28 to 55

I feel so proud. We managed to lose by the slimmest margin we've had all season! We're getting better.

Things I've learned:

- "The Key" has something to do with getting close to the basket.

- If you get too close to the basket and stay there, you get into trouble with the refs. Something about "3 seconds" or something.

- Playing basketball in a gym without air-conditioning in the valley in the middle of the day is like working out in an oven. With lots of people watching you sweat.

- It helps to keep your arms in the air pretty much all the time.

- Be careful of keeping your hands in the air - people will try to throw a basketball at you. You will be expected to catch it.

- You can touch the basketball if someone else is trying to shoot it, but you can't punch it out of their hands. FYI.

I've Been Tagged

Okay, thanks to DA, I've been tagged and must now share 5 embarrassing moments from my childhood (I'm a little late with my answers but here goes). Let's see...

1) We grew up spending a lot of time with some family friends, Amy and Melanie. They got a Video Recorder early in the 1980s, when they were still relatively new and rare, and we LOVED to make little videos. I was one of the tallest of our group so - when we did "weddings" or "proms" I was generally cast as a boy. There was one day, though, that I decided to put my foot down. We were doing a wedding, and Amy was going to be the maid of honor and sing "My Favorite Things" from The Sound Of Music. (Because... totally appropriate for a wedding.) I was supposed to be the Reverend. (For those of you who know her, AQ was the little bride, marrying Melanie, who had consented - under protest - to be the groom). But I was tired of being a boy! So Amy agreed that I could be the maid of honor, provided I still let her sing "My Favorite Things." Fine! Deal! Except... when it came time for the song, with video recorder rolling and all eyes turned to Amy (who - it should be pointed out - could actually sing) I started belting out a squeaky "My Favorite Things" rendition that would have sent Julie Andrews shrieking for the nearest exit. Amy freaked out, and the wedding came to a screeching halt, but I was supremely satisfied. I'm sure that video still exists somewhere, just waiting for the perfect moment to resurface as blackmail...

2) I hated middle school. A LOT. This was just a few years after I had discovered how AWESOME! books could be, and spent most of my conscious time reading. I got to school early and got to hang out with some friends in a classroom (one of my friends had a mom who taught at our school) which was far superior to being cast into the seventh level of hell which was the middle school hallway between classes. They used to play all sorts of games before school while I sat in a corner and read trying to block out the whole experience (I'm telling you, I HATED middle school). They started to get a little peeved that I never played with them, and finally convinced me to try playing games for a week. They were so convinced if I played for a week, I'd never go back to my books. So I put the book down and played all sorts of games with them every day before classes for one week. At the end of the week they asked "See? Wasn't that better than reading?" And I said "No." I mean, sure, it had been fun... but better than BOOKS??? For the rest of the year I would go to the classroom where they were all playing games and read in the corner. Happily.

3) I was addicted to an after school cartoon called "The Seven Cities Of Gold" that no one else in this world seems to remember. Oh, that and "Gem And The Holograms." That's right. Gem, oh, she's truly outrageous. Truly, truly outrageous.

4) Another Amy and Melanie story: We were filming a magic show. Amy was the magician - I was her assistant. I was all dressed up in my seven-year-old bikini and one of the mom's old lingerie robes (this one was see-through orange with a frilly border). We were doing a "magic trick" where we shoved my little sister into the plywood half of a rabbit hutch (she was very small at this point) and she scooted the rabbit into the wire part, thereby "turning" into a rabbit for the camera. With much flourish and ceremony, we helped Little Q into the hutch. That part where I locked her in (for like, 10 seconds, come on!) - yeah, that wasn't in our rehearsal. It is - however - immortalized on tape. Good thing VHS is a dead technology...

5) My mom and AQ and I used to play charades. We would do "characters from movies" charades, and liked to come up with stumpers. I remember one day (I was 8) I got on my back on the floor, put my arms and legs in the air, and belched. Over and over. They were mystified. They asked if this was a character from a movie and I nodded vigorously. I gave them clues to which movie. They were mystified. When I finally told them - "The Pit Of Sarlak!" they were mystified. Pit of...??? You know, from Return Of The Jedi! Did I mention I was a geek from the start?

All right! I'm tagging AQ and JB! Fess up!

20 To 63

Our second game... better than the first.

I didn't score any points this time, but I did block a few shots and got some rebounds, so I felt like I contributed some things.

I don't play next weekend, but the following weekend we're playing what is supposed to be the meanest team in the whole league. Hm. I'm contemplating wearing two sports bras... I hear these "ladies" are pretty free with their elbows.

Trip To The House Of Pain

Most of you probably already know we got a kitten. If this is news, check out wamez for the update.

Little Storm and I had a bit of an adventure yesterday. She hurt her paw sometime the night before, and when I went in to feed her she didn't get up and run over to me like she normally does in the mornings. She was trembling really badly, and when she did try to walk, she could only hop forward once or twice before she'd just cry and curl up into a little shaking ball.

JB and I freaked out. My mind - of course - leaps straight to neurological disorder causing paralysis on the right side of her body.

So Storm and I went to the vet yesterday. We were there for 2 to 3 hours. I remember my dad telling me this story about how right after I was born (I had jaundice) the doctor had to take a blood sample to test. He stuck a needle in my ankle to draw the blood. My father said he was overcome with the urge to punch the doctor out when he heard me scream.

I felt a shadow of that at the vet's yesterday. Since we can't just ask her where it hurts, the vet grabbed her hurt arm and pulled on it, stretched it over her head, folded it up every which way, all of which made her cry piteously.

But then he squeezed her paw closed to test her wrist - so hard I saw his fingers shaking - and she SCREAMED.

She's just a baby, and she was twisting in his hands and screaming. It took all my will power not to jab my fingers into his eyes and grab her back from him. I liked the vet, and he'd been really gentle and had scratched her and kissed her, but at that moment I truly believed he had only become a vet because he's a sadist and wanted to torture little helpless animals without getting thrown in prison.

Now, all of that being said, it was a sprained wrist. They gave her a shot to take down the swelling, took some x-rays to confirm nothing was broken, and sent her home with me.

She had cried all the way to the vet's, one nonstop deluge of kitty pleas. But on the way home, she was mostly silent. Thinking, I feel sure, wherever in the world I was taking her next couldn't possibly be as awful as the place we had just left.

19 To 97

I played in my first basketball game today. Actually, if we're counting, it was my very first ever organized-teams-with-uniforms sporting event.

And we lost 19 to 97. No, I'm not joking, and if you need any confirmation, just ask JB. He was there to watch all the gory details.

HOWEVER. I also made a basket and therefore scored 2 of our 19 points. Me. With the hopped-up-on-adreneline-18-year-old-high-school-basketball-opposing-team all over my ass. YES.

Did I mention that our opponents were an actual high school girls basketball team? As in a "we practice every day for 3 hours and know our teammates strengths and weaknesses intimately" high school basketball team? Or, if you like, a "we can run solid up and down the court for an hour why are you breathing so hard?" basketball team?

It was... I'm just too tired to finish this blog.

19 to 97 people. 19 to 97.