I’ve been hauling firewood the past hour. EXHAUSTING WORK. And no easier with 2 feet of snow on the ground. I have to keep the puppy inside b/c our yard isn’t fenced and she has a tendency (read: compulsion) to run off after the turkeys. So I come in this last trip and sense something weird is going on. I hear Noises. The puppy isn’t answering. I grab my camera because I just know whatever she’s doing is bound to be bad. I enter the dining room to find THIS.
In order to keep myself on track with blogging this year, I’ve committed to the WordPress Post A Week 2011 Challenge. Haven’t heard of it? Click that link for the details; in sum it’s a way for bloggers to step up and say I WILL WRITE MORE. I WILL DO IT. NO I AM NOT GOING BACK UPSTAIRS TO BED.
The challenge asks that participants announce their intent publicly on their blog (likely so your readers can hold you accountable). So here goes. I, Dishy, of The Daily Dish do solemnly swear that I will uphold the principles put forth in the WordPress Post a Week 2011 Challenge. I promise to write at least one blog post per week — but if I get too busy and miss the deadline by a handful of days, that is okay too. At the end of 2011 I should have 52 new posts. Or more. Amen.
When I was little I was deathly afraid of spiders. So much so, that when I found a big ugly one on me in the night (circa 1983), I moved into my sister’s bedroom and slept on her floor for a whole month. And no, it wasn’t the least bit comfortable.
As I’ve aged I’ve gotten past the terror a spider can induce. I’ve matured. I’ve come to realize that spiders are small creatures who for the most part mean us no harm. We are the scary big monsters THEY cower in fear from and try to avoid. Part of this is hogwash, I know, part is rationalization. But for the most part it works. I can calmly shoo a spider away when need be – or even catch it gently in a cup, paper pressed against the opening, to escort it outside. I never kill spiders – they have their purpose after all, and I much prefer them to the biting insects they call food.
Anyway, the reason I am sharing this is b/c I spend a goodly portion of each day tending to a fire which consumes vast quantities of wood. I wrote about this whole wood situation before (feel free to refresh your memories here). We keep most of our wood stacked outside, but weekly my husband & I must bring in a new stash for burning. This wood is home to many, many spiders. For safety (and peace of mind) I wear protective leather work gloves while shifting wood, lest I get bitten by a startled arachnid. But I can’t get past the paranoid fear that one day I will encounter a brown recluse and wind up losing an arm.
I know this is paranoia at its best. These little spiders are terrified of me, stomping around in my heavy snow boots, cursing audibly with each heaving wheelbarrow of wood. But it remains so firmly planted in my psyche that any time I get a tiny unexplained cut on my hand, I watch it the same way an underpaid office worker watches the clock. I check it 60 times an hour, just waiting for it to change. IS IT GETTING BIGGER?? IT’S LOOKING BIGGER!! IS IT BUBBLING??!!
All of this is nonsense, of course. I scratched my hand sweeping up debris from the floor, or caught it on [insert whatever it was] but the fear remains. It doesn’t help that all this firewood we haul inside is stored in the hearth in our kitchen. The room in which I spend most of my time. And now that this firewood is stacked inside the warm & pleasant walls of our heated home, the formerly hibernating army of spiders living inside said wood is now WAKING UP. And converting my kitchen into their Spider Village.
In the changing light you see them. The vast network of spiderwebs dangling above our heads, crisscrossing the room from the windows to the doors. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been standing at the island, chopping or kneading or simply going about my business, only to look up and find a spider dangling inches from my face. Looking at me as if to say, “What’s for Dinner?”
For the most part I don’t mind living amongst so many many-leggeds. Sure a few of them are HUGE (we’re talking inches) but for the most part they’re very small. And they do in fact seem to be helping us with the bugs. Not that you’d expect a home in the dead winter of Maine to have an insect issue, but for some odd reason we do have them. Not gross ones, no cockroaches or big scary beetles or anything. No, we have ladybugs.
We noticed them right after we moved in. It was hard not to, seeing as they’d taken over our attic. At some point in the course of The Dole House’s long and illustrious history, these ladybugs took up residence and now, 600 generations later, we’re still sheltering their kin. It was odd at first, finding we had so much company. But over the past (almost) 18 months, we’ve gotten used to each other. We no longer think it strange, the small piles of expired ladybugs trapped between the window frames and storms. The ladybug corpses littering the window sills (which must be dusted periodically) or the occasional ladybug you find clutching onto a curtain. For some reason, our younger daughter’s bedroom seems to be the ladybugs favorite room in the house. Ladybug Land. Our little girl spends her nights counting the tiny red dots on her ceiling, watching them weave their way from point to point. They’re sweet really. Perhaps if you look carefully you’ll find another world living inside your home, too.
SO. I’m standing in the kitchen this morning, enjoying a nice banana scone, when in walks my blog. He looks awful and he smells even worse, like he’s been up half the night drinking. He looks at me and announces in a wounded voice that we’re 2 weeks into the new year and – he says – I’ve done just one post.
YES! I retort, but Interview with a Roller Girl wasn’t some slapdash diatribe regaling the world w/my favorite choice of deodorant (cucumber green tea); it was THOUGHT PROVOKING STUFF. With formatting, photos and everything.
He scoffs, and proceeds to tell me that my friend Kim did most of the work. Then he helps himself to the last scone.
I am stunned. THE LAST SCONE?! Now that’s going a bit too far. I grab him by the arm of his dirty shirt and toss him out into the snow. Deaf to his screams of LET ME BACK IN YOU SELF-ABSORBED MORON! I lean against the counter and think…
Hmmm.. I have been spending a lot of time lately with his brother. Why, just this morning, when I wrote that banana scone recipe, I did find myself lingering..
BUT. can you blame me? I mean, seriously. I’m only human.
And then all at once – it dawns on me. He’s jealous! My blog! after all these years.. He’s feeling NEEDY. While whiling away the hours with his brother, whipping up intoxicating creations for the salt deprived, my poor blog is.. Lonely. Oh, the poor guy.
It’s not that I never think of him – I DO! It’s just that I’ve been SO BUSY! Cooking it up every day with his brother takes a lot out of a girl. Yes that sounds bad, I admit, but.. I assure you it’s innocent. Plus, there’s been the new puppy. Taking care of her has been totally absorbing, and – What do you mean, what do I mean? Roxy. The puppy. The NEW PUPPY. Oh? I didn’t tell you? (awkward)
(sound of crickets chirping)
Sooo, here’s Roxy!
No, not last week. It’s been um.. more like a month. Sorry about that. I did post it on the OTHER Daily Dish. So. Yep…..
Okay. I get it. I understand. My blog is tired of feeling sloughed off like an unwanted heel callous. You know what? I love my blog. Even though I’ve been distracted, and haven’t been as attentive as in the past, that doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken him. Like most marriages, this relationship between me & the blog is.. well, it’s special. So I am resolving that this new year we start fresh. I may have temporarily forgotten what it’s like to woo, but that doesn’t mean I can’t court with the best of them. I can! I CAN! Blog baby, it’s gonna be different this year. More daily contact — REALLY! I’ll even take my socks off before touching your keyboard — b/c 2011, it’s all about YOU.
Kim – I mean, Supersonik! Thanks so much for being a part of The Daily Dish. Before we get started, first things first. What team do you play for? What’s your name & number and do they have any significance?
I am Supersonik! and I play on the Atomic Bombshells, one of the 4 home teams of the Minnesota RollerGirls. My number is 7 of 9, which comes from the Star Trek Voyager character. My name Supersonik! was part of an inside joke around the song Elektronik Supersonik by Zlad, a fake rock star from a fake former Eastern Bloc country. Some people get excited thinking that I got my name from the JJ Fad song “Supersonic” and start singing it to me. In reality, I’m just a big sci-fi dork. Growing up during the 80s, with my formative years during the Cold War, the Zlad song was extra funny.
What’s your position? Can you briefly describe what that entails?
At home, I play the blocker position. Basically my job is to keep the other team’s
jammer (the person who scores the points for the team) from getting through the pack while clearing a path for our own jammer. This is where you see a lot of the big hits. When I’ve played on other pick-up type games (i.e. RollerCon) where derby players come from all over the world and theme teams galore spring up, I play all positions. For instance, I’ve played the pivot (who often sets the pace of the pack and acts as the last line of defense) or the jammer. These pick-up games have themes, like Star Trek vs Star Wars, Vegetarians vs Meat Eaters (I think we were officially called Lentilly Deranged vs. Meat Curtains), cats vs dogs, diapers vs depends (under 30/ over 30), things like that. These are just-for-fun games that don’t count for anything. Last summer, I even played in a clockwise bout! That was a lot of fun because we always play counterclockwise.
How long have you been involved with roller derby? How did you get started? Did you know the rules when you started or did you learn by doing?
I started the second season of our league. That was in 2005. I’d won tickets to
the first MNRG bout and had remembered watching roller derby on TV when I was a kid, but the event I was at had these girls on roller skates with these
awesome names on their shirts, and I was like, Wow, this seems really cool. It was NOTHING like what I saw on TV growing up. For one thing, they were skating on a flat track and not a banked track like in the old days. And the uniforms were all unique, there was awesome music; it was just a bit mind blowing! I’d always hated the idea of team sports, partly because the uniforms were so awful. In roller derby there were women of all shapes and sizes and skating level. I knew I would be back. I ran into a friend [at that first bout] and we decided to go roller skating (cuz heck, we both grew up on roller skates) and then came to future bouts. When we heard they were having tryouts, we both went and made it; it was the hardest 4 hours I have ever been through.
I really had no idea what was going on on the track when I first started watching, I just knew that I wanted to be involved. When I started there were only about 5
pages of rules. Leagues around the country (there were only about 10 at the
time) were making it up as they went along. The rules have since been
standardized, as the sport has grown exponentially and playing inter-league games with different rule sets did not really work out too well. There are over 40
pages of rules now! And yes, we are tested on them. If you are interested in learning more about the rules, this is the place to go. The rules definitely needed to change to ensure the game was safe for all players, with the sorts of scenarios coming up and increased skill level of the skaters.
How much time do you spend practicing? Have you always been a great skater?
We have practice generally 3 times a week, 2 hours at a time. All-stars have extra
time. I grew up on ice skates and roller skates so I was okay with making the
transition.
What’s the worst injury you’ve sustained during play?
A few weeks into derby, we learned to do shoulder hits and then were sent out
to play Queen of the Rink [basically a derby version of Last Man Standing, with one remaining player skating in bounds.] I got hit by a vet skater and landed on my shoulder. The result was a shoulder impingement. I didn’t get it treated right away and it still flares up a bit to this day. In subsequent years we have figured out ways to make it safer for new skaters. Like I said earlier, in the beginning we were just making things up as we went along, because the re-emergence of the sport was so new. Today our rookies go through a summer of boot camp to build up skills before they get to be put on a home team. This has been a wonderful way for them to bond and build up the confidence and skills before they get drafted.
What’s the best thing about playing roller derby?
I don’t know if I can say just one thing. It’s been awesome for me to learn to
play a team sport, get regular exercise, and meet really fabulous women. We have a ton of awesome volunteers who keep us running smoothly and fans who support us. I love the kids who are so excited to be at the bouts. We now have co-ed junior derby in the twin cities for youngsters interested in becoming future players. It melts my heart when they want my autograph. It’s strange to have these kids look up to us; I mean I get it, but I never thought I would be in that position. Playing has also given me the opportunity to develop leadership skills, as our organization is owned and run by the skaters, for the skaters.
What’s the worst thing (if any) about playing roller derby?
I wish we had more public bouts. 🙂
How does your team travel? Are you sponsored? Do you get paid for playing or is it strictly volunteer?
We have a travel team called the All-Stars. They are comprised of skaters from
all 4 home teams. They are the ones that do the inter-league travel and
tournaments that count towards our rankings. This year though, our home teams have had opportunities to travel in the region to play other teams. It’s always a lot of fun to play new and unfamiliar people. We are very fortunate to have a lot of support with awesome sponsors like PBR. But we are unpaid athletes. We donate proceeds to charity.
How would you describe yourself? Age? Occupation? What else do you enjoy outside the arena?
I’m 38 and have historically earned my income in the non-profit/government/health care/education sectors. Currently I’m back in school through a great program made to retrain folks in “green” careers. I’m now involved with starting a Transition Town in my neighborhood, something that’s been really exciting for me. I tend to have a lot of interests that are all over the board. Off the bat, I can say I’m crazy about cats, organic gardening, low-impact living, science fiction, antiques and traveling. I also like to play tennis and ride my bike, and I want to learn how to sew.
Think you’ve got what it takes?
Watch Supersonik! in MNRG’s 2009 Season Trailer: Bad Mother Rollers.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGK77sLsln8&fs=1&hl=en_US]