Okay, so this was an Event Afternoon, rather than an Event Night. This past Wednesday our apartment complex opened up the pool for the summer, and Sam and I wasted no time getting in there! The water was pretty cold, so we waded in up to our hips and mostly just threw our pool toys at each other.
To mark the occasion, she bought us pool toys!
The elephant is mine (spirit animal), his name is Barry. The fish is Sam's, his name (after Benjafin Franklin was shot down) is Shark Bait.
This is a dress that came from my maternal grandmother. I found it in my mom's basement and realized it would be perfect for a Blind Pig theme party my team captain was throwing. It was a little bit too big, and there was a flap of ruffles sticking out on one side. Literally, it just stuck out and flapped around, kinda weird. So, I took it in a bit, but not too much, so it still had that kind of rectangle bag-fit of the era. And I sewed down the ruffle flap so that it was not flapping about. You can't see the flap well in this photo though. I brought my BFF Sam with me, as she is the kind of person who goes crazy over any opportunity to dress up in a costume. Seriously. She's recently unemployed, but put down a fat wad of cash for this gangster outfit. Which is, admittedly, pretty awesome.
In this photo you can see a little bit of the ruffle flap next to my arm. The party was a lot of fun, complete with old timey drinks (you can see the menu on the chalkboard behind Sam), Rag Time music, and Wham trying to teach us all how to Charleston (it's a lot harder than I thought!).
So, for years I've been wanting to get a tattoo on the back of my calf that looks something like this:
But, for years now I just haven't had the money to spend on a tattoo (there are about three things on my car that would need to get fixed before I could justify getting a professionally-done tattoo). Instead, one day I was inspired while looking at a bunch of photos of elephants, and started working on giving myself a tattoo. With the help of a friend I did a DIY tattoo of a carrot when I was 21, and I still had some ink left over, so I went to work on this:
I've titled it, "Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant." It's a work in progress, you can see it's a bit dotty, I have to work on filling in the lines, making it more solid.
#21: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
This was a re-read of a book I read in college, for my Special Education class. It's written from the point of view of a teenage with autism who is writing a mystery novel about his investigation into the murder of his neighbor's dog. It's a good look into how the mind of person with autism might work.
#22: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
I borrowed this after I found it in the back seat of my friend Melissa's car. I really liked it, I'm a bit afraid to watch the movie because I feel like it's going to be not nearly as awesome (I mean, it's got that guy from Twilight in it, I don't know how to take it seriously). I love elephants (see upcoming tattoo post for reference), and I love circuses in theory. I love the imagery, especially from the early 20th century, just not the reality of the lives it creates for the animals. But, whatever, the story is good, I love the twist at the end. If I'm remembering it correctly, the story was based on a few real elephants.
#23: Buffalo Lockjaw by Greg Ames.
This book was okay. It was about a guy returning home, dealing with his mom who has early-onset dementia, and contemplating assisted suicide.
#24: Zorro by Isabelle Allende.
I don't know why, but this book took me fooooooreeeeverrrr to read. I started it in November and didn't finish it until the start of February. Robert kept making fun of me, but it was very small print, and a lot of pages! It is basically the back story to Zorro. I just couldn't really get in to it (another reason why it took me so long to read).
Though I've completed this goal a year ago, I'm continuing to tally my jogs. I've been jogging a lot lately because...I am running in a 5k tomorrow. I'm doing it with a bunch of my teammates from The Pistoffs. I really don't like running, but I got peer pressured into it, and you can't really tell your team of athletes that you just don't feel like working that hard.
Running has always been quite difficult for me, because I've never had great endurance. A lot of the early jogs that counted towards this list item were outside in Escanaba...I seriously remember telling my friend Barbi in Esky that I was excited and proud that I had jogged nine blocks...but not in a row, I took breaks every 3 or 4. And the blocks in Escanaba are so short, it was probably like 3/4 of a mile. Even in the last year, when I've been running more often, trying to get in shape for derby, I've been running for 12-15 minutes before I had to stop. Thanks to my endurance being built up in speed skating class, I was able to run a full 5k on the treadmill for the first time in my life. I slowed down for two short breaks to drink some water, but otherwise ran the whole thing. And I was so proud of myself, because it's something I never would have been able to do before now. It has me thinking a lot about how strong and healthy I'm becoming. I've always felt like my body was holding me back because it was small, weak, and I had no endurance. I feel like I've really overcome that now, and I really can do anything! I was running at about 10 minutes per mile last night, and if I'm remembering right, when we ran a mile in high school gym class, I had a 14 minute mile, and walked at least half of it.
In other news, I've put together a bomb ass playlist to listen to during the race tomorrow.
Since last summer, every time I went running, I would listen to The Gossip's album Music for Men. This is my number one song to run to.
One of my favorite groups. This song is "hype", as the kids say.
This video makes me a little nauseous, but it's impossible not to run while listening to it.
Sam and I went on a Valentine's date to ride bumper cars tonight! Apparently we had really good timing, because they had just gotten the bumper cars two days ago! It was really fun, funner than you would think that just bumping into people would be. The guys at the Zap Zone were super accommodating and nice (they weren't super busy, so why not do stuff for two super cute girls!). When we were done they let us stage this photograph, and we actually had quite a few takes and they moved the cars around for us and everything. They were awesome!
Sam gave me my Valentine's gift while we were there. She said, "We've talked about it, but we never made it official...", she got down on one knee, gave me a box of chocolates and asked me to be her derby wife. *swooooooon*
I'm her #1 draft pick!!
One of the workers at Zap Zone was like, "Did you guys just get engaged over there? What just happened?" So we explained the concept of derby wives to him, and he gave us these rings to make it official!
This photo is from my trip to Ft. Lauderdale to visit my parents. One morning my dad and I took a walk down to a State Park, and on the way there we stopped at a little diner with an ocean view and got breakfast. I had a GIANT smoothie. I had a cup filled 3/4 of the way full, in addition to the full cup pictured above. But it was yum. It was basically the non-alcoholic smoothie version of a pina colada.
For funsies, here's a photo of my dad at that breakfast:
