last night

So last night two of the teams on my derby league played-- the other two veteran teams. First season, during a round-robin, the pink team defeated the red team, but the red team won on points, and so have been triumphantly proclaiming themselves "undefeated" ever since. Second season, the pink team ran up a 30-point lead, only to have it chipped away and be defeated by one point. So last night they met again, and it was insane.
I worked the scoring table. The refs asked if I could do the jammer stats-- tracking who jammed, the number of jams, how many points, who got lead, who called it off, etc. I practiced at a couple of scrimmages because I wanted to make sure I did it right-- it gets really confusing and hectic at a bout.
So there were two of us doing the scores, me and a teammate. We worked it out beforehand that since I had a bunch of friends on the pink team, and she had a bunch of friends on the red team, I'd do the pink team's scores and she'd do the red team's. Which worked really well, because that meant that I was really motivated to be after the jammer refs to make sure they reported right, and if there were any questions (did she get ghost points, for example, for the players in the box?) I made sure to hound the refs to make sure they gave the right answer.
I had a calculator and obsessively re-calculated the score totals throughout the bout.
The other girl and I sat on either side of the scoreboard operators like the proverbial angel and devil on the shoulder, as he put it. Z was in the sandwich with him too-- oh, did I mention Z has a minion? Yes. Mr. P. does the scoreboard, Z does all the animations and slides. He finds he's not too busy now to help in obsessively recalculating the score.
So when the jammer refs reported, they reported directly to both us and the scoreboard operator. So that worked well-- in previous bouts, the scoreboard has drifted away from the actual score at times (never decisively, but often misleadingly) because the refs were reporting to statisticians at the other end of the table, or standing beside the table, in the crowded center of the track, meaning that the scoreboard was relying on essentially overheard data, with little chance to double-check it.

Anyway, it went smoothly. Sadly for me, the pink team lost by two points this time. Man next year's bout is going to be insane.

(I'm not saying team names because of the earlier debacle over random strangers reading my journal and demanding of the league that what it says be changed, because somehow what I write is in some way official? So you don't get real names or league names. Sorry to reduce y'all to your colors but that's all I have.)

sleepy

I feel sort of like I wasted today. I didn't, but I feel like I did because I took a long nap and while I was sleeping was the only time it was sunny all day. But I did snuggle with my Chita the whole time. She is funny. ( More about Chita: she is fine )

But anyway. My dear sweet Chita is recovering and is driving me crazy with her desire to go Outside.

Practice tonight. ( Musings on fitness... )

I did get stuff done today, though. That was what I was obsessing about. I woke up before 10 am, which isn't bad for a bout night-- but then, I was home by 1ish, whish is insanely early for a bout night-- and pet the cat, checked email, puttered in the kitchen, and then realized that it was raining. Oh shoot! I wanted to do stuff in the garden. Well. I did anyway. I went outside and planted, messily, a mixture of radish, beet, spinach, and lettuce seeds. I meant to put them in orderly rows but it was dripping rain down my back so I wound up just sort of scattering them. They were all saved seeds from last year so I wasn't too fussed about planting them just so. I will see what comes up.
I think I need to plant the turnips soon. But they really need well-worked soil, and that takes a while. Especially when it's been raining. With this clay, I need to wait at least a day after any kind of rain before I do much of anything, or it winds up in heavy rock-hard clumps. The only way I can lighten this soil is by putting in tons and tons of amendments, and I only have a little bit of finished compost. Boo.

So after lunch (Z made udon! Tasty) we went down to Rhode Island St. to check out Urban Roots. I had been complaining that I couldn't find a good local garden center. It's a co-op, apparently. I'd love to be a member of something like that, and volunteer some time, but I don't know how it would work. I might look into it a little more.
They, like any garden center, didn't have much at the moment, but in about, mm, three weeks the joint will be jumping. I had gone for black plastic mulch, but they won't have it in until next week. Which is fine; I'm content to wait.
I bought a watering can for indoor use.

Aw, Chita and Remi are playing a slow-mo game wherein they peek at one another through the kitchen doorway, then both slink along the wall and peek at one another through the other kitchen doorway. It's really funny. But they're both being idiots.

Gah, time to go get ready for practice!