Sophistik8

December is going to be a busy month me.  Ryan left this morning (or rather I left him as his plane isn’t taking off until 3pm) for India for 3 weeks for work.  I miss him already.

For our last night together we got a Christmas tree and decorated the apartment for the holidays.  Bruno seems to think we got the tree to be his own personal climbing gym and I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home sometime this month to find the tree on the floor.  In fact, it may be that way when I get home tonight.

I am focusing all my energy on roller derby tryouts in less than 2 weeks on the 13th.  I feel good, but not confident.  There are still a lot of things I want to work on before tryouts but at the same time I wish they were over and done with already!  Stay tuned here for your exclusive tryout news!  Remember you can’t ask me if I made it or not, just read this damn blog to find out!  (unless I make it and then you can ask me as many times as you want and I can bask in your jealousy!)

But to tide you over until that exciting tidbit of news is decided here are some pictures taken at a practice in November.

Well things are getting interesting in the Derby World.  About a week and half ago, one of the veteran skaters for the Roller Warriors broke her leg in practice (just 5 days before going to nationals!).  She was one of our best jammers so it was hard to see her on the sidelines in a wheelchair.

A bunch of Fresh Meat girls got together at my place on Friday night to watch the All Stars get beaten by Denver’s team in a very uninteresting bout which included many slow jams that were infuriating to watch.  It was nice to have friends around me when we lost by almost 100 points and we had fun discussing the bout and Denver’s strategy and what we could have done to defeat them.

Then, Saturday morning our own Fresh Meat skater, Molly, broke her leg during practice!  She thought she had just twisted her ankle really badly but at the hospital they told her she broke the small leg in her leg (same bone broken by the veteran skater above) in two place and a shard of her bone had entered her ankle joint and separated it.  She is supposed to be undergoing surgery sometime this week and it will be about a month before she can even return to work, let alone return to practice.  This means she will be missing out on tryouts.

The saddest thing about these two injuries is that they both happened during practice (not even game play) and doing something really boring.  Molly broke hers doing a snow plow, the easiest way to stop when skating that we have all be practicing for months!  And Molly was a good skater too!  So now that the threat of a real injury has hit home I am eating lots of yogurt and taking my vitamins.  My bones must be in tip top condition.  I don’t want to miss tryouts because of an injury!

Ryan is going to India!  Cerner needs his help to get some stuff worked out on the India side of things so he will be heading over there for most of the month of December (about 3 weeks).  I am really excited for him, and I would love to go, but since they have scheduled this so close in the future there is no way I could join him without it costing several thousand dollars.  We will just have to hope that they send him to even more exotic locations after this (they just opened up data centers in France!  Fingers crossed) where I can meet up with him after he is done working and we can vacation overseas.

Unfortunately for me this means Ryan will miss my derby tryouts…so I will have to celebrate or mourn by myself.  Actually it shouldn’t be too bad.  My parents will be in town for most of that time (except when they are going to Egypt, life is so unfair).  I will miss him but mostly I will just be jealous of all the cool stuff he will get to do, like visit the Taj Mahal.  Why can’t our Library have branches in places like Turkey, or India, or Brazil so I could see the world on someone else’s dime?

Brr just thinking about it makes me cold.  I am headed to Boston in January for a Library conference.  Should be a grand old time, long underwear is totally my favorite fashion accessory.  Things have gotten tough around the library and that means we no long have a budget to travel, of course all of this comes down after I agree to co-chair a committee for an event in Boston.  So I am headed there on my own dime.  After putting off registration and hotels and plane tickets for as long as possible I finally got down to work last week.

You wouldn’t believe how expensive it is to go to a conference in Boston in January (makes me cringe to think how much it must cost in the Summer when the city is bearable).  But this is when I love having family!  Everyone pitched in.  I am staying with my mom’s cousins in Cambridge (just a 20min bus ride from the conference center) and my parents donated frequent flier miles to get me there for free (well almost free anyway).  I love my family!  Although they may also realize that this is the only way I would have funds to buy them X-mas gifts this year!

So I am set to go to Boston in January and hopefully see all my library peeps and stock up on some really good books!

This is what I plan to wear in Boston

I don’t really have a good topic for this entry so I will just let you know what I have been doing (which is a lot).  Things Kate has done in the last month:

• attended derby practice at least 3 times a week (totally awesome on my new skates)
• attended Tosca at the Kansas City Opera (fantastic although our seats weren’t quite as great as I would like but very reasonably priced)
• attended My First Time at the Unicorn Theater (I loved it, Ryan didn’t)
• Ryan went rock climbing with the KC climbing club in Arkansas (while I stayed at home and cleaned and went to derby practice)
• worked like crazy (it is Teen Read Week which means everyone wants booktalks from  yours truely, can’t really complain as once again this is all my fault for bad scheduling)
• barely slept (as a result of all of the above)

Next week look for an update with my totally awesome Halloween costume!  Disclaimer: this costume will only be awesome if you are a geek.

They’re here!  I ordered these last week and they got here today!!!  (of course not in time for practice last night).  These are my new Riedell Vandal’s and officially my new favorite foot covering.

I was a bit nervous about getting such nice skates when I am still just trying out for a team but I found an awesome deal online for an open box return and I just couldn’t not get them.  Besides, who wouldn’t love these babies.  I am really hoping that they help my skating, it has been hard using a different set of skates each night for practice.  I can’t wait to use them on Saturday!!!

Now all I have to do is make a team and I will be set!

So you know how when you try to keep something private, everyone seems to know about it?  Well I was trying to keep this on the down low but everyone has asked me about it which means they all know anyway (apparently I would make a horrible spy as I can’t even keep my own secrets).  I am going to try out for roller derby!

That’s right.  I hope to be doing this someday!  I really hope I get to wear a cool retro costume too!  (although I will definitely be wearing pads and a helmet as I like my bones intact)  I wasn’t keeping this a secret because I wanted to tell some people and not others but much like an unplanned pregnancy you don’t want to tell anyone until  you are going to go for it (yes my analogies need work).  I didn’t want to tell everyone I was trying out and then not make it and have to be reminded every day when someone would ask me how it went.

So here is the deal.  I am letting you (the entire world wide web) in on my little secret and in return you have to wait patiently to find out if I made it or not.  The tryouts aren’t till December, so you are going to have to wait a while but you will survive.  I will not survive if I have to relive my shame every time someone cheerfully asks me if I made a team.  For now, I am in Pump Up Camp learning the rudimentary skills of roller derby, and getting my ass handed to me on skates!  But if you know me, you know I don’t do anything half-assed.  So get ready world.  I am going to be a roller derby girl come December or break several bones trying!

Wish me luck!

P.S. if you have questions about trying out for the KC Roller Warriors…go ask someone else, I don’t need any more competition!

Its that time of year again! This afternoon I hop on a plane to Harrisburg PA where I will be retrieved by the lovely Rachel and we will rush back to her apartment in Carlisle to quickly shove all the dirty clothes in the closet and try to make a sleeping space for everyone. Sometime around 1am Annie and Laura should arrive from DC and then we all have a pillow fight and go to bed.
Friday morning we invade the PA Amish country! (lock up your sons) before making it to Baltimore to hang with Rachel’s mom and pick up our last member, Katie, from the airport. The rest of the weekend will be filled with roller skating, shopping, museums, night clubs and princess diaries II! I CAN”T WAIT!!!!!!!!! Nothing better than an extended weekend with the girls!

Today my friend Krista left Kansas City to being her career as a psychologist in Minot, North Dakota.  I couldn’t be happier for her that she found a job she is really excited for.  I am not to excited about the 850 miles there will be between us!  All of my good friends keep moving around, every couple of years they pick up and move to the other side of the country (or world)!  And I stay put in the Midwest.  What does that say about me?

Maybe someday I will move out of the Midwest, I know Ryan really wants to move to the mountains.  But I don’t want to miss time with my family, especially my grandmothers who I feel have so much to offer me.  In the meantime I will keep saving my money and visit all of my friends in their far away locales.  Just two weeks from today I jump on a plane to Carlisle, Pennsylvania for another memorable Pool House Reunion!  I can’t wait.

Goodbye Krista!   Kansas City won’t be the same without you!

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