bend or you'll break

Sometimes the path you start out on is not the one you end up on.  I am sure learning this!

Moving to New Orleans was never something I imagined could happen to us in this life. I was finishing my masters program, going on to the doctoral program, going to live in Brookline or another lovely Boston area for a while. Get a dog. That whole deal. Now I am in the South, jobless, trying to figure out what I'm doing on a day-by-day basis.

There is a yoga quote that goes, "Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

I am physically flexible, but not so flexible in any other way. I set my goals, I meet them. I know what I want...okay, not so often but when I finally decide what i want... I always get it. I am a little controlling because I know that the consistency and stability that come with my control gets things done, and productivity makes me happy. When things don't work out the way I want them, however, I get a little "bent out of shape." That's just the way I am.

The other day I set out to make a new cakeball flavor for my friend's birthday. I thought strawberry would be interesting so I mixed up the strawberry cake and strawberry frosting.

mixing in the frosting

This is when I tasted it and should have turned back. But, I thought it wasn't that bad, just different. Fun. And the great pink color was flashy. So I kept on going. Forming the balls.

refrigerating

Getting the red vanilla candy melts to the right temperature and dipping them all in. And, finally, decorating them with white vanilla candy melts. I thought a dark chocolate candy melt outside would be a good flavor match for the strawberry inside so I saved half of the cakeballs to make the chocolate ones the next day.

And voila! They were done! They looked bright and pretty.

I was happy. Until I tasted one. Blech. I think they were like fruity pebbles (my sister used to loooove fruity pebbles). Ben says they're like captain crunch berries. I think both of those fake, sugary, yucky cereals are way better tasting than these.

So, I threw them all in the garbage and was grouchy for a while.

After ten minutes of being frustrated, I took a deep breath and decided to bake a snack.

Which led to me baking my provolone/parmesan/chive popovers, but this time I made them huge. An hour later I had cheesy, oniony, warm, lovely popovers and took a break from all the "doing."

mmm 

I settled down with a few popovers, and then went to yoga. 

Things hadn't exactly gone as I planned. I wanted those cakepops to be done and waiting on the counter to bring out to dinner on Friday night. But, life doesn't always go as you plan- even if I truly believe that it always will. When it doesn't, I'm totally surprised and angry and thrown off-guard. 

It may seem silly, but little things like cakepops not working out bend me out of shape. This time, however, I decided to just let it go and make something else.

So the next day I whipped up cappuccino brownies, put a little white vanilla candy melts on top, and went out to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday. I even used a box mix (from WholeFoods) because you don't always have to be "perfect."- another lesson I am slowly learning. 

Life is too short to cry over cakepops. 

talk derby to me

Okay okay, i know, i have not written on this thing in over a month. but, in my defense, i was very honest in the beginning in saying that this may not go anywhere. i'm just finding it hard to be motivated to type up what's going on in my life and send it off to the world to read. (it's awkward)

But i have to tell you about something i experienced last night: THE BIG EASY ROLLERGIRLS

Yes, i went to the roller derby. Ben was invited by the league doctor who is a part of the family doctor interest group at school. I had heard about this and was excited to check it out!

Now, for those of you who think this is about girls skating around in their undies slamming into each other, you're mostly correct. haha. But, it is a sport and there are rules to the game. There are different positions on the team: Jammer, Pivot, and Blocker. There are rules about who can do what when and even penalties and scores. 

Let me explain a little: Each time the girls take off to try to score is called a Jam (love the name!). The Jammers are the girls who move through the pack and try to score by passing opposing teammates, the pivot(ers) are one to a team and direct the pack by setting the pace, and the blockers make sure that their jammer can get through while the opposing jammer gets slammed to the floor. You can tell who is who by their helmets- Jammers get stars, Pivoters get a strip, all the rest are plain/stickered. 

All this, on roller-skates. It's so exciting!

Once we figured it all out and we could pick out our team and cheer them along. Actually, the Big Easy Rollergirls have their own cheerleaders, known as the PussyFooters, who don a lot of sparkly pink and get the crowd going. There were also two announcers- Skip 4-Play who was wearing a large white pimp suit and Reverend Psych Ward who had on some kind of cape- to explain the action and make some noise. 

There was a half-time band (J.D. Hill and the Jammers):

And the rolling Elvi who threw tons of candy at the audience: 

These characters were all so amusing. Even the skating referees were dressed up and had interesting names: Henry Roll-ins, S'aint N.O. Lady, Scoot McGoot! And they got taken out almost as much as the rollergirls! Last night we got to see the Crescent Wenches (New Orleans) versus the Red Stick All-Stars (Baton Rouge). The girls on both teams have great monikers. 

Here's a few:

Anti Em, Bang Crosby, Tchoup'er, Vieux Careen, Tabitcha, Tank Goodness, Moxie Balboa, Turbo Tyek, and Brat O'Tat. haha. 

And one of the best parts is that Nola Brewing Co 

(our fav beer and our friend Dylan's company) was served and had cute fliers up: 

Sorry for the bad photo quality, but at least you get to see the girls in action: 

In the end, the New Orleans Crescent City Wenches won by a landslide!!

Wondering if they have rollerderby girls in every city?