Sunday, October 14, 2007

From Now On, I'm Lowering My Expectations...

Sounds like a strange title for a post, right? I only say that because I went into this weekend not really knowing what was in store for me. My expectations were low not because I didn't think I'd be with cool people, but I just didn't know how things would go. I can't remember when I've had a more fun and well-spent weekend.

Rita and I had plans for dinner on Friday night to celebrate her birthday, which was a few weeks ago. Lucky for her, the people next to us were at the restaurant celebrating their friend's birthday, so when I told them it was Rita's birthday, they passed down a piece of cake. Happy Birthday! We also had some interesting conversation with some other fellow customers, but that is a story for another time.
Friday night after dining with Rita at Memphis Minnie's, I headed down to Half Moon Bay to spend the night at the Conran's. Upon arriving, Steph and her mom were putting together a puzzle, which is actually something that I love to do. They were also eating a full pan of brownies; can't disagree with that either. This morning we slept in, had a good breakfast, and headed down to the Pumpkin Festival.

We watched Farmer Mike craft a face out of a very large pumpkin for quite a while.


And then I decided that I wanted to get a pumpkin or two to bring back to San Fran.

Steph really wanted to get this huge green pumpkin.


And then I had trouble deciding between these two pumpkins. The 1 pounder or the 500 pounder...



I definitely didn't want vegetables with warts. Ew. Gross. Steph didn't want any brussel sprouts because the plant looks like some type of strange weapon. Mean face!



All of that deciding was wearing me out. So I had a little rest on a pumpkin.



Seriously, the pumpkin patch was the best part of the day. So. Many. Pumpkins.



I love this time of year!!! It doesn't get much better than that, does it? Well, I had no idea what was in store for me that night. I got back into the city at about 7pm and met up with LaNae to go to the World Championship Roller Derby Competition. Yeah, you read that right. Roller Derby. Yeah, San Francisco might have weird zombies once and a while, but professional Roller Derby Skaters?

Ok this deserves a new paragraph because OH MY GOSH have you ever been to a Roller Derby? Run. Do. Not. Walk. to your nearest Roller Derby. It was by far one of the funnest/funniest things I have ever done in my entire life. For sure, it is a complete white trash sport. It was a mix of football, mud wrestling, and hockey. Oddly enough, roller derby as a sport is only even semi popular in California and New York. ? You mean...North Carolina doesn't have their own roller derby team? Well, I guess they do. But they just use a wussy flat track. Alabama has one too, and that's all the research I did, so maybe its gaining popularity in recent years. But you know what that means? That there is probably one near your house so that you can see this outrageous event for yourself. Its just that I never thought in my whole life that I'd see two women in their mid 50s and 60s in an all-out brawl. You can't see this woman's hair underneath her helmet, but it's gray. And she was one of the worst. Full on punching other middle-aged women in the face. Who does that?!

This lady was about to punch the referee.

And sometimes the referees would just watch while all the women were piled up, beating the crap out of each other.


Oh if you only you could have seen the amazing fights. The one where the Brooklyn skater pushed one of the Bay City Bombers into the penalty box wall, pulled it down on top of him and then proceeded to jump up and down on it. Ok...WAY BETTER THAN HOCKEY!

And then these guys sitting behind us bought us some hot dogs. They were pretty funny and they explained the basic rules of roller derby to us. We decided that we should become Roller Derby frequenters and sit with Brian and Gary every time.

We also like Brian and Gary because they made us go up and take pictures with some of the World Champions of the Roller Derby. These are hard-core athletes. I saw how many times they fell tonight. And based on personal experience, falling down while you're on roller skates doesn't feel so good.



I'm still in shock over what an amazing weekend it's been. Southern food for dinner, puzzles and brownies, great friends, and giant pumpkins. And it isn't even Sunday yet. Bring it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Love those pumpkin pictures!