Today, The Derby Happened

This was perhaps the best bout ever. (That almost became "boutiest," which is not even remotely a word.) Both CLTRG teams posted wins. The All-Stars won a sanctioned game and B-Dazz beat their rivals. I got an MVP award. I could not be more pleased or exhausted. I promise for this post to be fully written manana.

Update: Awake and refreshed this day.

I would now like to tell you about the day that was yesterday.

I did not feel on it all day. Setup was confusing. I had no clear plan of what I wanted for lunch. I did a sort of driveby past Lacey and Sassy teaching their pseudo-son Armando to use the atm. I had an interesting talk with a leaguemate I cried some. I thought about the last time we played Charleston. I wasn't even sure I wanted to play. I felt low.

Team warm-ups made it better. For the first time ever, our B-team bout was to be second. So we did our offskates warm-ups upstairs. It was clear we weren't exactly taking it seriously. So, we had a little dance party. I think that really got everybody pumped up. This may be a new tradition.

Our onskates warm-ups felt a little scattered. I don't think anybody was focused. I know I was contributing, but I couldn't get into a better head space. A teammate got some bad news that morning and was trying to get herself right.

The A-team bout started off well. They took a knee at the jammer line in the first jam, got lead and scored a quick 14 points. That was exciting. It's nice to see our All-Stars be rockstars. They continued to dominate the whole game. After the first half, I didn't want to get too involved in the game or tire myself from watching, so I went and chilled in the locker room and started to get geared up.

We decided to try a scrum start in the first jam to get lead fast, but that sort of backfired on us. However it became a powerjam or something. I think it was in that jam when our jammer, Hitstera, was charioting off me and I hit one of the blockers out of her way and opened up a whole and then swung across and hit another one of their blockers and cleared a wide path for her. That was one of my favorite moments from the evening. We posted 9 points or something on that jam.

I jammed a lot last night. Pretty successfully too. I didn't really get stuck in the pack for too long. I did go down a few times, but I absorbed more blocks than that. They were hitting me, but it just wasn't strong enough. We took an early and managed to increase it. We got up 50 points and really started making it happen. Charleston seemed to get a little desperate. There were a lot of jams I saw where they got lead, but didn't call it immediately and scored points but let us score too. There were a bunch of jams that were basically 1-0 for them, but after we'd gotten a significant lead.

My second favorite moment of the night was in the last jam. They called a timeout when there was something like 28.7 seconds on the period clock, so we got one more jam. Leah/Hits jammed and I was blocking. I think Alley Capone and Mustang Stella were out there. It turned into a powerjam. I kept telling them not to chase goats and just caboose instead. At one point, "NO PACK" was called and Ringo Stardust turns around and skates backwards in reforming. The game was won at this point. I just looked at her and smiled.

Great job to both teams. It was amazing to have two wins for a home crowd.

The afterparty was lackluster. We were promised karaoke but that did not happen. So we had dry chicken instead. And after all my hard work, I received an award. The "Unforeseen Threat" award. I suppose that's a Most Improved kind of thing from February to now. Also, we sort of stormed Jackalope's next door as they had karaoke and I got some free Rock of Ages swag, but the karaoke machine went down and would not come back before I could sing. I did get to hear O. Fine's rendition of "Baby Got Back" which is on the list of my favorite things in the world.

Here it is, a tiny skateboard.
Sorry it's sideways, I apparently can't rotate it here.
In case you were wondering, the trucks don't pivot.

So, that's the picture. Let me explain. I'm on the Bout Production committee. I've noticed that in the NFL, MVPs get like a Corvette as their award. I thought it would be clever if we did little toy cars, as in, 'Here's your free car." MVP Jammer got a little sports car. MVP Blocker got like a Hummer. The Unforeseen Threat award was an idea we kind of took from Charleston. Thanks, guys! And our head of BP, Tasty Murder, wanted to have it be like a white windowless "Creeper Van." But hey, the store doesn't sell them. So it's a skateboard instead. What's more unforeseen than a skateboard? And Hell Vetica Bold found this website that prints these little cards, hence the tag. On the reverse, it has the logos of both teams and the date.

I set this goal for myself, that I would consider moving up to the Charter when I received an MVP award, because it would then mean that my peers were also recognizing my growth. It might be time.