I'm Not Dead (But the Humans Are)

Hi.

Is anyone out there?

It feels a little awkward to be blogging after such a long hiatus. Then again, with a readership of three, does it really matter?

Since it would take nothing short of a miracle to finish recounting my New Zealand trip in gory detail, let's just pretend the rest of the trip didn't happen and begin anew with a Reader's Digest version of some highlights of my life since May.

Because my life tends to revolve around Ultimate, I'll start there. After losing in fall league finals last year, my B league team were finally crowned champions of spring league this year. In case you couldn't tell, we're kind of a big deal now.

Following spring league, my Wildwood team went on to demonstrate our frisbee prowess on sand by winning one of the 2-2 beer brackets. In full disclosure, we probably spent more time celebrating our victory (as shown by the multitude of photographs on Facebook that captured us taking turns drinking beer out of our trophy as if it were a golden chalice) than actually playing the finals game, which ended prematurely when it started to rain and our opponent decided they didn't want to get wet.

Celebratory drink

In the world of high stakes Ultimate, my club team, BRDM, seeded 12th out of 16 going into Regionals, fought our way to the second day, placing 6th overall. That didn't get us to Nationals, but it was a good showing in a region that has grown considerably stronger since the previous year. This is evidenced by the impressive performance of two teams from our region - Axis of C'ville who won mixed Nationals and Amp who took 5th place.

A lot has been happened outside of Ultimate as well. Most notably, I welcomed a new niece into the world on September 17. Like her older sister (Ella) and auntie (me) before her, little Lola came out with a full head of hair and a hearty yowl. And like her older sister (Ella) and auntie (me), she is also irresistibly cute and utterly adorable. I am not at all biased when I say this. But don't take my word for it. See for yourself:

Presenting Lola!

In other news, I turned 21 for the fifth time last month. I also recently passed my two year mark at my job. I celebrated this milestone by replenishing my stock of post-it notes and sniffing some sharpies in the dark recesses of my windowless cave of an office. I'm really living it up as a white-collar professional here.

A couple of weekends ago, Deb came to visit and we revived our old college tradition of doing a Halloween costume together. The last time we followed tradition was [gasp] seven years ago! (Holy crap, we're old.) This year, we went as robots in the Flight of the Conchords' "Robot Song (The Humans are Dead)" video.

We like to do the robo-boogie

We did not realize until after we arrived at our Halloween party destination that eating and drinking while in costume was not feasible as our arms were unable to maneuver around the boxes and reach our mouths. Our distress was soon alleviated, however, when the hosts of the party - who were dressed as Phil and Lil from the Rugrats - offered Deb and me baby bottles from which we could drink our beverages. It was all good until the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland (a.k.a. drunk Paul P.) showed up and exploited this vulnerability by squirting whipped cream on my face. In my feeble attempts to defend myself, I ended up just frantically waving my shortened arms in circles and squealing like a newborn babe while he howled in delight. It was not the most dignified of moments.

To wrap up this entry, I am announcing my next big adventure. I'll be heading down to Patagonia in South America at the end of December with some of the same rascals from the NZ trip. We're still in the midst of planning logistics but details on the trip will come in subsequent blog posts (that's the plan anyway).

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