Don'tcha know?

So we got a derby lesson at the hands of the number four team in the country this weekend, but I think it's only made us want to come back stronger and better. Despite playing a solid game, we got canoodled and shutdown scoring wise. I don't think it's anything experience won't remedy. We similarly schooled another Ohio team who's a little greener than us last week. As with all sports, just when you think you've got derby down someone comes around to show you a thing or three. For any versed in the derby world, Minnesota's pack speed and explosiveness are incredible and the entire roster is solid through and through (I speak as the weaker part of the Ohio roster). They also play a different game as far as penalties and while we technically played by WFTDA rules the reffing was pretty free and easy, which took a lot of adjusting for us. If it had been called like an Ohio bout, they would have had had a lot more ladies in the box which may have given us a chance to close the point dividend a little. But that's pretty much splitting hairs, because we got beat :)
It was a crazy weekend overall that started with my flight getting canceled and continued to me losing my wedding band in the X-Ray machine a security. The TSA ladies aggressively helped me track it down (it fell out in the machine and then onto the floor), but not before I completely lost it in front of scads of people. I sat hunkered at one f the security tables sobbing like they found an ounce of coke in my bag. Ryan's flight got canceled as well, but not until he was in Chicago and not until the end of the day which means he got stuck and now has a million good husband points. A derby loss and a tragically long layover later and we ended up at home. This is where it gets fun. As is well publicized Ryan cannot stand the sight of blood, it's makes his broad, deceptively macho looking self curl up into the fetal position. Let's just say we were getting romantic, I sniff a bit, and then a torrent of blood comes spilling out my nose. Less experienced nose bleeders would have gushed blood all over, but I got away only leaving a few drops behind. Really amazing considering I spent the next fifteen minutes or so filling the toilet twice over. Meanwhile Ryan is cowering in the bed and I'm shouting Don't look Don't look, but of course he does. He didn't faint which is amazing, but I did hear some gurgly noises. He comes into the bathroom because he has some blood on him, sees the toilet full of more blood than an episode of Nip/Tuck, wigs a little and wants to know if I need to go to the hospital. I get REALLY bad bleeds. I have since I was little. I used to wake up in puddles of it and remember being picked up a few times only to douse the picker upper. This was a particularly bad one. As an experienced bleeder I;m pretty good at getting them to stop, but no amount of stuffing or pinching helped. And so the blood just sort of was at a steady rain into the toilet. I knew it was coming. I've had sinus problems for the last couple weeks and I had a stressful weekend, and slept crappy in the hotel, and then hopped on an airplane, and I woke up one morning to find the stuff going the other way down my throat which it likes to do from time to time. Anyway, it's over. I think Ryan's okay, but the point is I never really knew our tragic flaw before. I'm pretty sure every pairing has one. For some it's religion, for others it's politics, other it's infidelity or over-competitive scrabble playing. But for us it's the hemophobic and the girl with torrential epistaxis.