In Which Connor Is Fine And I Do A Whole Heck Of A Lot Of Skating

Everything is fine!

I was just so exhausted last night that I fell asleep before I posted.  I woke up about two in the morning and realized I hadn't blogged, but by then I was just so comfy it was too late.

It was an extremely eventful day, though.  I got up at about five in the morning and drove over to my friend Annie's place to pick her up.  Then we were off to Seattle for a roller derby boot camp! 

Of course we didn't actually have tickets for the boot camp, which sold out in October.  But we figured if we showed up and someone else didn't come maybe they would let us pay there and then skate.  So we got there early enough to stop and have an extremely tasty short breakfast at a coffee shop, and then we took a couple of deep breaths and walked into the Rat's Nest, which is what the Rat City Roller Girls have named their practice building.

We were directed to sit down next to the one other girl who'd had the same idea we did; she'd driven all the way from Ellensburg--almost two hours-- on the off chance they'd let her skate.  We sat down against the wall and watched the other girls warm up for a little bit, and then they told us we could stay!  So we signed our waiver (there are A LOT of waivers associated with roller derby since it's an extreme sport), geared up, and were off!

We skated from 8:00 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon, which was pretty awesome!  They broke down a lot of basic techniques into bite size pieces so that we were able to really focus on form.  Then we had a one hour seminar on skate care and maintenance, and a talk on nutrition for roller derby as well.  All of the information was extremely helpful and I'm really glad that Annie and I decided to take a chance and go!  We left the Rat's Nest at about 2:30 and grabbed some lunch at a local Thai restaurant before driving over to Fast Girl Skates, where I bought myself a new pair of knee pads (I managed to crack one of my knee pads a couple days ago, and the ones I'd bought at the local sports store weren't cutting it) and an extra set of nuts for my wheels.  Then I dropped Annie off and it was back to the house, where Jeremy was waiting so we could go out to dinner (we had Joanna for respite care all day).  We went out to one of our local sushi places and then made a quick stop into one of our local coffee shops (of course).  After that we ran home so I could grab my skates, and we were off to a skating rink for some fun!

And yes, I am well aware of the fact that I skated for five hours earlier in the day.  But I seem to have the same philosophy about skating that I do about books and tea.  If there's one thing better than skating, it's more skating.

Jer hasn't been up on skates since well before he was injured, so he wanted to try and see if he was still able to skate.  He mostly skated on roller blades, but he decided he wanted to take a spin on some quads.  He looked really good out there-- certainly way, way better than I did when I first tried on a pair of skates a couple months ago.  He said that he can feel his feet when he leans in on the turns, but otherwise I think they worked out pretty well!  I think he wants to try roller blades next, and he'll purchase a pair of whatever works better so we can go skating together.  The artistic skates (the kind the skating rink rents you when you go there) have a raised heel which is nice for him since his ankles are a little stiff, so they may end up being the way he goes.

Anyway, so we skated for about an hour and then ended the evening at (of course) the bookstore. 

Connor did really well on the raised dose of medication and (thank goodness) actually slept through the night last night.  We've got some respite care again today and Jeremy will be getting some alone time since I'll be at the second half of my workshop! 

I promise I'll blog tonight, though.  Sorry about that.

~Jess