Dec. 7th, 2006

dragonlady7: self-portrait but it's mostly the DSLR in my hands in the mirror (moomin and the snork! by fileg)
So we went to open skate last night and rollerskated around, me and Z. It was fun, but we were both tired, and not many people were there, and I really, really, really am not into 80s music, so...

Two humorous moments arose. One was when a fellow Rollergirl asked Z why he was such a fast skater. He shrugged. The two other rollergirls started theorizing about male vs. female physiology and upbringing (actually, in defense of us not all being total dorks, one is a college professor and had been debating that issue earlier in the day with one of her classes, so it was germane). "Maybe it's that typical Western New York dichotomy of the boys playing hockey and the girls learning to cook," one theorizes.
"Z never played hockey," I say, looking at him.
"No," he says. "I never did."
"Oh." The other two girls are stumped.
"But my sister played softball," Z goes on. "In Shoshone Park, she played in one of the softball leagues. She was pretty serious about it-- kind of a jock. I'd go, but it was boring to watch, and I hated organized sports so I wouldn't join a team, but I was hyper and needed exercise. So I had a pair of rollerskates, and I'd skate around and around and around the park. Shoshone Park isn't very big."
"Oh," the girls say, nodding.
"Also I had one of those propeller beanies," Z goes on. "And I learned that the faster I went, the faster the propeller would spin."
"Oh Jeez," say the girls.
"Everyone knew whose brother the spaz with the propeller beanie was," Z says. "It was great."

So I asked Z if he was at all interested in being a referee for us-- since he's already a strong skater, and already has quad skates, and at least knows the names of a lot of the girls. I know we're recruiting, and I don't know how many more we need [anyone in Buffalo who likes to skate, doesn't want to get hit, and likes roller derby: we're looking for YOU for a couple of hours a week], and I don't know if we're allowing the SO's of rollergirls in but it can't hurt to ask.
"No," Z answered. "Not at all."
"Why not?" I asked, curious.
"It takes the fun out," he answered. "When I make a bad call, what do I do? Yell at myself? 'Oh come on, me! What am I thinking?'"
I laughed. "Could you throw things at yourself?"
"'God, I'm such an idiot!'" he went on. "'What am I, blind?'"

That's the true nature of sports appreciation in Buffalo.


In other news my Gram fell down the other day, and seemed unhurt but was in pain when she tried to stand or walk, so they took her to the hospital. She's 86? 87? and has problems with osteoparosis (sp?), so of course it was a big deal. Now, she's mentally very sharp, if slightly more forgetful than she was in her 70s (not much!), and only gave up her driver's license because the insurance was getting pricey. (Her last accident was the other driver's fault, another 80+-year-old driver...) But she's very old, and looks very old, and can be too polite, and so often medical professionals don't take her particularly seriously, because so often little old ladies don't really know what they're talking about.
So they X-ray her and say she's fine, and she says, But it hurts to stand up, and so they do an MRI, and say, Nope, nothing's wrong. And she says, that's nice, but I can't stand up.
So they keep her for observation and say, Nope, you're fine, and she says, But I can't walk.
Finally they say they'll do an MRI, and they don't. After a while, Mom shows up and bullies them into actually doing it. (I think maybe they were trying to kind of distract her into admitting she was fine, or maybe hoping some other symptoms would manifest so they could just diagnose her with something-- I don't know.)
So they do the MRI and say-- oh. It's a crack in your pelvis.
!!!
So I'm going to call her later, and, well... I had this coming week off, for vacation. I'm thinking that maybe instead of sitting around the house trying to catch up on housework, rewrite Barbarians_Novel, finish my Christmas shopping, and make the Christmas cookies, maybe I'll go home and spend a few days with Gram. Although now that I look at it, that was kind of a lot I was going to do here... Hey, if I take the train, I can rewrite B_N on the train! oooo. That wouldn't be bad at all, and there'd be no Internet. And also there'd be Gram, and also I can maybe see my uncle who hasn't been well and we can chill a bit.

But it means i gotta get organized pretty darn quick around here.
dragonlady7: self-portrait but it's mostly the DSLR in my hands in the mirror (lookDown)
That should be my life philosophy. I am psyched for dessert.

No, during the blizzard, Z and I went grocery shopping, and I said, "It's a blizzard! We have to stock up on really weird shit!" Whereupon I seized a two-pack of Wegmans' homemade chocolate-frosted eclairs and cast them into the shopping cart.
Other than that we were fairly restrained, but tonight I have just remembered to eat the eclairs, so Z and I are each working on one. they're kind of huge and also their sell-by date was yesterday.
Mmmmmnumnumnum.

Other news is less cheerful, but at least I have a chocolate eclair.

1) It is Pearl Harbor Day. I don't really know what I think about that at the moment, but I thought I'd at least observe it. There, I observed it. Still don't know what to think. Have filed it away in my mind with a lot of other deserving things I don't know what to think about.

2) I am an atrocious correspondent. Increasingly I am falling deeper into the habit of reading things, chuckling or reacting to them inwardly in some profound way that despite being heartfelt leaves no perceptible trace for the originator of the communication to see, and then closing the window or moving on. I fall terribly short in a great deal of the things I mean to do in this life, and correspondence in all its forms is one of them. I will state, for the record, that it is an exceedingly rare thing for me not to receive or read an email or LJ comment, and I do note them all, in their own little way, but it's sort of like God and the sparrow's fall in that you kind of have to take it on faith that he notices because it's not like he's going to, like, send the sparrow an IM.

3) My poor Gram is still in the hospital, and still doesn't understand the concept of free long-distance, so when I called her today, she told me briefly how seemingly all the hospital's staff were involved in today's attempt to have her stand up and move to a chair, which failed whe she fainted from the pain, but she's got to try again tomorrow, and then she said she'd better let me go, and rang off after a total of approximately six minutes. I didn't even get a chance to thank her for my Christmas wreath, which apart from the seven foot palm tree in my front yard, is my only bit of Christmas cheer around the house.
But we've struggled for years to explain to Gram that it really doesn't cost us anything to call her from our cellphones, as long distance costs the same as not-long-distance, so I'd say six minutes was pretty chatty by her standards.

4) One of my coworkers had a really awful day at work today and I really couldn't do much to help. But my other coworker seemed to enjoy my presence a great deal, which was gratifying. (She's filling in for someone on vacation, so she's not the usual one I work with.) However I won't be with either of them tomorrow, so I am a little sad. It makes things much more amusing when your coworkers are people whose company you enjoy. Although I can't complain: I've had a bunch of great days these last couple weeks-- hell, months-- wherein even if customers were being terrible, at least coworkers were amusing or sympathetic or diverting or whatever. We do have a good group going on now and I'm genuinely happy to see most of them most of the time. A few in particular I've become quite good at working with and so even after a terribly busy day there's very little catch-up work to do, as we all sort of naturally work around each other and keep things running smoothly. (Like while someone goes in the weeds, one of the others will sort of automatically do all the dishes, and when the first person's back out of the weeds, they'll refill all the condiment bowls. There's very little of the "Oh I'm leaving that empty because she emptied it and should fill it, so I'm just avoiding using it until she can't deal anymore and fills it like she's supposed to." Which is so bloody aggravating and yet... I used to just sort of accept it as a part of the job.)
I'm digressing, I'll stop. Anyway.

I finished my eclair and it was quite good. I didn't need it, as I was already full from dinner. But I wanted it, and what's more, I had it. Which is quite a nice feeling, once in a while. I knew you all were waiting upon tenterhooks to determine the eventual fate of the eclair and whether it was worth being psyched for.


It was, my friends. It was.

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