Purple Tinted Glasses

And so ends my four day free for all. It sure doesn’t feel like I should have to go to work tomorrow. I sure am tired of being a grown up. Today without a hangover would have been nice too.

For some reason on Thanksgiving day, Will couldn’t drive us to my mothers in the most direct path to save his life. I was accused of being contagious, what with all my absent mindedness floating about. I think I really am starting to rub off on my particularly smart and logical boyfriend (your face!).

I don’t know what all the fuss is about with the Friday after thanksgiving shopping either. We unintentionally wound up in a couple of different stores after buying our first full size, real Christmas tree for the house. Linens and Things, Pier One, Wold Market… all places I thought might be a little crazy were almost dead. Maybe we were there too late. It was, after all 10am. Most door buster deals are at 5am, so I hear.

Anyway, then the Molly Ringwalds played at Southport. Anyone who knows me well knows that even on a Tuesday night I don’t ever get home until after midnight. I strolled in Sunday morning in the wee hour of almost 5am. The show was fun. Everyone did a costume change at some point in the night. It made it interesting. Not that I need anything else to hold my interest… I just had to focus really hard on not slipping on the alcohol soaked floor in my three inch red heels.

So, 4:45ish isn’t a terrible time to roll in to bed, unless of course you HAVE to go to practice at 8am because you’re running it. No I didn’t choose this practice. I’m a TT captain and it was a TT practice, therefore… bleh. I warned the people in charge that I would be there, but I would be hung over. I totally held up my end of the deal. The alcohol didn’t start seeping out of my poors until about halfway through the practice when I started running around (off skates) to keep up with the skaters and offer feedback. I basically kicked the asses of the 15 or so people who actually showed up to practice today.

Anyway, then the Molly Ringwalds played at Southport. No I’m not repeating myself. There were no big crowds and sloshy floors. They were filming a new video and I think I got conned into being there earlier this week before I remembered that I’d be dealing with a day long hangover. It was open to anyone who wanted to come. In the end, there were more people on stage than in the crowd for the “crowd shots”. My waving and clapping hands are gonna be famous. Now if only I can find my hand twin… we’d make millions.

There was also an LSU game and a Saints game in there somewhere. Both were loses and I didn’t watch either game in its entirety anyway.

And this is where I begin to fade. I’m tired, but I thought of a clever blog title and even though I couldn’t come up with anything else clever or more meaningful to say except recounting this weekend’s schedule, I’m writing something anyway.

Now I’m going to get myself back on track with my piano practice, so nite-nite.

P.S. Completely random: I luv my puppy :) Even though I hate walking him first thing in the morning… and the sound of him licking himself grosses me out. He’s just being a dog. That’s what Will keeps saying.

The message below was sent to me which has sparked my interest in reviving my bloggy-blog thing. I can honestly say that I have not been happy with the things I have posted and the drafts that sit unpublished. I often times feel like I am forcing words on to the page just to have something to say. I guess that’s why I haven’t said much lately.

So much has been happening and I haven’t had the time or wherewithal to mention any of it. So here we go. Grab a shovel and dig in.

Accomplishments/Mentionings:

• I did the MS 150 last month. That was exciting. With hardly any training (see reason here) and on an alien blue bike, I made it through all 149 miles! Yes, I got SAG-ged for 1 mile because of a series of flat tires that nearly drove me off my rocker. I think I have finally regained all feeling that I lost in unmentionable places from that ride too. Special thanks to Will for sticking with me.

• I’ve played my first home game with my new team at our new venue, and we won.  I don’t particularly care for the new venue. It reminds me of a high school gym and smells like one too. I miss our flashy lights and being surrounded by quintessential New Orleans (Mardi Gras). We outgrew our home that all of our fans came to love. Now we just need to finish working out the kinks to get this one just as fabulous. Ibeatya painted banners, one for each home team and they are just amazing - as is she! We also need to sell tickets. They’re cheaper than they’ve ever been - $10. So, for those of you looking to do something this Sunday, Nov 9, you should come out and see the Big Easy Rollergirls’ Crescent Wenches and Story Villains duke it out. Centerpunch will be playing at half time and I have a feeling this is going to be one hell of a game.

• The house is CLEAN! It’s 30% my doing and 70% Will’s. I’m hosting some team meetings this week and next, which as Will says lit a fire under my ass to get some stuff put away.  We have company coming at the end of November anyway, but this just got me to focus on it sooner.

• I painted the back porch… all by myself! I’d like my gold star and my cookie now.

• I entered my late 20’s. This was #3 in a string of good birthdays. It felt really special this year and I have my other half to thank for the most of it. I also went to the DMV and officially became a New Orleanian. Bye bye Jefferson Parish.

• My house is rented… finally. The rent doesn’t cover the note, but I won’t be eating Ramen and mooching off friends for drinks… at least not as much as I was a month ago. The renter has also assured me that she is interested in purchasing in an undetermined amount of time. I guess I’ll save my official good riddance until then.

• I’ve been to an addition 2 or 3 Molly Ringwalds shows and have enjoyed all of them. One of them was even a festival down in… um… Well, I cant remember right now, but it was crazy and they were like rock stars out there. It was kind of weird. I had sworn off festivals because it just never is the same, but Sally and I made the trip for the sake of others’ sanity (sanities? saniti?)

• The rollergirls participated in the Voodoo Music Festival parade. We were officially “artists” for the day. Free drinks and back stage access is something that’s hard not to abuse.

• My best friend is having a BABY! I’ve been knowing forever and I’ve already been through the stages of denial: WHAT?! My friends can’t start having babies! No one can have babies! Babies are scary… but at least it’s you, not me. Ok, fine. You can have your baby, but you know the rule… Auntie Sherri doesn’t take them until they’re potty trained.

Ok, bored with me yet? Until next time… hopefully sooner than later.

(more…)

Wow, what a Saturday.

They ran, we skated and swung, then we all drank.  And all the while, people took pictures… and video… and more. I compared the rolling up of the bulls to the crowd as being chased by a mini-paparazzi. Come to think of it, it was probably a full blow one. We were celebrities in red, even if just for 5 minutes and 23 seconds.

I’m not sure how long the run actually took… it only lasted all of 12 blocks. I mean, it’s all about the Sangria! My favorite part was hearing the cascade of “Ow!”, “Oh!”, “Ahhh!” around me as the “bulls” passed. If you missed it this year, I’m sure I’ll be there next year.

So, I don’t think I made any of the AP photos all that clearly (if you look verrrry close in the background of the big photo of Lush, you can see me in the upper right hand corner), but I did make Offsides with Fletcher Mackel. I’ll take it!

Yep, it’s one of those Fridays.

Let me set the scene. I’m in a quad-cube pod and I’m the only one here, right? Even across the aisle from me, no one is here. So, I’m reading an ongoing email thread about last minute details for the NOLA Bull Run tomorrow morning, you know… where can I get horns, who else needs a bat, be on time, etc. when I come across this:

I don’t think I know what a whiffle bat is. I have a plastic bat, but when I hit my coworker w/ it she said it really hurts.. So should I get something else?

Ok, so I start laughing… snickering in my cube all by myself and someone comes back from lunch. Without getting into too much detail I try to explain why I’m laughing… and I can’t… because I start laughing harder. I finally manage to sputter something out. This is what’s acting out in my head:

Act one, Scene one

Worker one wanders into worker 2’s work space holds a yellow toy bat. She is examining it with curiosity.

Worker 1: Hey, can I hit you with this bat?
Worker 2: Well, yeah sure, why not? It shouldn’t hurt all that much, it’s just made of plastic!
Worker 1 swings the bat ( I haven’t decided if it’s to the head or leg or what)

THWACK.

Worker 2: Oww.. that hurt.
Worker 1: Hmmm, something must not be right here.

Both workers sit a minute looking puzzled and then continue on with their day.

I just picture myself walking over to one of my co-workers and out of the blue asking if I can hit them with a bat. It’s funny. It was funny… :-/

Back to work. Weekend’s almost here.

San Fermin in Nueva Orleans
Saturday, July 12
7am at the Three Legged Dog

Here’s a link to a great student piece that was put together at our last home bout against Orange County. Funny how they didn’t mention that we lost this game by 11 points.

So, can I get me some of that sisterhood? Girl’s got a house full of rooms ready for painting!

Originally posted on the New York Times Student Journal Institute website.

This weekend was Big Easy Rollergirls’ last home bout of the season against Orange County Rollergirls’ Orange Crushers. One of our own returned home with her new team and basically showed us how it’s done… if you want to look at it that way.

One thing I’ve noticed is that every time our travel team goes up against another team, they seem to tower over us. Surprisingly, that’s never the reason or any type of intimidation or pre-game jitters I might have. We usually have “got it all together” by the time a game comes to be.

We’ve been blaming a lot of our failure on the fact that we (BERG Allstars, as we’ve been referred to) are a mixture of all the home teams and, since our home schedule is heavily based on us playing each other as home teams, we rarely get to practice and play together unless it’s in the weeks prior to an upcoming bout.

There are teams out there that have been skating together for years now. Others are newer but focus most of their energy on Interleague play. I think we’re getting there. It’s just taking us a while to get our shit together.

So anyway, at this point I probably don’t even need to say it but we lost — again. We held it together for most of the beginning of the game. At one point I remember one of the announcers saying the game was tied at 39. It definitely was not as murderous as some of the games we’ve played in the past. Here’s to next weekend against the Hot Rod Honeys… where we will probably get our asses handed to us on a silver platter.

P.S. How did you like that art work on the bout poster? The girl looks vaguely familiar.

I finally got my road home money! I can finally finish fixing the car port, reimburse myself for the roof and live happily ever after… and only a mere 846 days after the initial disaster.

Yay!

It’s not quite Portugal, but we’re so close we could spit on it… That’s right, we’re moving to Spain Street!

After telling the story in the office this morning, I’ve decided that I couldn’t have come up with a better way to spend the day with the new house. Some cheesy romance novelist would have a hard time matching it (ok, maybe not).

The morning was a half day of extreme productivity at work, followed by a ride to the CBD (hop in, Will) and loop right back around to (almost) River Road and Carrolton. We were right on time and ready to sign our lives away (again for me). After what seemed like not quite enough paperwork (after all the big talking from all the other home owners we know went on about) we walked away with a set of new keys, an orchid (my first) and a bottle of not-quite-my-taste bubbly.

The idea was to throw open the windows, for Will to work on my laptop (since his is still borked) and for me to sort ’til I dropped in the back room going through the mountains of crap from every decade since the 1960’s and from every inhabitant that’s ever been there, sorting into trash, yard sale (it’s gonna be a doozie), keep, keep for a little while because of the shock factor, and this reminds me of someone piles

About an hour into it, Will gave up on trying to concentrate and joined me in the back. He almost immediately found an old record player, directed me to the speakers that he had seen in there earlier, and grabbed up the old record collection that we had seen during inspections. Before long we were listening to Rubber Soul on vinyl in our new house while going through decades of crap.

We took a short break to walk the dog and grab a beer at R Bar. We also ordered Mona’s delivery and before we could even make it back, the food was waiting for us on the doorstep.

The sky was darkening, our tummies were grumbling, and the champagne was chilled. We put on our second Beatles Album of the day and plopped ourselves down on the hardwood floors in the front parlor of the house. The music popping and cracking in the background went perfect the the pop of the cork (which flew up out of the bottle on command) splatting of the champagne fizzling out of the top of the bottle.

We toasted in “What Would Krewe de Vieux Do” cups and ate until we were “stuffed like ticks”.

The night rounded out with a load of trash to the curb and a peaceful break on the front porch. Will dangled his legs over the side and I laid my head on his lap and propped my feet up on the column. The air was cool and crisp, the sky was clear… and the dog couldn’t get a grip on things. So he went to the kennel while we enjoyed a few more minutes outside. At one point I said, “You know, we should be on the second floor balcony.” and he said, “It’s awesome that we have that choice, isn’t it?”

Although we won’t be living in the house for another month or so, it’s our (or mostly his for now) and I can’t wait to spend a lot of time in a place full of history, charm, and potential.

So what was in those piles?

Trash: bills, receipts, rotten clothes, broken Christmas decor, moldy boxes, dead rats, syringes, condoms, wire hangers, empty boxes, mildewed clothes…

Yard sale: Enough Christmas stuff to decorate the entire Marigny, cookware, easter decorations, more Christmas decorations, entire boxes of “Be a Bone Marrow Donor” teeshirts (these are going to the homeless shelter), cook books, an entire Christmas tree, Halloween stuff, fuzzy bunnies, five star binders, shoes (mens, size 6 or 7?)…

Keep: The record collection, Nieman Marcus silver serving utensils, blue glass blocks, South Park wind up toys, a copy of Cujo, some yellow mixing bowls, bible spines, altar sashes, letters addressed to the church at our (new) address, one single Christmas decoration, a bronze unicorn statue, a small unicorn magnet, a claw foot tub (for plants in the back yard), a reem of paper, a new chew toy for Boz…

Keep (shock factor): The box of VHS gay porn, signed photos of half naken men that read “Keep on Coming” (among other things)

This reminds me of someone: Christmas ornaments, NOMA event posters from 1985…

H0Ly cr@p! Almost forgot the most exciting find: The sign for the old church.. wood carved, gold painted… the works!

Some of you might think that derby meetings are a waste of time, but at the last manager’s meeting I finally doodled down the almost-perfect-for-my-tattoo fleur de lis.

I’m going to pass this off to Walt and let him work his magic. Now I just need to decide what kind of foliage, if any, that I want to include.
 

 
The concept: wrought iron, New Orleans style metal fence post topping-esque, overgrown, mossy, ivy-like, maybe little purple flowers somewhere, beautiful, historic, worn, but still strong.

These guys were doing it like it’s never been done before. I guess that’s a pretty bold statement, considering that I’ve never seen the Beatles play nor have I seen very many Beatles cover bands in my life time.

I’ll take you now to a little town called New Orleans on a tiny street called Frenchmen in a cozy bar called d.b.a. Small enough for ya?

Now throw in some fancy Beatles titles, a brilliant vocalist (I like to call him Clint) and a smorgasbord of musicians (10 others total - 2 guitarists, 1 bassist, 1 drummer, 1 keyboard player, 1 cello, 1 violin, and a brass section consisting of a trumpet, sax and trombone) and you’ve got yourself a high class once in a life time kind of night. The keyboard player was on FIRE during his solo (Get Back - Will thinks), that I didn’t even realize was over and should have started clapping.

The crowd was radiant. I saw a guy with a blond mohawk and a shirt that read “F@&* You” having the time of his life dancing with everyone including a tatted up goth girl. I sat atop my nice little perch (an old movie theater seat) toward the front of the crowd and just took it all in. Every song ended with so much energy and left you with the cold hard desire to hear another, and another, and another.

To the average person, I probably didn’t look like I was enjoying myself much, but I was tired. I really had a blast and I wish I could remember ever single detail of the night.

And just when you thought everything was over, Clint pulled out the the British accent, gave the crowd a little speech, one of the guitarists gave me a ever so mean 6 chords worth of a Black Bird teaser, and the band broke out into Led Zeppelin’s Fool in the Rain.

Lesson learned for the night? I don’t know half the F’in Beatles songs out there. My iPod was updated almost immediately upon getting home.

So here’s the night’s play list (compliments of Will’s blackberry and nimble fingers that took notes during the show)

[the one we collectively can’t remember]
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Oh! Darling
Something
Good Day Sunshine
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Martha, My Dear
I’m so Tired
Getting Better
Got to get you into my life
Don’t let me down
Get Back
Lovely Rita
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Carry that Weight
Led Zeppelin - Fool in the Rain