OMG I Totally Missed My Calling...

So first and foremost...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLUEBERRY (one day later).

There now that that's out of my system. What did we do for Blueberry's birthday...well go to the roller derby of courst. Which, as you know, counts toward my Forty new things for 40!

The rest of the photos are on Flickr should you feel the need.

Let me just say, I so could have been a roller derby girl. The MomUnit can attest to how I was a roller skating fiend in my youth! I was at the rink almost every weekend. I could go backwards, sideways, shoot the duck (go down in a squating position with one leg extended), I was fast and I could crash like the best of them. In fact, truth be told my FIRST kiss was on the roller skating rink with Tommy something or other during a slow skate.

ahem, but I digress.

I WANNA be a roller derby girl in my next life. There's a whole sub-culture that exists that we had no idea was there. These chicks...and that's a nice term for them, are brutally awesome in their own roller derby way. A lot of them I'd not want to meet in a dark alley, ever. Buff, tough, and seriously good at what they do.

Upon entering the arena Blueberry and I were "tagged" by a very tall, beefy woman with red lipstick and black eye liner, I wasn't going to argue with her when she wanted to put war paint on our face. Little did we know that was a team we'd be rooting for. Then we found the Rat ... had to stop and snap a photo with the Rat. He stunk too...wow did he. (PhotoGirl, The Rat, me, and Blueberry)

The first bout was just okay. It gave us a chance to wade through the "what the hell is going on". We had no idea what the rules really were - we had an idea, but weren't able to put them in perspective. The "jams" (2 minute game for lack of a better word) were so fast and furious that you couldn't really tell what was going on. They had like 6 refs, they had penalty boxes, and 10 derby girls on the route smashing, skating, and body checking each other. What sane person could figure this out? Being a very sane person, I wandered off to find rule books, which helped a bit more.

Each bout has two 30 minute periods. A jam is 2 minutes unless the lead jammer calls it off - which they do by slapping their hips. The "pack" was responsible for basically not allowing the lead jammer through. Each time the lead jammer looped the pack points were made. It was all so interesting and odd and exhilarating.

There were two bouts last night: Bout 1 Sockit Wenches vs. Throttle Rockets. I know, right? Great names. Bout 2: Derby Liberation Front (DLF) vs Grave Danger. We then found out that Blueberry and I had been tagged by Grave Danger - so despite the fact that DLF were the favorites, we had to root for Grave Danger.

So Bout 1 was just okay. The chicks could skate and there was some fantastic battles out there. But out 2....WOW. The first jam starts and you could almost see our entire group scoot up to the edge of their seats. THESE chicks were going to be brutal...and they did not disappoint. Their skating, body checking, snarling, jamming, everything was that much better than the first bout. It felt like watching the Mariners after watching the Aqua Socks.

By the time the second bout came, well, about, we knew what was going on and found ourselves cheering with the rest of them. We never did get the scoring right. After each bout we'd chat about how many points we thought the lead jammer got, and we were rarely, if ever, right.

All in all, I'm going again. AND I need a Roller Derby name. Two, well three, were mentioned last night when I said I found my calling. 1) Jentle Death; 2) Jentle Wrat and 3) Mentle Jentle (Thanks Yank for that). But some of their names just cracked us up: JoWanna Asskicking; Mona Lethal; Darth Skater; Crash Gordon...and much much more...so see, I need a roller derby name.

PS - Who ever left me the Anonymous comment - first who are you - second - sorry I didn't root for DLF...but I so would if I saw them again...they were quite simply AWESOME!