Roller skates and roughness are all I knew about roller derby. It’s not one of the sports that people discuss endlessly. Sports don’t normally catch my attention anyway. (Sorry sports fans, but my children knew how to spell the names of stores at two, not how to keep score in sports.)
Our local roller derby team is called the Cajun Roller girls, and Saturday night they hosted a home match at the Civic center, so I decided to see exactly how much roughness can one manage while on wheels.
Thankfully, the match begins with an explanation/demonstration of the rules because otherwise I would have spent most of the two hours trying to figure out what I was watching. In a cute effort to help the attendees understand the numerous rules, the roller derby girls come out and demonstrate as the announcer goes over each of them. I found the demonstration of what not to do in terms of unnecessary roughness very entertaining.
Basically, a roller derby match has two thirty minute periods, with a half time show featuring live musical entertainment. Each period consists of many two minutes jams. Five skaters for each team are on the course for each jam, four are blockers and one is the jammer. The jammer earns points for the team by lapping the blockers, and the blockers try to prevent the other team’s jammer form earning points. Sound simple right?
Just like in any other sport, there are penalties and time outs and plenty other things I’m sure my un-sports minded self did not understand. To give myself some credit though, the more I sat and watched, the more I understood what was going on. I even caught myself explaining things to the person next to me.
I could see myself participating… if I didn’t have to worry about falling on my butt; I mean, the ground is far from my height. And though the rules forbid elbows and outright violence, those shoves look pretty hard. Not to mention the falls when they are pushed straight out of the course. Who am I kidding? I may have tried this when I was a teenager, but I’m content to watch from stadium seating at this point in my life.
I did enjoy watching it though, and I was only sad that not many people were in the audience. It could use more support from the community, so I’d definitely recommend checking it out. The local team is good, ranked eleventh right now. They dominated the match that ended with a final score of 192 to 63. I’ll definitely put this on my list of experiences to do again.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
My Obsession
I have an obsession. Not the kind that leaves too many shoes in the closet or even of the obsessive restraining order variety kind.
I have an obsession with knowing the future. Those who know me well would say it’s because I don’t like not knowing things, not being able to control the outcome.
My obsession led Mindy and I to have a very interesting girl’s night recently. Sitting around my dining room table, we began the night with me reading her tarot cards. I’m not an expert by any means. I collect tarot card decks because I like the pictures on them, but I only read from the one deck and it’s the one I’ve had since high school. Whether any of her reading comes true, remains to be seen. Since I’m not psychic, I don’t think she should bet on it.
We then moved on to playing a Chinese fortune telling game. We each did the card reading. The part that caused excessive laughing was when my cards told me that my happiness would come from shopping, and that I’d marry a wealthy person who’d want to buy me jewelry. Wonderful. And where would he be right now? I’m waiting.
All of this was great fun, but the culminating event was a few rounds with the Ouiji board. I hadn’t played with a Ouiji board since I was a teenager, but it had belonged to a friend so I wouldn’t give it much thought when we were done.
I’d ordered a beautiful Ouiji board with intricate carvings, and Mindy was the only brave soul who’d jumped at the chance to participate. I decided we had to do it right, so I lit candles and set them all around the board before turning out the lights.
At first, I was a little nervous. I asked if anyone was there and it answered yes. I asked if we knew who it was and it answered yes again. At that point, chills ran through me and I didn’t want to ask who it was because I didn’t want to know—yet.
At first, we were stuck. We hadn’t thought about what we’d ask beforehand. So the first round was a warm-up. It answered a few of our hastily thought of questions before telling us “Bye.”
We put some thought into what we should have asked and then tried again. The next time, it only knew Mindy and answered her questions. We are still puzzling and guessing over some of the cryptic messages we received. I don’t remember the ouiji board of my youth speaking in code.
The third time it didn’t want to answer any questions, but the fourth time, it only knew me. By this time, we’d built up courage to ask who it was. As it spelled out initials though, chills went through me and had every hair on end. I haven’t figured out whose initials it gave me, though it also said it was a girl and a relative. It then went on to give information about what I can expect in my future.
And of course my first thought was I’d like to check it out with the psychic.
The definition of obsession. Yes, hello, my name is Jessica Tastet and I’m obsessed with knowing the future.
We blew out the candles after that and called it a night. But, well the ouiji board stayed at my house. And I was home alone. And we’d called a spirit. And what was that creak exactly? Was that a noise I heard?
So I thought I’d listen to music until I fell asleep to help. I put eight songs to play, but my IPOD decided that when it got to the end it would go back to the beginning of another playlist. I don’t know why because it had never done that before.
Do you see where this is going?
Still weighing my obsession with the drawbacks of not being able to sleep.
But if it all checks out with the psychic, my future is looking up.
I have an obsession with knowing the future. Those who know me well would say it’s because I don’t like not knowing things, not being able to control the outcome.
My obsession led Mindy and I to have a very interesting girl’s night recently. Sitting around my dining room table, we began the night with me reading her tarot cards. I’m not an expert by any means. I collect tarot card decks because I like the pictures on them, but I only read from the one deck and it’s the one I’ve had since high school. Whether any of her reading comes true, remains to be seen. Since I’m not psychic, I don’t think she should bet on it.
We then moved on to playing a Chinese fortune telling game. We each did the card reading. The part that caused excessive laughing was when my cards told me that my happiness would come from shopping, and that I’d marry a wealthy person who’d want to buy me jewelry. Wonderful. And where would he be right now? I’m waiting.
All of this was great fun, but the culminating event was a few rounds with the Ouiji board. I hadn’t played with a Ouiji board since I was a teenager, but it had belonged to a friend so I wouldn’t give it much thought when we were done.
I’d ordered a beautiful Ouiji board with intricate carvings, and Mindy was the only brave soul who’d jumped at the chance to participate. I decided we had to do it right, so I lit candles and set them all around the board before turning out the lights.
At first, I was a little nervous. I asked if anyone was there and it answered yes. I asked if we knew who it was and it answered yes again. At that point, chills ran through me and I didn’t want to ask who it was because I didn’t want to know—yet.
At first, we were stuck. We hadn’t thought about what we’d ask beforehand. So the first round was a warm-up. It answered a few of our hastily thought of questions before telling us “Bye.”
We put some thought into what we should have asked and then tried again. The next time, it only knew Mindy and answered her questions. We are still puzzling and guessing over some of the cryptic messages we received. I don’t remember the ouiji board of my youth speaking in code.
The third time it didn’t want to answer any questions, but the fourth time, it only knew me. By this time, we’d built up courage to ask who it was. As it spelled out initials though, chills went through me and had every hair on end. I haven’t figured out whose initials it gave me, though it also said it was a girl and a relative. It then went on to give information about what I can expect in my future.
And of course my first thought was I’d like to check it out with the psychic.
The definition of obsession. Yes, hello, my name is Jessica Tastet and I’m obsessed with knowing the future.
We blew out the candles after that and called it a night. But, well the ouiji board stayed at my house. And I was home alone. And we’d called a spirit. And what was that creak exactly? Was that a noise I heard?
So I thought I’d listen to music until I fell asleep to help. I put eight songs to play, but my IPOD decided that when it got to the end it would go back to the beginning of another playlist. I don’t know why because it had never done that before.
Do you see where this is going?
Still weighing my obsession with the drawbacks of not being able to sleep.
But if it all checks out with the psychic, my future is looking up.
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