For Kim...

Thanksgiving has come and gone. This is always a bitter sweet time for me.
20 years ago on Thanksgiving Day a dear friend of mine, and the child she was pregnant with died in a horrific car accident. Her husband was almost paralyzed, others, including her other children, were seriously injured. The day burns in my memory like a white hot rod. I'll never forget the look on my mom's face when she got the phone call, turned and looked at me and started to cry. When I got the news I was destroyed. I was 15 years old. Already an over emotional out of control teenager. Kim was my neighbor I had developed a close friendship with and looked to her like an older sister. I babysat her children Jason and Rhea and when she was pregnant again, I was so excited to meet Karly Ann. She and her baby were taken from our world much too soon.
I also remember, soon after that we had an assignment in my drama class to write and perform a monologue. I poured my emotions into a very violent, dark monologue which consisted of my killing the man who killed my dear friend. Who crashed into their SUV with his semi-truck on a road he should have never been driving on. Who took my friends life so tragically. This was the only way I knew how to deal with it. The class was silent when I finished. I stumbled offstage in a rage of emotion. My teacher followed me out of the classroom and sat me down. He told me what I did was phenomenal. It was raw. It was real. That is my first memory of realizing I wanted to be an actor.
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. Life is so strange that way. Time becomes an enemy. Love your friends. Love your family. Cherish your time, especially with those you love.
It took me a very very long time to get over the death of my friend. But now I look back and I'm thankful she was in my life. I'm thankful she touched me more than she will ever know. I'm thankful she pushed me towards my dream. I'm thankful I'm still in touch with her children. I'm thankful, and cried my eyes out from happiness, when I found out her daughter just gave birth to a baby girl she named Karly Hope. 20 years later. She's beautiful just like her mom, and just like Kim whose memory will live on in my heart forever.
I love you Kim and miss you every day.

Bowling...

The only reason I am blogging this late on a weeknite is because I'm on such a friggin high there is no way I can sleep!!!! Let me tell you why:

So. I'm part of NLAA sports. This is a party league that hosts such things as kickball, bowling, ultimate Frisbee, softball, dodge ball, volleyball and maybe some others. I joined the Drunken Degenerates kickball team a few years back, had a great time, met some great new friends but sadly the league grew and people start behaving like douchebags so the fun died out for me. So - our old captain emailed me asking if I wanted to try the bowling out. Sure! I promptly signed up and was ready to go. She ended up having to drop out and told me to stay in and be captain. I was a little hesitant at first since I've only bowled randomly here and there and I really don’t know much about the sport except you roll a ball and hit some pins. My wonderful friends Anna and Sergio I met through the Bistro crew years and years ago were on board to play. Sergio brought on his sister, and they brought their cousin and his sister. There was our 6 person team. The normal league nights work like this – you play 3 games. 4 people play at a time. You get a point for each game you win. Everyone gets to bowl twice. They use handicaps (Thank GAWD) and they list weekly stats, etc.
First of all, I want to say my team is fucking awesome. None of us are bowlers, but we were all willing to give it a go. The gal who was going to be captain had already registered us as The Talkin Turkeys (Which I found out later - Turkey is actually a bowling term) so I kept the name and emailed the head of the league telling him I had no clue what the hell I was doing but I was willing to stay captain and do this. He was great. Explained everything, and of course it's all about the fun!
So - it began.
8 weeks flew by. We learned more and more and improved a great deal. We of course were not as good as a lot of the other players, but we had a blast every night and loved the fact that we were all getting better. Later in the season, the head of the league deemed us the most fun team. We had matching turkey shirts and hats made up for our bumper bowling Halloween evening. And for the playoffs silly hats were brought and worn. We always out drink most of our competitors. Our bar tab smoked our bowling score (Which was actually a joke in one of the league emails). Our team was teased but liked. We always had fun.
A little side note - I used to be extremely competitive. I'm not anymore. Now I'm in it for the fun. I'm older, my body is more broken, I just want to have fun and meet new people. My teammates are the same. Agave Tequila is the sponsor of the league, so I'm always supporting our sponsor and Mango Margaritas became my bowling night drink. My 5 other teammates are Hispanic and I'm Irish - yup we were also the drinking team and constantly joked about that. We really had so much fun!!!!
Tonight was the play offs. It was set up bracket style - once you lost you were out. You could stay and bowl, but you were out of the playoffs. We all planned on not making it past our 1st round and were totally ok with it. We arrived with silly hats, ordered our usual large order of food and drink and started our game. I had jammed my wrist earlier in the week in boxing class, but was determined to still play our last game of the season. We won. Holy shit!!! We were thrilled!!!
I told my team I was so proud we made it to round 2!!! Look at us rookies! We altered our line up and played the 2nd game. I got the exact same score both games, and guess what - we won again. NO WAY!!! We were ecstatic. We started the final game. I was starting to really hurt and swell up at this point. I was doing pretty well so my team had wanted me to stay in for game 3 since I was doing good, and we altered our line up again. Now - funny thing is - I didn’t realize we were in the FINALS. Yes - the captain was clueless as usual. It was about 3/4 of the way through the game that someone clued me in that we were the last 2 teams standing. WHAT!!!???? So we were going to be 2nd place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoooo!!! We were playing an awesome team - very fun group - very nice - and a blast to play. I loved it!!! What a great way to end the season.
We won.
WHAT!!!!
We won.
I think all of us were in shock at this point.
WE FUCKING WON!!!!
The head of the league cheered and pulled us all aside to take the winning team photo.
Are you kidding me!?
Our rookie team, all about the fun, WE WON THE WHOLE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My 1st time as a captain!!!!
Yes, the other teams were not playing their best. They should have wiped the floor with us. But we won. The underdogs won.
The entire way home I couldn’t stop smiling. I even laughed a few times.
I just can’t believe we won!!!!!
I really want to say, the fact that we were relaxed, cool, fun people, a great team spirit and just all around an awesome team. We played really well. Violet bowled her best game yet. We fucking rocked. I'm so proud of my team and so proud that we won because we had fun. No drama! No bullshit! Just a great group of friends having a fantastic time. Oh and we WON!!! We are the champions. That’s right!
What a great night.
Talkin Turkeys - WE ROCK!!!!!

ROC Race...

Ok here's the latest and greatest....Seriously, my favorite one yet!!!!
The whole reason I started doing these random 5K's, was because my obsession with climbing and jumping on things. Maybe it's the kid in me, maybe it's because I don’t want to grow up, maybe it's because I can’t run for shit but I have awesome upper body strength, who knows. This race was geared just for that. It was made by the peeps who do Wipeout and one of the Mud Runs (I forget which one. It took place at the Pomona Fairgrounds. As soon as I heard the name I was so in!!!!! It's even sillier then the others, most people dress up or at least wear matching team costumes like we did, there is a huge dance party/DJ set up and a fantastic high energy host who basically "kept the party going".
We got there a bit before 8am (Our wave was at 9am). It was freeeeezing!!!! Our outfits were tanks and I had shorts on, hoping my knee high pink socks would keep me warm enough. Figuring once we start going I'll be fine, since all my other races I've been so hot/sweaty at the end. We checked it out, goofed around, did and impromptu warm up dance thing with this bad ass chick who I think was a fire fighter. And then the dance party started. It was a great warm up!!!!

This guy in an afro called all who was there over to this stage and got everyone riled up. People were jumping and laughing and dancing and shouting. It was fantastic!!!

Our time was called. We headed over to the starting line and waited. The let the individual runners go 1st, then the teams of 4, then the unlimited teams which we were. We called ourselves The Shot Chasers. I found these great tanks online, and D got the socks. I thought we looked pretty freakin awesome!!

Off we went. Our team pretty much stayed together the whole time. Chay and his roomie Kristin (Met her race day - very cool chick) were runners, but kept pace, Court/D are the usual trot/walk gals, Megs was going between them and me, and my knee was especially acting up due to the cold so I was not running much at all. It's all good, my fast paced walk is always fine with me. We'd split and come back together all throughout the race. Part of the reason was one of the drawbacks of the race and that was - alot of the obstacles had a back up. They were somewhat difficult, so you'd get up to it and then have to wait. So if you were doing this race for time - forget it.
1st obstacle - Louche Libre Assault. Two dudes with Mexican Wrestler masks that attacked you with these big sticks with cushy things on the end. Hilarious. I made it thru unscathed.
2nd - The Barriers. They were about 4 feet high cement things. Maybe about 10 of em? I was quite proud here. All of the other people were climbing over them. I literally used my arms, gave myself a hoist and hopped over all of them. I got thru faster than anyone else.
3rd - Zombies. Yup. I was dying. We ran thru these stables and these zombies came tearing out of the stables. I was laughing so hard I almost fell. They would run at you then veer off. People were either screaming or laughing. I loved it.
4th - Mud Tubes. We had to wait a bit here. There were 3 metal tubes going up mud hills and covered in snow. Did I mention the race had extra mud due to the rains? And snow? WTF! We had to crawl up thru the tubes in the mud. There were 2 sets of these. We got quite muddy at this point.
5th - Jump Mud Walls. They had about 3 I think, they were mud hills with a wall on top you had to hop or climb over. You also had to get quite a running start to get up the fucker or you would slide back down. Fun, but coming down was a little ouch on my knee.
6th - Monkey Bars. I aced these!!!!! They were about 6 across I think (6 people could go at a time), if you fell you landed in muddy water and had to walk out. I'm the only one that made it across!!!!!! Also, only me and Kristin made it across on our team. I think Chay would have but purposely dropped off at the end. The monkey bars were thick, but I was so stoked I blasted through them.
7th - Stadium Stairs. Ok, this was a bit rough. We had to run up to the top of the stadium, then down again. They had Eye of the Tiger playing and a giant pic of Rocky at the top. Hilarious. Going up wasn’t too bad, but coming down I had to do this hop thing to avoid landing on my knee and can I tell you - that one calf was sore for 4 days!!!!!!!

8th - Hosedown Tower. Ok, this was not fun. We started running up this area with trees and paths and looked like it was a zoo or something. There were people in towers - HOSING US WITH FIRE HOSES. Did I mention it was freezing out?! There was no way to not get hit, so now I'm wet and cold. Eeeek! We then ran past these guys who were high fiving us as we ran by - I thought they were supportive volunteers. Nope bitches had water blasters. Sigh.
9th - Balls. They had these balls on rope that got hocked at you when you went through. They apparently had paint on them, but I got thru unscathed so I didn’t see that. There were some other balls you ran thru, but the guys didn’t have it together when we ran thru so I had to miss that one.
10th - Tire Mountain. These were tires that went up a hill and were covered in snow. What's with the snow!!!! I tried to be all bad ass here, but almost ate it so had to be a good cautions little girl going up and down these bad boys.

11th - Giant Inflatable Slip & Slide! Now I didn’t mind getting wet here. 2 people went at a time - you ran at it and slide thru just like a slip and slide! So much fun!!!
12th - More Tires. Now we're wetter. F You.
13th - Polar Plunge. When the guy shouted it as we ran the corner I wanted to cry. Damn with cold water!!!! Sure enough you had to jump into this cold cold water that was about waist high and pull yourself across on ropes. Sigh.
14th -This was my favorite I think. It was a giant inflatable thing. One side you climb up the wall with a rope. Which I sailed up faster than most (I love that I can do something good!!!!) then the other side was a giant inflatable slide!!!! So much fun!!


15th - Mud Hills. These were just basically just giant mud hills you run up and down. I was careful coming down. My knee was really acting up unfortunately and I forgot to mention I was coming off being sick so I still had a horrendous cough. I hadn’t worked out for 2 weeks, so I was struggling a bit.
16th - Rope Balancing thing. You had to go across balancing on a rope, and you held one above your head. I scooted across pretty good!
Last one - (There were 20, but I can’t remember the others. They were little ones though, usually tires or mud hills...) This was a rope swing. You grab the rope - swing across. If you fell you landed in muddy water. I felt like a monkey. Loved it.

As we finished they called out our names and team name so that was very cool to hear. This was Megs 1st race so she had a blast and loved hearing her name called.

Afterwards was the giant after party. They had food, beer, a wine tent, vendors and the dance dance party. They also had changing tents and were super organized with everything. Sadly I had to leave early. I wasn’t prepared to get that wet, so my change of clothes wasn’t sufficient and I got really chilled. I also was still coming off that damn flu, so I headed out. I heard from the others though that it was awesome and fun. I'll come better prepared next time and stay to party with the rest.
All in all this race was my favorite. I'm so excited and hoping they do it again next year!!!!