Friday driving back to Mpls from Duluth (having been hanging out with my Mom while she had shoulder surgery Thurday) I saw and picked up a stray dog on the freeway - yes ON the freeway:

On I-35 just north of Pine City I happened to see a black dog off in the ditch next to the freeway just moseying around, and then I was past her driving 70 mph and all. I entertained about 5 secs of "Should I/Shouldn't I...?" - which was promptly decided for me upon seeing the barbed wire fencing off the adjacent field - leaving her nothing but low-to-nil chances of her making it back anywhere on her own other than burnt toast on the freeway.

That decided - I got off at the next exit, headed back north, flipped an illegal u-ey in the highway patrol turnaround, then cruised back until I spotted [what turned out to be a] her again and pulled off onto the side of the road with my flashers on, hoping to gods I wouldn't spook her into traffic.

I pulled up parallel to her and opened the passenger side door, equipped with leftover fried potatoes that I'd grabbed along with long-gone-quiche at the co-op in Duluth before leaving town. I called to her in the usual don't-know-the-dog's-name sorts of ways - and she started a bit before deciding that maybe there was food involved and that maybe I was worth coming up and checking out.

She poked her head into the car at me and took the potato pieces I offered - but she was in no way going to jump into the car, and she spooked at any movement I made towards her. So I just kept her interest with the potatoes while I carefully looped the flexi-lead I had in the car into a slip lead as I saw that she had no collar on. Figured I could just slip that over her head then get her on in the car - but despite all my calm cool deliberate movements - she just shied away anytime my hand got near with the lead.

After 5 or 10 mins of this standoff where I just kept talking to her and trying to keep her focused on my food so she wouldn't wander off, some guy pulled over in front of me, got out and came back towards me asking if everything was ok and if I needed an help. The dog spooked and took off back behind my car and right into traffic. I hollered at the guy "thanks - but just please go!" and started panickedly trying to shoo her back into the ditch area.

The guy seemed to get that he was being more hindrance than help, and he got in his van and took off. Meanwhile I somehow lured the dog back with more potatoes - of which I was about out, so I grabbed a ziplock of 4 crackers laying on the dashboard - the last of any food in the car. The scenario by this point was me in the driver's seat, with the car about 4 feet off the white line, while the black lab was standing within arms' reach but still skiddish and poised to run.
Traffic (thankfully) seemed to see that s/thing sketchy with a loose dog was going on and thus mostly drove by over in the far lane, while I was sweating bullets hoping against hope that a) the lab wouldn't bolt right into traffic, or b) I wouldn't be part of one of those Cops (the show that my dad most <3's in the whole world) scenarios where someone just lane-drifts and inadvertantly takes out someone pulled over on the side of the freeway - taking out me AND the dog.

I sat there for - no exaggeration or hyperbole folks - the next 20 mins at a complete impasse with this dog. She was skiddish about being roped/grabbed, but otherwise she was the picture of the Buddha - she stood completely unfazed by the traffic zooming by (in some cases mere feet from) her ass. I got her to sit (she was clearly a fairly obedient and somewhat-training dog) - and she plopped her butt right there on the white line - looking at me for some more eats. Meanwhile I was out of potatoes and had resorted to breaking the 4 crackers into small but still-interesting pieces to try and keep her motivated to come closer or at the very least just not to back up INTO TRAFFIC.

In that 20 mins I'd had a number of unsuccessful attempts at slipping the lead's loop over her head, each time she ducked back/out and I only just barely managed to keep her from spooking backwards into traffic. I was freaking out that I would not only fail in getting her at all, but worse that I would directly cause her to bolt and get run over.

Somehow I pulled myself together - gave myself a little stern talking to with the voice of Cesar Milan (no kidding - because yes I am a total Dog Whispherer nutter;) in my head: "you have to be calm and assertive - if you're upset and anxious, you're just going to make the dog upset and anxious and then it's done - whether least-worse [you miss your chance] or worst-worse scenario [the dog gets run over]."

So with no crackers or potatoes left, only the empty box that the potatoes were in (in which there were a few bits of onions left), and looking like I was about to lose the last of the dog's wandering attention, I came up with a last ditch plan: I made about a 2-ft diameter loop with the flexi-lead and laid it on the ground, then put the potato box right in the middle of it. She cautiously stepped in towards the box and out her nose happily in and started to lick and slurp, while I held the lead carefully and firmly - knowing I'd have to be quick and decisive in my yanking so that the box didn't get in the way and that she didn't have a second to bolt out before I close the loop.

Somehow - magically, unbelievably - it worked. She jumped, backpedaled, and bolted, but the loop closed around her and I had her, actually had her around the belly as her front legs were in the loop when I yanked it closed. But I had her :D. Once she realized she was a caught dog - she suddenly ditched all the skiddishness - now she was a happy gregarious pup who was more than enthused to jump in the car.

So with her in the passenger seat and me in the drivers seat still holding tightly to the leash and making sure she wasn't going slip out of it and go out the passenger side door (which was opened from earlier trying to get her in that way), I managed to reach/crawl over the top of her and get the passenger closed.

And then we were good. :) I drove back to Mpls planning how I'd make some postings to try and find her family, while fostering her for a few days as needed, then speculating further what I'd do if we couldn't find her people. When I got home I made a couple posts to Craig's List in the Lost/Found and Pets sections, plus listed her on a bunch of websites like petfinder.com, as well as calling it into some shelters in the area.

I started calling her Kizzy and she was one of the most wonderful sweet dogs you could ever know - I felt bad for whoever was missing her. She hung out at my place that night, and my friend Kili offered to take her for the day saturday, as Kizzy (despite being the sweetest temperament dog ever) and Dax (who's a hater :) were having some major personality problems.

I got a number of responses inquiring about lost huskies and yorkies (I was all hyper-paranoid in my initial CL posts and just posted "found dog" without specifying what kind to minimize any frauds - which now I'm quite certain wasn't necessary ;) - I hope all those who inquired find their pooches :(.

Then yesterday evening I got a post from someone "Is it a black lab? My boyfriend works at Wings North (a sportsmen's club in Pine City, right off the freeway from near where I picked Kizzy up) and he said that some folks brought in a flyer this morning for a lost black lab..."

So I looked up the number for Wings North, talked to some guy who knew exactly what flyer I was talking about, and gave me the number listed on the flyer. I called the number and voila - I was in touch with Kizzy's - actually her real name is Salty - with Salty's family. The mom was out of her skull happy - apparently they came home Thurs night and the front gate was open and Salty was just gone. So they got my address and jumped in their truck and came over to pick her up.

It was so awesome - their 7 year old daughter came along and was just beside herself happy, the mom was crying, and the dad was just clearly so happy to have found her. And Salty was flipped out happy to see them as well.

So to whatever chances and people and powers-that-be out there who made this all work out so awesomely - thank you. Happy family and happy puppy and happy me. :)

I'm not dead yet!

Roller derby season is finally *gasp* over. Well kind of. But not really. A couple trips away for travel bouts over the summer. And RollerCon. And MNLynx games we'll be promoting at. And parades and demo bouts at block parties. And board meetings. And sponsorship meetings. And planning for the fall for it to start all over again.

But I feel like I can breathe again :). And take stock of things in my non-derby life that had been mostly on hiatus for the better part of 9 months.

I called my 86-year old aunt in FL who've I've not talked to in far too long.

I have my nose back in books - burning through some Nancy Kresses presently - current favorite author of the moment, and diving back into Ray Kurzweil to foster my pining-for/refocusing-on the coming singularity. Actually I did pretty well keeping at least one thread of reading going at any giving point - but now hopefully I can return to multi-threaded reading, it's sad only reading one book at a time. And maybe I can meet up with Giggle Byte and discuss reading as I've been hoping to do for awhile.

I went out dancing with Lisa and Cher Noble down at First Ave Friday.

I stayed home Saturday night and drank wine with Mary who will soon no longer be my house mate.

I planted flowers on Saturday - with the kind and compassionate assistance of Kili St. Cyr and Apple Smacks.

I cleaned the house before Kili and Apple came over.

I helped Stripe Tease paint inside her new house on Sunday.

I hung out with Lisa's family for Memorial Day.

I caught up on all of this season's Battle Star Galactica, starting with season 4 episode 1.

I have hard-set plans for Thursday to finally meet up with my long lost awesome friends James and Stef whom I haven't seen since before the new year.

So it's the home stretch of the Beargrease! Out of the original field of 27 (28 counting honorary bib #1 which is always reserved for John Beargrease himself :) remain 12 teams. A number of the teams dropped out at the roughly halfway point for various reasons - chatting with a couple Beargrease volunteers indicated both a mix of "wasn't planning to finish", dogs dehydrated/over-run given the too-hot weather yesterday (yes - a context where 35 degrees is too warm!), and mushers just getting run-down and disheartened by running 6+ hours last night in the cold rain.

Now for a turnabout - tonight's weather is about -15 on the trail with 20mph winds - completely ridiculous. All the remaining mushers are out of the Finland checkpoint and enroute to Two Harbors, with the lead mushers slated to get into Two Harbors anytime now. They then have a final 6 hour required rest to take there before hitting the final 40 miles into the finish in Duluth. It's a tight race, with only 10-15 mins separating the lead 3 mushers, and 9/10/11th places similarly situated and close.

Lisa and I headed back to the Sawbill checkpoint today to see teams in various states - just coming in from Devil Track, resting, and just heading out for Finland.

This is Rita Wehseler's team resting at Sawbill.



Rita herself at that moment was off sleeping in a trailer while one of her handlers watched over the team's rest. Each team is provided bales of straw to bed the dogs down with at the checkpoints, while the musher/crew provides blankets, coats, in some cases leg wraps with the dog equiv of Icy Hot and food for the dogs before they bed down to sleep hard before the next leg. As you can see - these are some contented and happily-run dogs. At such checkpoints - the dogs stay on the gangline and are fastened down while they eat/sleep. The handlers/mushers then one by one take each one off separately to pee/poop just before heading out again.

Here's one of the teams undergoing a vet check by one of the Beargrease volunteer veterinarians.



Both the Beargrease races folks and the mushers are fastidious about making sure the dogs are in top shape in order to be able to continue the race - I watched for 10-15 mins as this vet worked one of the dogs' shoulders through all ranges of motion and extension, evaluating to make sure no injuries or touchy spots. In the event that there's any question about a dog's ability to continue, they're dropped from the roster. On the trail if a musher has to drop a dog(s) from the team, they tuck them into their sled bag to drop with the team handlers at the next checkpoint.

Another team resting at Sawbill - seriously, a rabbit could walk up and belly dance for these dogs and they'd be like "meh - sleep now." And yes - those piles of blanket you see, bundled of dogs beneath. Each team for the marathon starts with 12 dogs, and by this return trip to the Sawbill checkpoint, teams had from 9-11 dogs remaining:



Next shot is Blake Freking's team just heading out from Sawbill. His wife Jennifer also started the race with her own team (apparently they both raced separately before meeting up a few years ago) but had to bail the race shortly after the start due to an unfortunate sled-tip that resulted in her hand being broken! She's registered for the Iditarod too, and supposedly will be having the pin removed from her hand just prior to racing the Iditarod. Anyway - yeah here's Blake and his team, with handlers moving the team/sled from the rest area to the trail start:



Next is a shot of Ward Wallin's team having just gotten into Sawbill at 12:34pm after a 4 hour run from Devil's Track checkpoint. Ward stopped long enough to check in with the officials, change out his sled rails, check the dogs and feed them some frozen meat snax, then headed off within 10 mins for the Finland checkpoint another 33 miles/4 hours away. Tough stuff these mushers and dogs are made out of!



Here's a shot from Sunday night, the first day of the race, at the Hwy 2 checkpoint.



And here's Lisa at the Hwy 2 checkpoint - such a trooper for mucking about up here in the cold with me, but she's gotten the Beargrease fever completely independently of me has been checking/searching for updates even more obsessively than me. :)



So now we wait up tonight and watch the updates to see when the top 3 make it into Two Harbors. Isn't likely we will pack up and head out tomorrow from Grand Marais in time to catch the top finishers, but planning to head in time to catch the middle-to-last finishers.

Though given the redunkulous weather, we're just hoping we'll be taking off in the morning at all!

I'm sitting here looking out the glass doors on the 3rd floor of the East Bay Suites in Grand Marais, listening to the wind howl around the door frame. No lake view room, but rather a lovely view of the glare ice parking lot, although the veiew of the ridge surrounding the town isn't bad to look at. The room we're in is a studio suite, with a kitchenetter and everything all in one room (except the bathroom :), and presently everything is in disarray with the murphy bed (hells yeah a murphy bed) pulled out and Lisa in it, the couch taking up most of the rest of the room and Dax perched on that, and me in a squooshy cozy chair in the corner by the deck door.

After 2 days of mild conditions and beautiful mushing weather, and half way thru the Beargrease marathon (the mid-distance race finished yesterday), everything went to hell weather-wise last night. With teams scattered between Sawbill and Trail Center, right about 6 or 7 pm last night it started raining of all things. So most of the mushers were stuck running the longest leg from the Sawbill checkpoint to Trail Center at poplar lake (60 miles) during the night in the rain. Ugh - I can take some cold, but damn that had to have been grim getting soaked with a constant rain for 6+ hours straight on the trail. It was still fairly warm up until this morning, but wonder about keeping the dogs warm when they're soaked through and the temps start to drop, as the prediction is for a 60 degree temp drop between yesterday and today.

The musher roster has dropped by about half as of this morning, looking like due primarily to the suckitude of conditions, although there's hardly a word posted anywhere about what's really going on, and Lisa and I are going out of our skulls. In the past the beargrease folks have done a good job of keeping constant commentary posted on their site, with updates from checkpoints and road crossings, they have a whole amateur radio contingent that travels along. But this time there's next to nothing.

The only thing they do have on their site in terms of updates (other than a blogger who hasn't done any real updating until this morning, and even then it's just a lot of words without really saying anything of interest) is regularly updated pdf docs of the standings, including where-they-are, rest times taken/required, withdrawals, # of dogs, etc. So technically you can track where everyone is, but there's no substance - no quotes from the mushers as to trail conditions, why dogs were dropped, how hellish the trek thru the night was, and why nearly half the damn roster has now withdrawn from the race. I mean yes - it's fairly likely so many withdrawals because of the ice/rain conditions, but I want to hear it from the mushers dammit!!

Why no roving reporter constantly updating the site with reports from the mushers and volunteers and whatnot. Lisa and I decided that next year we should volunteer to do so. I mean dude the whole town of Grand Marais is completely wi-fi'd and numerous cafes along the way on the grid, so not like there isn't the means to constantly get things posted up here.

But off course I'll be too busy volunteering with the race itself next year. Because, in true tin lizzy fashion, being up here and watching the race and being at the checkpoints and Ang and I having done the sled-dog training thing up in Cambridge for a season+ (the means by which the fabulous Dax came on my scene 9 years ago), I'm of course fixated on getting back into dogsledding.

Not fully, not yet anyway - I still have a lot of roller derby to do ;). And probably not at all, but we all know how I work when I get fixated on s/thing!

Ok - it's off to the Coho cafe in Tofte to grab breakfast and meet up with the race back at Sawbill checkpoint, where some mushers are already checked in this morning.

Later - pix!

So I lost my shit to the new pro-lifer Charlie at the clinic this morning.

One of the main bits of value that roller derby has force-fed me into learning is confrontation. And I don't mean combatative, antagonistic, snarky, pointless or indiscriminate confrontation. I mean that pure precious jewel of being able to confront someone frankly about any particular load of bullshit that they're slinging at you.

LOBs (loads of bullshit) can take many forms. It can include someone having willingly taken on a hefty bundle of significant tasks for which they've agreed to take responsibility then going AWOL and leaving all the tasks to just hang undone. It can be some pro-lifer shouting at patients coming in the clinic or other types of nonsense tactics they use to harass patients.

As Midwesterners (I know lots of you here in LJ didn't get saddled with Midwesterndom - lucky lucky you), we're at a congenital disadvantage for effectively and healthily dealing with LOBs, as well as the people throwing them. We're too polite, too passive, too restrained. We fantasize about how we could just "tell that son of the bitch what a low-life manipulating bastard he is!" or that we're THIS CLOSE to letting so-and-so know that "that's it! You've dropped the ball repeated on this for the last time and you're done".

And so we stew. And commiserate with anyone or everyone who ISN'T the LOB-thrower about how terrible it all is. And we decry the LOBs that keep getting thrown, and gnash our teeth (really - what the fuck IS "gnashing" one's teeth anyway???) that no one steps up to do anything about it, and "how do they keep getting away with it?!"

Sometimes we come THIS close to just opening our mouths and saying something already, but then we don't - because that would Change Everything. It would be Rude and Impolite, and it would make things Awkward, and someone might end up feeling Sad and Mad.

Heh - this morning at the clinic was evidence of tin lizzy having progressed admirably in throwing her midwesternism under the bus for good. And really - I have roller derby (primarily serving on the board of governors, aka "the BOG") to thank for it. And actually at root I have Ang to thank for it - she was the initial catalyst for helping me to find my spine and start confronting things already. And then there's shwiggitude who's also hugely contributed to my continued growth in the area of confrontation - oh yes, yes you have ;).

But seriously my experience with rollerderby and on the BOG has been so chock full of a constant and never-ceasing stream of LOBs getting thrown at me that my only means for sanity and for ever getting anything done or resolved has been to confront LOBs and LOB throwers. Yes, sometimes I'm still a little slow and/or dripping in diplomacy in doing so, but it's really really helped shove me over the edge in losing my last shreds of fear at confronting people and their LOBs.

Could be a MasterCard commercial for derby girls:

Monthly roller derby dues: $35

Time spent each week on both legit BOG business as well as drama and issues generated by 80 roller girls: 30+

Learning the skill of fearlessly calling people out on their shit: priceless

Oh but wait, I digress, this wasn't supposed to be about roller derby. This was supposed to be about how I lost my shit to Charlie the prolifer outside the women's clinic this morning.

If you've read past posts about my escorting at the clinic, you've heard about Ann. Ann has been replaced by [Crazy] Charlie. Charlie is much less combative, cut-throat, abrasive, screechy, or psychologically manipulative than Ann is. He's much more mild-mannered and humble, but he's irritating and grating in some different ways.

Anyway - one thing he does is shout (loud enough for people clear down the block to hear him) after patients once they've they enter the building, ostensibly with the intent that his Very Important Information about alternatives to abortion might carry through the set of double-doors separating his charges from him.

So this morning after a patient and her friend went into the building, and after Charlie was satisfied with the amount of shouting he did after them, he walked over to the giant wall-windows (the foyer windows of which we're able to keep blinds closed on) of an office in the building thru which he could see the patients waiting for the elevator. He then stood looking dolefully in through the windows, pleading with looks and gestures for the patients to "Please please just come out and let us tell you why you having this baby will be the best decision you've ever made in your life".

It was the pleading through the windows that made me snap. I don't ever interact with the prolifers at the clinic. I don't engage them, I don't talk to them, I don't give them dirty looks or say mean things about them to patients, I don't make small talk, I don't politely smile at them. I simply ignore them, except for what I need to do to stay between them and the patients when walking patients into the clinic.

So completely against character, I lost my shit to Charlie. "Stop DOING that! What's wrong with you - just leave them alone! They don't want to talk to you, they're already feeling nervious and uncomfortable, and they're already in the building already! Just leave them alone!" Charlie just gawped at me, taken aback that I said anything, let alone that I was telling him off, then started to say something along the lines of "But I just want them to know-", before I cut him off and let out a whole slew of how horrible/mean/awful/disrespectful he was for being so threatening and harassing and that what in world makes him think that God is particularly impressed with him saying such guilt-inducing and un-proveable or flat-out untrue things (eg. "No relationship survives abortion!", "No woman has ever regretted KEEPING here baby!").

There was a whole long bunch of things that I just kept barraging at him, undammed at last with all the irritation and frustration that's built up over escorting there the last couple years, particularly having chosen to just maintain radio silence no matter the examples of awful or harasssing behavior. And then he would try to respond with "but I mean to be supportive not threatening" or "i'm only shouting because they can't hear me once inside" and I just kept hitting him with my disputations of how he and other prolifers who harass patients come across regardless of his so-called intention, and asking him how he couldn't conceive that a whole bus full of protesters lining the sidewalk (as happens on saturday mornings) is horribly threatening and intimidating for patients to have to walk through/past.

It turned into a half hour or 45 min interaction that felt both validating and positive, in a way it couldn't have been with Ann. Charlie, for all his crazy wierdness, actually has some humility and agreed when I bored thru some bit or faulty logic he was trying to throw up in his defense of some action. And he wasn't argumentative, just very humble and reflective, and respectful to not pursue areas of discussion that I cut off and refused to engage in (eg. the status of the fetus as living or not).

So all in all it was good for me - I needed to vent some piss and vinegar at him/them, in a way that was heard and acknowedlged by them, and cut through their I-have-an-answer-for-everything BS. I wasn't looking to win some argument with him either, and told him explicitly that I have neither any stake in changing anyone's mind on the fetus-vs-baby debate, nor forcing anyone to come into the clinic for an abortion who doesn't willingly choose to be there. I simply needed to vent my own passion at feeling protective of the women who come into the clinic and my reasons for being there, and my own perception that the prolifers methods, regardless of intention, come across as manipulative, guilt-inducing, threatening, disrespectful and plain mean.

So woo. And hurray for confrontation and getting things off yer chest :)

Thank gods the sun finally came out again today - I don't have to end it all after all. *whew*

You'd think that murky glum days would strike inspiration for doing inside projects - laundry, fixing the p-traps in the kitch and bathroom, weather-proofing the windows, etc. However no - I end up just feeling resentful that doing inside stuff is really the only option on such cold dreary days, and so like a stompy child I dig in my heels and mostly refuse to give in to the logic. Then come sunny bright days I rediscover motivation and inspiration for doing housey things, because I could also be out biking or playing or reading outside - thus I have a choice. And it's the choice that seems to bring the inspiration. I do not like being backed into corners, and glum murky days back me into a corner - which I subsequently take out on my house. Thank god I don't have children.

Now if the above were completely and always true (that could work into an iff - "if and only if" - statement somehow I'm sure), I'd have the most well-maintained, orderly and clear house. However those of you who really know me know this is not the case. The breakdown is that while the maintenance and cleaning bug tends to only bite me when it's happy sunny la la out, it doesn't happen on every happy sunny day. But today is definitely one of those days, could be that they come on days immediately following a succession of glum murky days. Hmmm.

Took Dax to the vet this morning for a follow up check to make sure she wasn't suffering any kidney or liver damage after her most recent Home Alone adventure a couple days ago. She's a big girl dog by this point - 8 yrs old. You'd think that having achieved dog-yeared quinquagenarian status that she'd be long over tearing shit up when left home alone. But no. I mean yes - sometimes she's fantastic and docile and fine, being content to just snooze peacefully and non-destructively on the couch while I'm out. But then there are the frequent destructi-con episodes I come home to, which appear random and driven by nothing in particular but for Dax's mood/whim. Sometimes peaceful snoozing, s/times tear shit up!

My friends shake their heads at me, at my continuance of having faith in Dax's grown-upness, that I keep choosing to extend trust in her, that "maybe this time she'll be fine and won't tear shit up". And many times she fulfills my trust in her. Often times she doesn't. Thursday she didn't.

While I was gone Thursday, Dax decided that 2 sample bottles of Deramaxx (some kind of super-special advil type NSAID med to treat arthritis in dogs) that we'd gotten for Shiloh smelled teh awesome and that she definitely needed to chew through the plastic bottles and eat all the pills. They were on the upper shelf of a closed cabinet next to the door in the living room in which I store most of the dogs' stuff. But somehow her nefarious nose teased out their smell from the general scent of the rest of the room, honed in on them, she managed to extract the bottles from the cabinet, chewed thru them, and ate all 14 pills.

So off to Dr. Jami at the Brooklyn Park Pet Hospital for induced vomiting, activated charcoal, and bloodwork. And after her follow up visit this morning - she's all fine, no residual kidney or liver probs. Just some follow-up pepcid AC she needs to take for a few days since NSAIDs tear up stomachs so bad. She's probably had a couple days of feeling like a rockstar tho - best her joints have ever felt!

Dax: O hai - i invadeded yer pillz an eeted tehm all up.

Ok - so now, my list of things to keep me inside on this beautiful autumn day when I could instead be out frolicking in the leaves:
- laundry (always pre-emptable, but might's'well since I'm here)
- p-trap fixes in the kitch and b/room
- re-caulking the bathtub
- installing a thingie on the edge of the tub wall to keep water from leaking onto the floor
- weather-proofing the windows

No way I'm getting all that done today, so we'll see what I get thru.

Lisa thinks I'm a whackjob (although thankfully in an endearing way :) in regards to my obsessive fascination with spiders and bats, so I have to post this here.

I've made posts in the past about these Garden Orb Weaver spiders that show up for the tail end of summer, crafting these often huge and brilliant Charlotte-style webs (minus any words or messages from what I can tell so far;) in various and sometimes surprising locations around the yard and house exterior (and once, some 6 or so years ago, smack in the middle of my living room).



I'm always super excited for them to show up every year - for the chance to watch them methodically weave their food trap every evening right about dusk and sit stoicly smack in the middle waiting for dinner, to make my own occasional contributions by tossing mosquitoes or moths into the web, to observe how quick work is made of packaging up the unfortunate insects trapped therein, to catch one pulling in the lines of her web the next morning and tucking up into a crack to sleep for the day.

So yes, I'm ridiculously sentimental and in awe of my resident Orb Weaver spiders (which isn't to say that I'm not ridiculously and completely arachnophobic about the usual suspect arachnids that persist in skulking and stalking their creepy bastard selves around my house against my wishes).

Yesterday I had my fondness for these graceful deliberate arachnids boosted by at least an order of magnitude. Jumping back to Thursday afternoon, I was futzing around on the deck and noticed an Orb Weaver hanging haphazardly from the bottom of the table, looking injured and sort of macked up. So I grabbed a City Pages to catch it up with, then put it up on top of the table - where I saw that its dilemma was that it had only 4 legs - all 4 legs on the one side of the body just weren't there.

Couldn't figure that it had managed to make it to arachnid-adulthood without them (tho it was a smaller than the usual adults), but figured the legs must've recently gotten whacked off in some unfortunate accident/encounter. So it hobble-crawled across the top of the table, where I figured it would hole up until it just died of hunger.

Next morning - when I came out to feed Dax, I saw the most brilliant ghetto-looking web between the legs of the table, with my 4-legged friend perched right in the middle. The web had all these crazy angles to it, like a drunken spider had made it with its eyes closed, but it was functional and solid. I just had to laugh in total appreciation - leave it to nature to allow a developmentally disabled spider enough wherewithall to still manage to build webs and survive, I'm hella impressed :).

Last night the Kilmores as a quasi-team event went to Bills Gun Shop in Robbinsdale to shoot handguns at a gun range. The back story is that Scary Moon Zombie just started working at Bill's and there's a new trainer there (they do gun safety/training classes there too) who offered a handgun safety class to all of us for free so he could get some experience in teaching. They also expressed interest in sponsoring the Kilmore girls.

So we talked it over on the Kilmores list to see what we all thought/felt about it. Because of my gut reaction on the topic - wildly anti-gun, wildly anti-conceal-and-carry, anti regular people having semi-automatic guns, fairly gun-phobic, etc (though very pro-hunting), I decided since it was free that I would explore my own impulses and antagonism on guns and do the class. As an aside however, I from the start was and am solidly against any kind of sponsorship by them - hells no. A few of the Kilmores were like "yeah no" and agressively against taking the class, and I made it very clear in our team discussion that it wasn't something for anyone to be lobbying for ( i.e. trying to talk anyone into) - we all get to feel about it however we do, and that the class is a totally optional thing.

Anywho - it was interesting. The guy teaching, Dennis, is a Hennepin County sheriff, and admirable for his safety-focus and no-fucking-around approach to firearms (the kind of pro-gun folks who aren't psycho/hysterical and at least don't make me want to knock their block off), and the class was pretty a-political. As a team bonding thing it was kind of cool, a sort of collective experience of sharing fears and opinions about it all, and having a range of opinions and feelings about it.

The shooting itself was a little scary, all I've shot before are hunting rifles (hunted and did DNR gun safety when I was a kid) and my dad's pistol. Last night we shot a revolver and a .22. The shooting left me feeling mostly just shaky and sketchy - such force and harm done/possible with just a twitch of your finger.

I wasn't surprised to have my overall opinions on carrying/owning a gun unmoved, it actually just clarified and reiterated to me my prior general notions about it. I'm still completely uninclined to ever buy/have a gun, though a couple of the girls were like "hey yeah I think I might sometime look into getting a handgun." For me I see it as there just being some core differences in how people think/feel about guns and fear and defense of themselves. Some folks are definitively in favor of being able to defend-themselves-by-gun in the event of getting assaulted/burgled/etc. However, I'm just mostly non-violent to my core where it comes it dealing with actual agression directed at me (roller-derby notwithstanding;), where in the event of getting assaulted or having a gun drawn on me, my impulse/intent is that I would (hopefully) choose to step outside of and try to circumvent the aggression in whatever ways I can rather than return it, and I'd rather take my chances and risk being harmed/killed w/out drawing a gun on another human.

On a completely different note, afterward gun class, Rainbow, Red Riding Crop, Dawny Darko and I went down to Pizza Luce dowtown for Triviasco with Ian, and finally - after months of going, we WON!! And awesomely what it came down to was us being tied with another team, so to break the tie we had a pint-guzzling contest. I went to bat for my team (confident in my water guzzling abilities, tho I hadn't tried beer before!) going up against some girl from the other team. The results? I guzzled that pint whole without even taking a breath - she didn't even get half thru before I was finished. Geez how frat-boy do I feel ;). So our prize was a $50 bar tab (which we used for our bill for the 4 of us) and $50 for Solera restaurant downtown. Sweet :)

Other derby awesomeness of late:

1) link to the North Star Roller Girls' appearance (specifically Cher Noble, Napalmer and myself) on Drinking With Ian.

2) Last weekend the North Star Roller Girls traveling team (made up of some of the most awesome skaters from all four NSRG teams!!) journeyed to Indianapolis for our first away-bout ever, to bout the Naptown Roller Girls Tornado Sirens. The prospect of bouting girls outside of our own league was a little yikes, and bouting in a new location and on a different floor, but we ended up beating them soundly - NSRGs 118, Naptown 86.

I snapped a phone pic of a fan-damn-tastic bruise on my left leg below my ass, but my bluetoothing between powerbook and phone isn't working out quite right. However, here are a couple awesome photos caught at the bout by one of their photo dudes (he's locked them from being sourced or copied, so just links):

tin lizzy jammin #1

tin lizzy jammin #2

bench shot

pack shot

taking a helmet to the face...

...and managing to stay on my skates while the other chik went down - yeah BIATCH!

So get this...

Wait no - let me provide a back drop:

Fact #1: I used to work (circa 1995-1997) at Star Base Omega (R.I.P) which used to reside in the Mall of the Universe. A function of my employment stint there was the accumulation of a largeish hodge-podge of gamer geek friends, many of whom I'm still to varying degrees connected nearly 10 years later.

Fact #2: I'm a derby skater for the North Star Roller Girls, which y'all know unless you've been living in a cave for the past year.

Current scenario:
I just go an email from Cmdr Rexfall - good friend and former Capt/Commander under me (everyone take a moment to consider "under me") while at SBO, to whom I used to give good screws (sorry - bad inside pun-joke that had to be included). I haven't spoke/emailed directly with Rexfall for probably a couple/few years now because I'm 35 kinds of lame and haven't managed to pull my self-indulgent head out of my self-indulgent ass long enough to sit down and respond to the occasional email grendades he so diligently lobs my way.

And for the record - Star Base Omega (henceforth referred to as SBO) and roller derby share a feature of employing the use of alter-egos rather than real names. So while in derby we have skater names (tin lizzy, Tara Ryzin', Freddy Kruelgirl, etc), at SBO we had character names (which were prefixed by our rank) and were expected to be in-character at all times while on the floor (eg. Adm Paul^3, Cmdr Rexfall, Capt Tails, Cmdr T'loch, etc). And likewise where I know skaters by their derby names and rarely by real names, at SBO I would generally be hard-pressed at any given point to draw up a Capt or Commander's real name. So while I do happen to know that while Rexfall's real name is Ryan, calling him Ryan would feel as odd as calling Freddy Kruelgirl (one of the Kilmore Girls) by her real name, or likewise for me to be expected to answer to my real name rather than tin lizzy. Anyway - you get me ;)

So today's email (and an accompanying voice mail) discloses that Rex is out in San Diego (where he's been a few years now) hanging out with Tara Ryzin', one of the Kilmore Girls, who's out there for a few days. And not only that, but that he actually met her out in San Diego when she was roommates (in SD) with another former SBOer and good friend of Rex's (and with whom I have my own sordid SBO past >;) - Capt D'Kytef. I still need to snoop further into the what/hows and origins of Tara Ryzin' and D'Kytek getting connected out in San Diego, and Tara landing back here in MN and joining up with our derby league, and whether it's all really as ridiculously improbable as it seems, in which case who's been making use of an Infinite Improbability Drive in my general vicinity?

Meanwhile, I'm going slink off into the corner to coalesce into largest prime number.

And confidential to weaponepsilon: I HAVE THE The Last Starfighter TAPE!!!

Hey so it's almost that time of the month again - and by THAT time of the month I mean ROLLER DERBY TIME biatches!!

February 24th you can come see the fabulous and undefeated Kilmore Girls bout the mighty mighty Banger Sisters!

So while soylentmean was skating her bitchin ass off last night during her debut at the season-opener of the MN RollerGirls (the missing of which I'm definitely headed to hell for, in the event that I wasn't already guaranteed a one-way ticket there ;), I was with Cher Noble, Napalmer and a hoard of other North Star Roller Girls at a taping of Drinking With Ian - on which we were the guests. I haven't found out exactly when our episode will air, it was the 2nd of 3 episodes they taped, but I'll be sure to post it in the event that any of you are wondering what the bloody hell I've been up to lately.

I'm on an lj community called whatwasthatbook tasked with helping people figure out those books from your past whose titles have long ago quietly slunk off the premises of your memory, but that you're dying to re-remember and from which you can recall snippets of characters/plot. So you make a post about it on this comm and more often than not people on the comm amazingly manage to pull these book titles out of their asses to share back.

It's exactly what I need at the moment, but not the whatwasthatbook because it wasn't a book, it was tv or movie and I'm just recalling the paraphrased quote that fits an observation I'm having presently but can't find a frame of reference for it...

something about "goodnight...tho i'll probably kill you in the morning"

edit - oh fer goddess' sake - of COURSE it's from the Princess Bride, whatever is wrong with me?!

happily it didn't take me doing a quote search before I remembered it, but I might as well put the full quote here:

"Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

As per my usual modus operendi, I'm once again the last kid on the block to catch on to something really freakin awesome. Not that my cluelessness is always even really intentional, I'm just attentionally fractured, self-involved and/or lazy enough to not bother mostly.

Being the last one to jump on the latest craze wagon of whatever-it-is generally has more benefits than detractors. For one - it keeps me from being completely rolled under and choked to death by wave after wave of the unending landfill of pop-culture, 99% of which isn't worth sacrificing my toenail-clipping time over. Additionally for things like t.v. or books, I find it a bonus to not get sucked in until a few seasons/books in, so that once I am hooked I have a whole lot of fodder to then wallow around in all at once rather than having to anemically sustain myself from episode to episode, book to book. The X-files, Star Trek TNG, the Dresden Files books, Lyda Morehouse, etc - all discovered after-the-fact.

There are of course bennies to riding the fad wave along with the rest of the schmucks. Not only do you not have to be the rube asking what the "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World" scrawled on yer co-worker's white-board is all about, but you get to be a whole part of some momentary group-think Borg-collective centered on whatever show/book/game where you can freely and unapologetically indulge and obsess with your fellow cult-monkees, exhibit #1 for me - Heroes.

It's kind of like the Wise Men - I mean they eventually caught up with the Christ-craze, but like 2 years after-the-fact. Yeah they finally got to participate, and it was probably fairly worthwhile missing out on those first 2 messy/smelly/drooling years, but they missed the whole manger/harking-angels thing and couldn't really be considered among the hard-core original fans, could they? Once they finally got there they probably went around trying to recreate the magic and get the local shepherds, sheep, oxen, angels, et al all wound-up again about it, while I'm sure everyone else just rolled their eyes and were all like "Dude - that baby-Jesus thing is so 2-years-ago".

Anyway - the latest bandwagon I've thrown myself on waaaaaay after-the-fact is Dance Dance Revolution. One thing keeping that off my radar for so long is that I don't console-game and don't have any of the prescribed console games required to have even tried it out. I first saw it at some arcades and was like "huh - lookit those gamer geeks sport some hella moves", then later a la soylentmean and company though didn't take the opp to try it out. Then prior to our last derby bout while a bunch of us got ready at one of the Kilmore's house, I tried it out as a little pre-bout warmup. So I mentioned it in passing at some point in the vicinity of Ang and Jen, when lo but what before mine wondering birthday eyes should appear last week but DDR for the Xbox! The coolness being that because they have an xbox I can borrow it until I pick one up for myself.

So now - am a total DDR addict. I picked up a second control pad and a bunch of us got together last Friday to eat cake, drink wine and DDR. I stayed up until 1:30 am last night DDRing. It's ridiculous. But guess what - I've now graduated it to the Basic level. And yeah - as per usual I'm way late to the game, but whatever ;).

and shwiggitude? yer gonna LOVE this...granted not that you need any help with busting out your own impromptu house-dancing to your own beat/groove/style, but this just makes it even easier and more addicting....

Wow - I just iTunes'd an old Amy Grant Xmas album I used to have in high school but haven't heard since then. One of tracks "Heirlooms" just came on and I just remembered that my bestest friend at the time Leah and I sang that song as a duet for special music during a christmas service at our church circa high school. Wow - I'd completely forgotten about that.

I haven't talked to her in years now, up in Canada married to a pastor as she is and me down here in Mpls and not so much a Christian anymore.

The older I get, the more lamely nostalgic I get. ;)

Soooo awesome - it's like spring here in Mpls today, over 40 degs. Not good for instantly arousing in oneself the Christmas spirit perhaps, but for that I'm pulling out some Xmas music and putting my christmas tree up. I may have drifted completely non-Christian and non prefer to celebrate Solstice with my friends and chosen-family, but christmas music and the season (minus all the overkill and crap that has sprung up around it) will always be completely habit and comfortable to me.

I only wish for my beloved to be here to curl up with me by the fire (when it gets back to being cold enough to have one;) and watch Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas and A Muppet Christmas Carol.

I haven't been on LJ much these days, derby has been my eating/breathing and sleeping, but hope you're all doing well and enthusing into whatever holidaying suits you this time of year!

And - so awesome to run into harveytchainsaw, who is complete sweetness :), and many others at the MNRG bout last night!! I love that the MNRG bouts have become the place where I run into so many people, it feels a bit like the hockey and football games we went to in junior high and high school, which were more about walking around and chatting with friends than watching the game. Although in this case the bout-watching is just as important and fun, but with plenty of opp to run around feeling like your in junior high again :).

Saw soylentmean in her rookie debut at the bout (*squee*!) getting to try for champion of a little pre-bout Queen of the Rink! QotR is kind of like King of the Hill, but on skates on a track - I'm sure you get the picture. She didn't get QotR, but sure was hella awesome to see her knocking some of those rookies on their asses. Next month's bout will be her official debut playing with the Rockits!!

Now for some Amy Grant, Anne Murray, Neil Diamond and Michael W Smith!

Ok - so while I was up in duluth over the weekend hanging at the hospital with my Gram, we ended up watching Singing In The Rain...

...and suddenly I discovered a serious jonesin for old flics. I definitely need to go rent West Side Story, it's been far too long since I've seen that.

But anyone got some suggs on some other good old movies? I'm thinking specifically circa 1950s, particularly musicals! And especially with some fab actors - Gene Kelly, Katherine Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland!

Who am I and what has someone done with the real tin lizzy??

Just a reminder - if y'all are interested in some shwigginacious kwanzukahsolstmas gifts for friend/fam or even your own space, while supporting Cameroonian artisans and a cool library project, check out shwiggitude's post. You've only got a little over a week to make yer orders as her folks are over there now and will be bringing all the goodies ordered back with them for you to pick up when they get back Dec 18th, just in time for whatever holiday you celebrate!

If you have any questions about ordering stuff and getting it shipped elsewhere here in the states rather than picking it up in Mpls, let me know as that can easioy be arranged!