So although it was a beautiful evening,. I drove down to the Roy solely so I could have the excuse of getting him in my car.  Bwah ha ha!  Now you are at my mercy!!  No, we came back to my place ostentiably to drop the car and go for a walk.  I asked if he wanted to come in.  Yes.  D'ya want to sit down?  Yes.  D'ya want a drink?  Yep.  OK, so now we know where this is heading.  So we sat and chitchatted and I showed him my skates (my version of my etchings) and then eventually he leaned over and smooched me.  And the rest is history. 

Blah, blah, blah.  Stop me when it gets boring.

Todays sponsor: Robaxacet

Awesome practice!  I was involved in my first high-speed pileup last night!  We were doing endurance (25 laps in 5 minutes) and someone wiped out right in front of me.  I couldn't have avoided her if I tried so I sort of threw myself over her, landing on... my hands and right shoulder, I think.  I executed a very sloppy sort-of monkey roll over her.  Something went crunch but it was surprisingly unpainful.  And I still managed to do 23 laps!  There is hope. I was actually more relaxed after the wipeout and made better time, I think.  I get all wiggy about the endurance test and totally forget how to skate.

I spent a significant amount of time in the tub last night, armed with a big glass of wine and a bowl of chips.  That was about all I could find to eat.  Doesn't seem to have helped much as my back is KILLING me.  Going to skate with Michelle anyway, maybe it will loosen me up a bit.  Turns out we *do* have to know how to weave though pylons on one foot, so that will be today's focus.  I totally can't do it.

Incurred another knuckle injury, surprise, surprise.  I think I might have to go with Bloody Knuckles as my Derby name after all.  I dunno.  I change my mind all the time.  The frontrunners are:

Bloody Knuckles
Lotter Bruises
Blood Sweat and Beers

Thoughts?

Of MRIs and Men

I finally went and sought professional help on the results of my MRI.  Not the doctor, oh no.  Doctors are for drugs and referrals.  Physiotherapists are for getting stuff done.

It turns out I have a high grade tear in my MCL.  No ACL at all, which is good, minimal meniscal involvement, lots of old arthritis and bursitis.  Jen the wonder physio says the end of the bone was bleeding (!) into a very small space causing inflammation and pain.  Nothing radical to be done except ultrasound and acupuncture to reduce the goop and thus the pain.  I love her - she doesn't suggest I stay off it or limit my activities in any way except for trying to avoid falling on my left knee so it won't bleed anymore.  Nice.  She did hook me up with a seriously medieval-looking knee brace to protect, of all things, my kneecap which seems to be more fragile than one would like.  Kneecaps apparently are the kind of things that lead to arthritis in old age and at my increasingly advanced age these are things am starting to worry about.  I don't want to be one of these old ladies that whinges about climbing stairs or stepping up curb or having a handicap-accessible washroom. 

We also talked a bit about the possible neuroma on my left foot which is aggravated by too-tight shoes and running long distances.  She seemed to think it might be something else but suggested some stretching and stuff to loosen up my calves, since apparently the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone, the hip bone's connected....  But when I said I couldn't see myself ever running more than 10K, she said that's a good thing since our bodies are not really designed to run much further than that.  Long-distance is when things start to fall apart, especially as we age.  So,  great - no half-marathons for me!

And let me just jinx my life entirely by saying how much I like the new dude.  He seems so... normal.  Yeah, I've said that before but I don't think I'm deluding myself this time.  Tall.  Not fat but not perfect.  The worst thing I can say about him is that he has a gluten intolerance, but we could all use a little less bread in our lives, couldn't we?  He ate hamburger bun so it can't be all that bad. 

Great conversationalist, but not by magic - because he is good at asking questions that lead to conversation, he listens, he acts interested in what you have to say.  We have lots in common in our outlook on politics, social issues, Adam Giambrone.  He likes his job.  He like his 9-5 lifestyle rather than disparaging it (not to make comparisons or anything, douchbag).  He's a bit dorky in an undefinable but not off-putting way - sort of like the dork in the movies that still manages to get the girl?  It's hard to explain.  Maybe it will become clearer (for better or worse) with more exposure.  Here's hoping he'll expose himself soon :D

Equipment improvement

When you start derby, the first thing they teach you to do is fall, and that seems to be what you spend a majority of your time doing.  Ideally, you fall forward, and naturally the toes of your skates take the brunt of the damage as they are constantly hitting the ground at speed.  One knee falls are killer on your toes as you slide, slide, slide on the poor toes of your precious leather skates.

As a result, one gets toe guards.  It's much cheaper to periodically replace these that the whole skate.  My first ones were very basic - a strip of leather that wraps over the toebox and is secured by the laces.

This is somewhat unsatisfactory as they shift around a lot and don't really provide protection when you need it.  Can you call it protection if it fails in the heat of the moment?  I think not.  Look at my poor violated toe:

 So I discovered you can get ones that wrap over the toe box.  I got mine from www.skatesnouts.etsy.com since I think everything should come from Etsy.  Cool jammer stripes in red.

While unscrewing my toestops, it occurred to me that I should check and see how far out they really should be.  I've just been guessing.  Badly, it turns out.  The starting rule seems to be that when your skates are tipped up on the toestop, there shouldn't be more than 4 finger widths between the ground and the back wheel.  Having only two hands I could not get a picture of this, but when you compare the unadjusted one to the adjusted one, you can really see a difference.  Mine were way to far in, making me tip way too far forward to use them to stop:

I sort of thought the leather was a bit thin but when I discovered I pretty much had to turn them inside out to get the toestop tight, I reconsidered.

Now they're on, my skates are smiling and so am I.  One of the grommets popped out as I was lacing back up but that's just cosmetic.  I wonder how long they'll last, though?  I have a pair from another Etsy shop on order - should take a while.  They have red skulls and crossbones on them.  (No, not everything derby has skull and crossbones on it but lots of stuff does - it's a dog-eat-dog sport) I can't wait!  I just hope these ones last until the next ones arrive.  Gotta love cool stuff that wears out regularly :)

New vs old:

I put them on just to tighten the laces and all I want to do is skate.  They're like magical things that turn you into a different, more coordinated, cool, kickass person.  Man, but I love to skate.  It just feels like weeks ago I was stumbling around the house when I tried to skate her but I felt GOOD today.  I can turn, I can stop, I don't trip over the floor joins.  I AM DERBY.

It's really hard to take a picture of your own foot.
________________________________________________________________________

I'm de-douched.  I unfriended him on facebook.  Miko & Barb will be so proud.  Movin' on, my friends.  Movin' on.

Reality check

If your name is Plank, how can you ever be anything but a douchebag??

I will be forever grateful for the 50 pounds I've lost. Not so much for the hair I lost, the nights I spent weeping on the couch, for the time I spent boring my friends as they tried to get me to see the obvious. I'm sorry for that, my friends. I'm a bit slow sometimes and you were very patient and kind.

I will hate you forever for making me feel substandard. Stupid. Boring. And for making me feel like it was all my fault.

YOU are a douchbag. D'ya think there's a reason you go out with girls who are 20 something? Women get BETTER as they get older. The smart men have figured this out. Guess where this leaves you?

I am woman, see me hipcheck. And you never will.

A whole new chapter...

Ya, I knw.  Things were getting a bit stale, eh?  So now I'm introducing a whole new level of fascinating posts - DERBY !

Today's post involves the badly designed grommets in my skate boots.  I've been skating for about 8 weeks and I noticed the other day that one of my laces was almost severed in half:

I couldn't figure out why until I looked carefully at the gromments and on my right boot the grommets were really hsarp.  Also, the right hand ones had cracked.  Recipe for disaster if you're a skate lace.

This one doesn't look so bad but you can see how the top is much narrower - and sharper! - than the bottom.

So I got out my hand dandy chisel and proceeded to shave them down.  They're plastic, not metal, so it was an easy job.

I have new laces now!













...and my boots are relaced and ready to go for tomorrows practice!

Too bad the stupid laces are still too short.  Who designs this stuff????