Whip This!

Saturday was bout one of season 4! Holy crap! Am I seriously skating my 4th season? Mind boggling.
Anyway, there were some big changes in this bout for us. First of all, we moved from our beloved Toyota Blue Ribbon Pavilion to the Pepsi Coliseum. While I loved Blue Ribbon, we've simply outgrown it! Fans had trouble seeing during crowded bouts, we had to cap our attendance and there were several times where we could have sold hundreds more tickets than we did, simply because of seating restrictions.
The biggest downside to Pepsi is the sport court. Some of us had to show up at 10am and spent HOURS setting that damn thing up, then of course tearing it down afterward, when all we really wanted to do was drink and celebrate!
But I'm getting ahead of myself there. Friday before the bout, I did my usual run around like a crazy person routine. I had to pay horse board, get a new knee brace, and make another mini octopus kitty squid thing from Coraline. I made the first Octokitty Mini right before the Ft. Wayne bout, which we won, and sent it to live with Neil Gaiman. I did NOT make another Octokitty thing before Ohio, and we lost. WE LOST!!! For those of you that know me, you know what frenzied weirdness this sends me into. I did something for a bout, and we won, did not do it for a bout, and we lose. This means I add a crazy person superstition to my list. It varies from season to season, but currently it looks something like this:
I MUST:
Paint my toenails a shade of pink. Then chip some off my big toe. Bonus win if it chips naturally
Wear my lucky panties
Have pink in my hair
Listen to my special playlist before the bout. The music varies, and gets adjusted for bigger point spreads. It gets scrapped if we lose.
Knit before the bout
Wear pink or blue eyeshadow, or some combination thereof.
Drink a cup of Jasmine Green tea, steeped in my red ipot kettle. Not the silver kettle, the red kettle. And my Alice in Wonderland Mug. No other mug will do. God help anyone in my house that dirties that mug before bout day.
Wear that seasons lucky fishnets. I can ONLY wear the same ones from last season if I scored points in the last game I wore them in.
Read Wicked Lovely the week before the bout.
New- I must crochet a blue octokitty the night before the game.

I MUST NOT
Drink out of the blue and white Air Force water bottle.
Wear my pink and white sneakers. Star sneakers, or black and pink sneakers are okay. Pink and white are cursed. (I know... seriously)
Have any dollar coins in my wallet, pockets, or purse.


I know. This shit is weird right??? And let me explain, I am NOT a superstitious person by nature. I have a black cat that crosses my path every morning. If I see an upside down penny, I put it in my damn pocket! Breaking a mirror is just a sign of a really good party in my opinion. (or a really bad hair day)
But seriously, something about roller derby has turned me into a total freak. So before the bout against Bleeding Heartland, I made another octokitty mini.


Needless to say, we won the bout against the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls. I forget the exact scores. Our JV team won something like 124-33 and our Sirens (yay me) won somewhere around 121-33!
I'll do a game recap later, but for now, here is Octo Kitty enjoying the post bout festivities!




You know, I'm very, very glad I found this picture on my camera. That is Octo Kitty with my empty glass of midori sour. After MONTHS of not drinking (and no sugar, no white flour yay I lost 30lbs not that I'm going to mention that AGAIN) there is simply no way that I drank as much as my empty cup count said I did at the after party! I suspected that someone was drinking my drinks, and I originally blamed 4Leaf Cleaver. I must apologize to Cleaver, because clearly, it was Octo Kitty the whole time!



Okay, fair warning here. Should you ever chose to make your own Octopus Kitty Squid thing from Coraline you must be warned. Not only do they promote drinking (and steal your drinks) they are notorious boobie grabbers.



Octokitty was a social butterfly, and made friends with Greg the Mayor.



Despite the fact that Octokitty was stealing all my drinks, I ended up very.. lets say giggly and sleepy very quickly that night. After dancing the Thriller, making a pyramid:

(thanks for catching that Marc)!

I was a bit worn out!

I'll post an actual bout recap in a couple of days, but for now, I need to decide what to do with this new Octo Kitty. If I send it off to Neil Gaiman again, I will look like the scary stalker fan and probably get put on "a list". But what if it's bad luck to NOT send Octo Kitty away? Ah the dilemma! I'll worry about it later. For now, I drink tea and get my butt back to pattern writing, before I get (further) behind on work!

Nothing But Derby...

Welcome to a post where I ramble not about knitting, Neil Gaiman, or Dill's stupid dog! This one is all derby baby...

I've been completely stressed out about what kind of wheels to get for our upcoming season. I fell in love last season with the narrow pink G-Rods. Perfect grip, narrow width made for better cutting, the perfect wheel for me! Unfortunately this season we're moving venues, and changing floor. For those of you that don't play derby, different wheels work better on different surfaces, and those G-Rods were gonna be way too grippy on our new surface... skate court.
The other problem this presented is that now I needed TWO new sets of wheels. New G-Rods for our concrete practice space, since my wheels were beyond bald, and another set of wheels for the skate court that we'll now be bouting on.
I tried some very skinny Heartless wheels. They are REALLY narrow, and while I loved cutting in the pack on them, trying to sprint around the track I felt myself sliding really hard on the turns, pushing me almost out of bounds. No good for my style of skating. Whether they would work differently on the skate court.. no idea.
So I decided to bite the bullet, and just order the G-Rods, which are really, really expensive wheels, and then I would just hopefully figure out what to do about the skate court before the bout. After calling a few places and getting prices, I found a deal on some G-Rods. Normally those suckers run around $98(!) for eight wheels. I managed to find them for about $50! They also had a good deal on some Atom Stroker wheels, which are harder. Harder wheels = better for skate court.
We had a scrimmage against Quad State Sunday, at the fairgrounds, on our new skate court. My Atom Strokers came just in time, so I got to try them out. Trying to skate on those wheels on concrete had me looking like Bambi on ice. I fell over, and over, and over again. On the skate court... no problems. I could cut, I could sprint.. I did have a little trouble running off the line on my toe stops, but my bad knee has been making that difficult anyway. Besides, even if I'm not the first off the line, I'm the first out of the pack, and that's what counts :)
We learned some new things from Caesar, who graciously came out from Ohio, to give us tips about skating on the new flooring, and utilized his advice almost immediately. I was in the pack for the first jam ( I have never been in the starting line up, so this was a definite high point for me!) and spent the majority of the first period blocking.
Then JRoller handed me the jammer cap.
I stood there clutching it, and felt petrified. I spent the last couple of seasons not jamming nearly as much as I used too. When we first came back from break, JRoller started jamming me again. The first couple months were disastrous for me. No points, grand slammed, never getting lead... I was a mess. Then JRoller yelled at us. She spent about a good 15 minutes yelling, the game is in your head. Getting off the jammer line is in your head. The other girl being faster than you is all in your head.
The next night, during an endless jammer drill, I got through the the pack without anyone touching me. Fluke I thought. It was a lucky jam, no one saw me.
Then I did it again.
Then we scrimmaged, and I got lead jammer. Again, and again, and again. The next two scrimmage nights, every time I hit the jammer line, I got lead.
I tried to let go of the fear, think about how well I've been doing lately, put the jammer panty on my helmet and strolled up to the line, and looked at the blockers. Shit. Juwanna Hurt was up against me. The Hurt sisters, Juwanna and Jewel B. have a reputation in the midwest. Legend has it they came out of the womb on skates. Juwanna hits hard and effortlessly. She doesn't appear to strain herself on the track. A little nudge from her hip, and the wiliest jammer will go flying.
Second whistle sounded, and I took off, slightly behind the other jammer. We came around turn 3, and I saw it! The teeniest, tiniest hole on the inside line... right next to Juwanna Hurt. I could either bide my time, lose my speed, and try to avoid her, or I could go for that line... I went for it. On one foot. The opening was so small, I had to lift my left leg, and take the entire pack on my right. If anyone had seen me and hit me, I would have been gone! I got a couple of tiny little bumps, but I hit it so fast that almost everyone missed me until I was already by them! Our blockers were still holding the other jammer up, and Quad was focusing on that, so as I came around again I saw that same teeny tiny little hole! Could I do that again??? I sprinted, and again, lifted my foot, and made it past three of their blockers, with one more to go. I had room to put my foot down and push off for a second, and the last blocker turned and saw me. She stuck her leg out, guarding the inside line I was going for, trapping me in a sea of Quad skaters. I pushed, hopped over her leg on the inside corner, and got past again!
I was on a total high after that jam! We were steadily increasing our lead, until we were 40 points ahead. After the half, I went out to jam again... and totally effed it. It took me FOREVER to get through the pack. One big blocker was on me, slowing me down. Finally Sin got her out of my way, and I broke the pack.. and got lead jammer. Huh? I could have sworn the other jammer was through first! I figured she must have fouled, and looked for her. This entire thought process took about two seconds. I looked, and saw her in the pack! Crap! She must have already gotten through our blockers. I was on turn 2, as far away from my bench as I could be, so I couldn't look to see if they were screaming at me to call it or not.. so I called it. Went back to the bench, only to discover that I was wrong, and the other jammer had NOT broken the pack yet. Sonofa!!!! So I had a 0-0 jam. I always say it's better to play it safe, but damn... I could have had another grand slam!
I did fine during the rest of my jams. Some with points, one where the other jammer tried to hold me, I passed her and she called it. Overall it was great.
Sweet C had a freaking 19 point jam! Highest score of the day! All of our blockers did amazing. Cleaver held the other teams jammer for a full two minutes during one jam. The other blockers would fall back and try to hit her, she would dodge them, and get back in front of the jammer again! We had a couple of sloppy jams, but we played like a team for the majority of the game. It felt really, really good to connect with everyone on the track like that.
We ended the scrimmage with us at 139, and Quad State Terrors at 35.

Personally, this was the day that I needed. I've been working so hard to get in shape, and be the derby girl that I know I can be. I've lost about 30lbs since last season. I eat healthy (no white flour, no sugar, no alcohol the month before a bout), work out between practices, and sometimes before and after practice, and even though the weight loss has plateaued I get at least one customer a day asking me if I've lost a bunch of weight. I feel faster and fitter on the track, and in better control of my body. If this is indeed my last season, I want to go out with a bang.

The Picture of the Package!

Happiest Package EVER!

I'll post pics in a moment, but Neil Gaiman and Cat of Neverwear.net sent me shirts, and thank you cards for the Coraline Octopus Kitty package!
Neil Gaiman wrote me a card! I'm floating!!!

What Sassy Ate Today...

Remember what I said about the cuter the picture, the worse the behavior of Sassy? She was so bad this weekend, that you get this:


No picture. Imagine her as an embryo. Because the tinier she is, the cuter she is right? And trust me, this dog needs to be pretty damn cute after this weekend.

Sassy has upped her destruction level lately. She is lightning quick, with ninja like reflexes, adept at eating things not meant for consumption in mere MOMENTS of nonattendance. A couple days ago we were in the kitchen, and she ate two pens. Where does she find pens? I can never find pens! I complain at least once a week about the lack of pens in our house! Yet she finds two! (and eats them)
Yesterday, while we were outside, she ate the baby gate that confines the dogs to the living room.
Yes, you read that correctly. She ATE the BABY GATE. Not the whole thing obviously, but most of the top bar, and enough of the plastic mesh to fit her fat tummy through, so that she could enter the dining room and...
get an icy hot pack out of my skate bag and...
eat it.

So lets recap:
In two days, over the course of may 20 minutes total Sassy Ate:
Ink pen (2)
Baby Gate (1)
Icy Hot Pack (1)
Most dogs would consider that a pretty successful couple days work right? Oh, but Sassy is an overachiever!
Friday night, the Naptown Roller Girls were promoting roller derby at screenings of the new movie Whip It! I helped work the information booth on Friday night, along with Dill, who had a megaphone. At the movie theater. Surprisingly, this was actually a big hit with the manager, who thought Dill was funny. Anyway, I was not going to watch the movie, because while I really, really want to see it, I've had a nagging little cough, and did not want to disturb anyone else in the theater.
But I still really wanted a promo shirt ;)
So we snagged 2 of them. One for me, and one for Dill. I was super excited about my shirt!
We went home, I laid my shirt, and Dills shirt, on the back of a chair, and took a bath.
Sassy, took MY shirt off the back of the chair, despite Dill's being easier for her to reach, and ate the tag out of it.
So add that to her list:
Shirt tag (1)

But, again, overachiever here. So after she dragged the shirt to the middle of the floor, and ate the tag, she peed on it.

So no picture of Sassy. Here's an OMG PONIES!!!!!1!! video for your enjoyment instead.

The blanket of purple and fat Sassy

You know that stash of acrylic that sits in your yarn room? The stuff you don't know what you're going to do with that people have either given you, or you bought when you were first knitting and hadn't yet discovered the wonders of bamboo, wool, and cotton? Well I have a lot of that. Odd balls, gifted yarn, stuff from my grandmas... it's everywhere. I've organized it by color, and this is what I did with the purple drawer of acrylic.



Fat Sassy would not let me take a picture without her in it. She is a camera ham!





Did I mention that she's started regularly attempting headstands? Because she has.

Also we call her Fat Sassy now or "Little Fat" because she is.. fat. It's her own fault. We exercise her, feed her properly, but she has been getting bigger and bigger! We just couldn't figure it out! Then one day.. we caught her. Sassy has been pulling open the storage drawer with the cat food in it, and crawling inside and eating, and eating, and eating...

We've locked it away from her reach, so hopefully she'll slim back down.

Knitting post!

I have about 2 minutes, while taking a break from watching Brawl of America live stream.
Let's see if I can bust out a blog post!

My version of the Alice Cullen wrist warmer in New Moon. Knit with Knit Picks Shamrock.



Decode, in Knit Picks Swish Bulky, pumpkin orange color. I forget what it was called exactly!





AHHH! Jam is starting! Burning River! Must watch!