So (e:john) and I are meeting (e:jbeatty) (and later (e:ladycroft)) in Europe in a few days tomorrow (!).

WTF am I doing????? We can't afford this trip, and I don't have the time to go on vacation right now!!! We just found a house we like and may want to bid on!! Someone needs to be here to talk to mortgage people about getting us financing, and to make sure no one steals this house away! Plus, I am going to be missing my derby league's second bout, ever. And I can't be traipsing around Europe with a gigantic backpack right now, anyway, since I injured my knees at derby practice a few weeks ago and they still hurt like crazy and the doctor said I could do some serious damage to them if I exercise a lot while they're still healing!!! GAAHHH!!

I'm kinda stressed out about preparing for this trip, can you tell?

Actually, I'm stressed because I've barely prepared at all - (e:john)'s been doing all the guidebook-reading and itinerary-planning. I know when and where we're flying in and out, but in between, I have only the slightest clue where we'll be going or what we're going to be doing. And, uhm, packing? Haven't started. The only thing I know is that I'm going to feel like I'm not bringing anything with me at all, since it's all got to fit into one backpack. I am the queen of over-packing, but I think for this trip, I'm going to end up at the opposite extreme. I will miss my laptop more than words can express. It's going to feel very weird, not traveling with it.

Since I'm not bringing my laptop, I had to dig out my old paper address book and update it. I spent the first half of my evening turning the apartment upside down looking for the thing (which was safely tucked away in an easily-accessible cabinet, I discovered after scouring many hard-to-reach places). Then it was John's turn to misplace a notebook and spend time tearing the place apart looking for it, while I sat down to learn how woefully out-of-date even my computerized address book was. Ugh.

I was going to buy myself a new pair of hiking boots for this trip, but it's pretty much too late now. I've got a few great pairs of sneakers I can bring, but I'm gonna need boots, too, I bet. I'd love to see how my awesome new cowboy boots would hold up, but they're not practical for traveling since I need a shoehorn to get them on, and they won't go on at all if my feet are swollen. I find it slightly unbelievable that I own 50 million pairs of shoes and still don't have any non-sneaker shoes that are appropriate for this trip.

Well. If anyone wants a postcard, give (e:jbeatty) your address, and I'll make sure he sends you one while we're there. :)

Ok, I know this is small, mean, and petty of me... but I just got the alumni magazine from my high school, and looking through it, there were pictures of two obnoxious people from the grade below mine who got so fat I did not recognize them, and one guy from my grade who was really mean to my friends and me for years who got fat AND married an ugly woman AND had an ugly baby.

That just made my day. :D

Plus, there were pics of two chubby girls who had slimmed down and looked great. Cheers for them!

You better play a move in our Scrabble game on Facebook soon, or I am so going to force a win.

Just sayin'.

Love,
your sister-in-law

I know I have better things to do with my time than to worry about this, but what does one do when someone one really does not like adds one as a friend on Facebook? I mean, I have had people I did not know all that well and was not particularly friendly with add me - but this is the first time I've had someone with whom I was openly hostile add me as a friend.

Seriously, what would motivate this person to want to be back in touch with me, when he was such an asshole to me for so many years? Why would he think I'd want to be back in touch with him?

So. Been a while since I posted here. Things have been pretty busy. I really feel like my life is just starting to get back on track after several months of disruption.

Anyway, for those of you who care, things are ok. My roller derby league had its first public bouts this past weekend. We won our first two bouts and apparently scared the other teams so much that they forfeited the next two.* We had to scrimmage amongst ourselves to fill the rest of the time. It was a bizarre occurrence. I do hope our next interleague bouts go more smoothly.

• Please note, when I say "we," I merely mean that I am on the team - coach did not put me in at all during the first two bouts, so I never got to skate against anyone that was not in my league.

In fake hockey news, I came in 5th in my fantasy hockey league this year. I was really hoping for 3rd. I blame Miikka Kiprusoff. (e:jbeatty) was fighting for dead last, last time I looked, and (e:john) came in first. I'm already strategizing for next year...

In real hockey news, I'm pretty excited that Jacques Martin has been fired as the Panthers' coach: I know I said a long time ago that I hate the Panthers, but since they're my home team now and I see them play all the time, they've won me over a bit. That David Booth kid is really awesome, and if they can nab a few more players like him, and trim some of the players that suck, the Panthers can be a decent team. They just need to stop being okay with losing. I can't tell you how many times I've seen them play, and it's just been like they either gave up halfway through, or weren't that into it to begin with. Or like, half of them would be playing their hearts out, and the other half would be like, "eh, whatever." With any luck, a new coach will help with this attitude problem.

I only kinda care about the playoffs. Like, none of my teams are in this year, so it's sort of like, eh, ok. It'll be interesting to see who gets to the final, but until then, I've got other things to occupy my time. Side note: does anybody else read (e:anne) 's hockey blog? It makes me giggle a lot.

So some of you saw Kimya Dawson recently? She was here a couple weeks ago. Here are a couple pics for you:




Her show was a benefit for this organization in Miami: It was in a boat house, which was open on one side, on one of the coldest and windiest nights I've experienced since moving here. It was only about 50-some degrees, but with wind chill, and no jacket or sweatshirt or anything? That feels pretty damn cold. I thought the show was going to be in an enclosed space, otherwise I never would have forgotten to bring a sweatshirt and not thought it would be a big deal.

I picked up the mix CD of old ska/rocksteady that Angelo Spencer (Kimya's baby-daddy) was selling at the merch table. Aside from the crappiness of the burned CD (and it is the CD itself skipping, not the record that was transferred to CD), I love it - the music is great!

Well. I guess that's all I've got to say for now. I'll try to swing by here more often, now that things have settled down a bit in my life.

Hey peeps, happy Thanksgiving from Casa de (e:jbeatty)! I think this may be the first estrip post I've actually made from Buffalo.

As some of you have already heard, my mom had a stroke recently, so I was home in VA until yesterday. Mom is expected to make a full recovery, though, since she got to a hospital right away, and the stroke doesn't seem to have affected her mentally much, if at all. She still has limited movement on her left side, but she's improving a lot every day. There's not much I can do for her while she is still in her inpatient rehab program, so we've continued on our planned T-giving trip to visit jbeatty in this fine city (I'll be heading back to FL on Sunday, then back to VA in a week or so).

We are eating and drinking ourselves into a food coma. I think (e:john) is in charge of blogging all the food porn pics we're taking today. He's planning on starting that in a minute, I think, so keep an eye on his blog.

Well. It was snowing a minute ago, and I was so excited. John was telling everyone in FL that we were going to visit the snow for Thanksgiving, and there is entirely not enough snow here yet. I know it's supposed to snow a lot tomorrow, tho', but we are driving to Syracuse then, so I hope the Thruway doesn't get too bad.

Ok, jbeatty wants his laptop back, so I have to go. Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!

Hey, did anyone here hear about a Laura Linney/Philip Seymour Hoffman film that was shooting in Buffalo like, last winter or so?

I just saw the film tonight at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (at which I have been volunteering for the past week or so). It's called The Savages, and here it is on the IMDB:

It's set mostly in Buffalo in the winter, and the city looks suitably grey and depressing. Is there really a place called the Valley View Rehabilitation Center? Is it really a nursing home?

Anyway, parts of the movie are brutally depressing and hard to watch (it's about these kids who have to put their estranged father in a nursing home, so yeah), but it's got a hopeful and satisfying (but still realistic) ending. It's also got a fantastic portrayal of a particular family dynamic that's not often explored on screen. LL and PSH are great, as usual.

I've been wondering this for a while: why's it still showing that I'm posting from Syracuse, NY, if I changed my zip code in my profile to show that I'm in Florida now? Is there somewhere else I'm supposed to change my zip?

Also, hi! I'm back from my trip to California. It was fun. But now I've got a houseful of crap to clean/put away, and tons of other stuff to do. So blogging will have to wait.

I mentioned to (e:jbeatty) a few days ago that I had news I wanted to post... but I was trying to leave a little space for people to find my post inviting y'all to our fantasy hockey league on Yahoo - (e:lizabeth,41048) - as of now, no one has taken me up on that invitation... (what? No one at all on this site wants to play fake hockey with us? :( ) But I digress.

My news is this:

I've joined a roller derby league. Yes, like (e:dragonlady7) (whom I will need to hit up for tips, if/when I ever see her on this site again).

We're called the Broward County Derby Grrls, and since we're a new league just starting up, we don't even have teams established yet (though the proposed teams will be called the Ft. Lauderdale Beach Bruisers and the Hollywood Harlots). Here's our myspace page:

I am simultaneously excited and nauseated. I'm an ok skater, but I am a total wuss!! I am going to get my ass beat!!! I will probably break half the bones in my body! I am too old and in too bad shape to do this... yet I'm doing it anyway. Because at least half the people are older and/or worse skaters than I am. And because so far, every other girl I've met who has signed up for this has been really, truly awesome. A couple of them are knitters, too, and they invited me to meetings of their knitting group , so I finally have people to knit with here, too! It's like a billion things all happening at once, and I'm so not ready for them... I'm just riding the wave and trying to hang on.

Did I mention I signed up to volunteer for the film festival , too? And we just found out which (real) hockey games are included in the half-season ticket package we bought. And there's that little issue of our big, cross-country road trip out to CA for K's wedding in early/mid-October... My life has suddenly gotten very, very busy.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a derby name for me (right now my name is Spite Sprite, which is my username on, like, everything but estrip), fire away! Something punny using the word spite would be ideal... and it has to be something that's not already taken on this list:
I obviously have no ideas, so suggestions are welcome.

...and any other Sonic-lovin' peeps.





Ok, that last pic is probably one of the worst pics of me of all time, but you get the idea.

I went to Sonic about 4 times in the space of a week and a half on my recent trip home. I only ate there once - every other time, it was all about the strawberry limeades. The last time I went, I got the glutton-sized one, because who knows how long it will be before I am back in Sonic country?

(Actually, we'll be driving through Texas next month, so I guess I'll get more chances to stop at Sonic then. :D )