Archive for January, 2010
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18
Jan
2010
Who needs sleep?
When the weather was nice out and the sun rose before 7am, I used to go to bed at 10 and wake up before 6 to go out on my bike or meet Cec for a run… Alas, the weather lately sucks and it’s so bloody dark out in the morning, I like nothing better than to wake up at 6 and thn proceed to snuggle up in the warmth of my king-size bed and lay there till the very last possible moment for me to get to work on time.
Anyway I’m just going to put it out there and blame it on the fact that as of late my activities have shifted from AM to PM activities as we have started reffing the Fresh Meat scrimmages during the week. (FYI Fresh Meat are derby girls who are going through the tryout process in order to get drafted onto a team next month). This past Wednesday we reffed our first scrimmage and I’m happy to report that it wasn’t nearly as big of a gong-show as I had expected. During bouts there are 5 on-skate refs in the center of the track and 2 along the outside then you add in penalty trackers, time keepers, point keepers etc. Now, have all of the on-skate refs moving with the speed of the pack and calling penalties to the players and then into the trackers… you can imagine why I expected our first attempt of this to be a bit of a gong-show.
To continue the derby theme, Megan and I headed down to Bremerton for a road-trip to stand in as groupies for the TCRG All-Stars… (they won 116 – 113) and we sat in the stands pretending that we knew more than the refs in the bout and pointed out everything they did wrong… that being said, I’m sure had I actually been participating int eh reffing duties I would have been eating my own words.
On that note, I’ve averaged 4 hours of sleep per night this weekend so I’m going to attempt to be a normal human being and go to bed.
15
Jan
2010
I’ve been derbified!
After months of deliberation… and many inappropriate suggestions I have finally decided upon a derby name!
Before Christmas I was sure that I was going with ‘Queen LaStreefah’… that was until the practice that people started calling me ‘Queen’ for short… and lets admit it kids, I hated being called ‘Queen’. So over Christmas break the Bell clan through some more names into the mix, ‘Streefer Madness’ being one of those… which is a superb name… if I were a pot head – thankfully for my bank account and lungs, I’m not.
After some more debate, and collaboration with friends we came up with the name that is going to stick while I ref…
Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please…….
My new derby name is: Streef Legal
Now all I have to do is perfect the art o skating in a circle with the pack, while avoiding the 4 other on-skate refs, while calling penalties to players and repeating them to penalty trackers… no big deal!
12
Jan
2010
Since when can I bake?!
Oh wait, I can’t… but thankfully Hayley can, and I’m good at melting candy.
As a result we were able to come up with a Salt Tasting Room themed birthday cake to ring in Hayley’s birthday this weekend… check it out!
I’m not going to lie it was a pretty successful shin dig… which involved a good 10 bottles of wine, a table full of meat and cheese… and a cake that beat all cakes.
I did however realize that I am old… and staying up past 3am does not do wonders to my sleeping habits for the rest of the week (as I am learning now).
7
Jan
2010
Christmas Shenanigans
As I sit here on my couch wrapped in my new snuggie, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I am no longer on vacation. You know what I have to say about that? Lame.
I love my office because they are smart enough to shut down between Christmas and New Years, which allowed me to take a whirlwind tour down the West Coast: Kelowna, Seattle, Ladera Ranch, San Diego, LA and Big Bear.
To start off I headed up to Kelowna for a couple days to celebrate the holidays with the familia. We did a lot of eating… basically mum asked us to send our grocery lists before we came up and then when we got there we had to do all the cooking… but it was great, because it was free. highlights included: smoked turkey, prime rib, bacon fried brussel sprouts, gourmet eggs benny, scallop tartar, mashed parsnips…. oh and did I mention the 4lbs of butter that was consumed? Brother loves cooking with butter, and butter makes everything so freaking delicious.
Santa also paid a visit to Kelowna and I’m happy to report that he screwed up and forgot to put coal in my stocking… SCORE!
After Kelowna I headed down south to enjoy an extended vacation in California (also known as the place where I was first introduced to my bright red snuggie).
Greg and I started our week of couch hopping in Seattle with a 3:58am wake-up call to get to the airport… seriously, no human being should be awake at this hour. But in the end it paid off because we got to Orange County just in time for lunch at Wahoos and a visit to Laguna Beach… where Greg proceeded to have a run-in with Adam Sandler… I’m pretty sure they shared a moment.
The next day we were off to San Diego to take in the sights and visit the Nicholsons (my extended Jewish family). To get down there we hopped on the handy Amtrak – which was a lovely little ride down the coast, where we watched surfers out the window and listened to the 10 y/o with a mullet sitting behind us explain to his friend what a Hook-e-r is….
You know what though, in the 8 times I have been to Southern California in the past 3.5 years I have never been on the train… or to the top of Laguna Hills or to the nice little restaurant on the cliff of Laguna Beach… pretty much I hibernate with Kirst in her house, and on occasion get out to Javiers to eat some food. We did more in this trip than all my other trips combined.
So San Diego was great, and once I find my greencard husband I’m moving into Nancy’s house so I can BBQ and sit out in her new backyard every night.
Rather than sightseeing in LA… we opted to be lazy and spend the day watching trashy TV shows (Kandy you’d be proud) like Jersey Shore and 16 & Pregnant (who knows how many braincells died that day).
To cap off the weekend we headed up to Big Bear for New Years. We spent two days snowboarding on Snow Summit – and I’m not going to lie, the fake snow was a lot better than I had anticipated… Barring a few minor incidents (Greg being pummeled by a skiing tourist and Ginger somehow breaking her ass) it was a great two days of boarding. We rang in the new year with some patron and beer at a mullet bar called Chad’s Place… it was lovely :)
On that note, I’m going to attempt to return to reality and go to sleep.
Happy new year!
