02/17/10 08:22 - 29ºF - ID#51032
rough week
At practice I had to cope with not only the pinched nerve but also sore muscles from the previous accumulated two days' worth of lactic acid buildup, mostly in my lower back and arms (wtf? why arms?), but a little bit in my thighs as well. (My thighs are pretty fucking diesel if I do say so for myself; I rarely have sore thighs anymore, but it does happen sometimes.) So I couldn't turn my head well at all. Then blisters began forming in my insoles, I don't know why. (I was wearing socks I've skated in many times before, so that shouldn't have happened.) And then I started feeling all kinds of pain in my abs, and my thighs started getting really weak and sore...
By the end of practice I was crying, as I was so tired and so sore and so exhausted that I couldn't understand the directions we were being given in the drills. I don't think many people noticed. It was embarrassing. We skated right up until 10:30, and then I collapsed onto the floor in the middle of the rink in the fetal position hugging my helmet and waiting for the pain to stop.
Finally I realized that my thighs were weak and my abs killing me because .... oh yeah, those are cramps. Oh right, I'm female and it's been 28 days since I last did this.
DUH.
I figure this has been happening monthly for well in excess of 50% of my life by now, and I still don't have the hang of it.
It explained a lot. I'd been feeling like a wuss, but at that realization I dragged myself off the floor, took my skates off, went home, and crawled into a nice long hot bath and took a handful of ibuprofen.
I am full of simmering resentment at the fact that it is intrinsically painful to be female. I mean really!! Isn't sexism bad enough, isn't the systematic oppression of womankind for generations bad enough? No! We must be also stricken with exceedingly painful muscle spasms monthly, for days on end, for the sheer audacity of having been born with vaginas. Bah and fie.
So anyway. Tonight I am hell-bent on getting to bed before 9pm. I need it badly, as I am horridly sleep-deprived. But I had to mobl post with a picture of the sushi we were eating at the Fuji Grill on our way home from work, because, it was awesome. Awesome and just what I needed.
Permalink: rough_week.html
Words: 591
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/17/10 06:27 - 29ºF - ID#51030
Mmmmmm
sushi-- "fuji tower" roll at fuji grill on maple
perfect cure for a shitty week
Permalink: Mmmmmm.html
Words: 21
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/14/10 11:01 - 27ºF - ID#51017
we have an Animal
(Ominously, rats are also active all winter, and I saw one a couple of weeks ago, a few blocks away, as I drove home from practice one night: I glimpsed it very clearly as it skittered across the road, not hopping or jumping like a rabbit or squirrel, it was clearly a rat, probably seven inches long, with a long naked tail behind it and a running gait, not a lope. But I think a rat in our house would be much louder than this.)
So there's an Animal. I have heard it on and off for a while, but tonight Z finally heard it. His attention span is longer than mine, as are his problem-solving skills, so it is marginally more likely that he will do something about this than me. (Worth mentioning, he was also not raised as a hillbilly, so his not-minding-this-sort-of-thing instincts are likewise less-developed.)
For tonight, though, our solution has been to throw the cat up the stairs and hope that the mysterious scratching noises are why she has been so fascinated with the attic of late.
Permalink: we_have_an_Animal.html
Words: 287
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/13/10 10:48 - 24ºF - ID#51010
2 in 1 day!!
I am bouting on March 7th. The team we are bouting against is possibly the funnest team in the league. (With the possible exception of my own-- we definitely have drafted a whole lotta fun in the last couple years.) Tonight they skated against another team, and for their warmup, they all wore fake adhesive moustaches.
They also have a thing where they almost always skate with underwear as outerwear. One of them skated tonight in hot pants that were metallic American Flag lam�. Which is awesome since her hind end is like a size 20, and fabulous. It's just this thing. They all wear panties with hilarious slogans.
I desperately must have the most festive underpants ever for the March 7th bout. But I am stumped. What on earth can I wear??? What on earth can top metallic American flag lam�?
So far my only idea is to embroider a moustache on the front of a pair of underpants, because I think that would be hilarious. I don't necessarily understand the moustache meme, but I love moustache rides as much as any red-blooded American woman (oh I do love them), so, it seems appropriate.
But what should I write on the back of them, in that case??
I bought a pair of red lacy ruffle panties to wear under my uniform (it is royal blue, with red and yellow in the logo), but Z pointed out, accurately, that it looked odd-- the uniform this year is a field hockey uniform, very sporty, very clean lines. Ruffle undies just look... sort of... out of place.
So what should I wear??
I don't know. I can buy something if it comes promptly, but I might have better luck making something. (Yes, I have sewed underpants before. They're not too terribly challenging, though my shape means I often have to add a drawstring because elastic is not enough to withstand the smooth curves of my chubbeh belleh in athletic motion.)
I don't know. Help me. Advise me, o (e:peeps).
oh p.s. I was totally gonna buy (e:zobar) the Google Phone for Valentine's Day even though we don't really celebrate V-Day that much but he totally beat me to it and bought it for himself. It's OK, I wouldn't have known what to do about our cellphone plans. The solution seems to be giving his old iPhone to his mom and putting her on my family plan. Well, why not, right?
Permalink: 2_in_1_day_.html
Words: 427
Location: Buffalo, NY
02/13/10 09:42 - 21ºF - ID#51008
blah
Oh yes! (e:strip)! I think of you all often, and then, don't come. I apologize for that.
So I will share a recipe here, to chase away the winter blues a little bit. It's not even awful for you!! Just old-fashioned. On LJ after considerable debate we decided that the woman in the recipe's title, Blanche, is my first cousin twice removed, since her mother Esther was the sister of Mabel, whose daughter Elizabeth was my mother Christina's mother. But then... I don't know why Blanche is called "Aunt" in the title, and was introduced to me that way. Except that my mother's folks weren't so big on extended kinship reckonings.
LOL I just hit "paste" and instead of the recipe, I had a really long excerpt from a novel I'm writing in there. Have you ever played that meme? Just, wherever you are, no cheating, just hit "paste" and see what comes out. Often it's hilariously out of context.
Anyway, the promised recipe.
Women of the Rotary Apple Cake, from Aunt Blanche 1955.
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
Sift together, and rub together with 1 Tbsp butter.
Beat 1 egg well, and add to above.
Add 1 cup diced apples, and a few nuts. Spread in well-greased pie or cake tin, bake at 375 for 20 minutes.
Note: serve with whipped cream or ice cream, and can be mixed in pie plate so as not to dirty a mixing bowl.
(I made this last night just to fill up the oven, so it wouldn't be on just for one single side dish; I dirtied a fork, a pie plate, and a half-cup measure, because the knife and cutting board were already dirty from dinner prep so I only had to wash them once. It was pretty ace. I also used up some sad-looking bruised apples to make it, for bonus thrifty points. I'm sure you're supposed to peel the apples, but I didn't because I am lazy and because most of the nutrients are in the skins, and I assure you it was fine.)
Permalink: blah.html
Words: 388
Location: Buffalo, NY
01/11/10 10:16 - 20ºF - ID#50798
can't stop watching
In an episode I watched yesterday (7, I think, which was about the problem of travel at near-light-speeds) he falls off his bicycle trying not to run into a horse and cart, to illustrate a point, but not with a whole lot of grace. I don't know why I enjoyed that so much.
What I really like about the show is that it is an extended lecture on basically a single topic: he diverges widely, and makes a number of tangential points, but he is pursuing a single thesis, and the well-written script follows the digressions with a purpose toward wrapping up said thesis. They are essays, these lectures, and it is wonderful to be so entertained and enraptured whilst following a complex and yet well-illuminated topic. Part of another episode (6?) is actually filmed excerpts of a lecture that he delivered to a classroom of sixth-graders. Fascinating, yet not condescending.
But, above all, Carl Sagan looks and sounds a lot like Kermit the Frog, and it's very soothing.
I asked Z, who is cross-stitching again, to make me a piece featuring Kermit in a Carl Sagan wig (and beige corduroy blazer) posed in front of a starscape, with the subtitle below of "billions and billions". I think that would be the sweetest thing ever. I am going to have to make it myself, though, because Z does not understand how unutterably sweet this would be.
Instead he is working on a piece about the Oregon Trail video game. Which is also sweet, but not *as* sweet.
Permalink: can_t_stop_watching.html
Words: 422
Location: Buffalo, NY
01/07/10 12:03 - 23ºF - ID#50761
ow ow ow ow ow ow ow
The things I suffer for derby. At least (e:Zobar) got me this beer before he went to bed. But I am in a lot of pain, and know I cannot really move around on my feet until this subsides a bit, so I am distressed because I just remembered it's garbage night and our shit really needs to go to the curb and the truck will be by first, first, first thing tomorrow morning, and I can't do it right now, I just can't.
It was really excruciating when it happened. I had just executed a well-timed block, holding and pushing the opposing jammer to the outside line, but there were no refs to call it, and she broke free and escaped before my pack could come help me. I teetered off-balance for a second, and then an opposing skater from the oncoming pack smacked into my upper body and knocked me over and I don't know whose wheel burned me, but it hurt real bad. The jam was whistled, coincidentally, to a stop, and I sat on the floor literally bouncing up and down because it hurt too bad to sit still. I tried to get up and couldn't, and someone asked if I was OK, and I bounced a bit and said "It's a bruise" in way too high a voice, and I got up and sat down and got up and skated a lap and it hurt hurt hurt.
So it really hurts now, and is enormously swollen and discolored. I can put weight on the leg, though, so the bone's not compromised.
This is how I suffer for the sport I love. And I have to remember that i love it, and I do love it.
I am skating in the next bout, which is on January 23rd, and I think everyone should come and see me. Thinking of how much fun I am going to have on that night is getting me through at the moment. Because it hurts too much for me to drink my beer. And that's a tragic waste.
Permalink: ow_ow_ow_ow_ow_ow_ow.html
Words: 437
Location: Buffalo, NY
12/31/09 08:28 - 33ºF - ID#50708
Vintage Cocktail Recipe
We're drinking a recipe now, which isn't horrible. That's the best endorsement I can currently give it. (After two or three more I may change my tune.) It's called the Queen Ellizabeth.
The current debate is whether it's named for number 1, or number 2. (#1 reigned until 1607; #2 is currently reigning and is on the Canadian money, remember her?)
The book was initially published in 1934. So, there's that. I know QEII was born by then, but would she have been well-known enough to have a drink named for her? She certainly wasn't crowned yet, and thus wouldn't have been Queen yet, but...
Anyway.
The drink recipe has no actual units given, just proportions, which is fine. Except I don't know what a dash is unless it's salt. How to add a "dash" of absinthe is beyond me. I rinsed the glasses with it and then dumped it into the shaker, that's how I measured a "dash". Then I added a little more, because I like absinthe.
1 dash absinthe
1/4 Cointreau
1/4 lemon juice
1/2 gin
Stir well over ice; strain to serve.
It's not bad.
New Year's Eve, for us, is usually about exotic drinks. It's (e:zobar)'s birthday, so he gets to decide what we do. If he wants to stay in and watch Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, we do. If he wants to go to an (e:strip) party, we do. If he wants to go to a slumber party at his buddy's house, we do. If he wants to go for a hike around Goat Island at midnight in the rain, we do. So I'm not sure yet what we'll do, but I'm up for whatever he wants, because he always does whatever I want on my birthday. Also he's thirty today so that only happens once and that's awesome, and all.
Permalink: Vintage_Cocktail_Recipe.html
Words: 344
Location: Buffalo, NY
12/22/09 06:43 - 18ºF - ID#50633
For e:tinypliny
Permalink: For_e_tinypliny.html
Words: 5
Location: Buffalo, NY
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I thought calcium was one of those ones you can't absorb much of, though-- you're supposed to take two supplements hours apart, because you won't absorb much at once. And I always forget to take the second one...
Estrogen does all the dirty work of whipping the immune system into behaving for a major chunk of our lives. :)
I keep time and merely increase my calcium intake up to 300-400% in the week around the bloody attack. Works like a charm every time I do remember. Every time I don't is a nightmare.