Yarn, you are my friend.

My left wrist has been giving me hell the past few days. I've been making a huge push to write and get things done, and now it's starting to tell me about it. I don't own a wrist rest currently, and my form hasn't been great, and it's starting to get to me. So today when I started in again, I grabbed a skein of yarn and stuck it under my wrist. It's now raised and effectively immobilized while I type, and I suspect this will be a great help. It certainly feels better.

See, knitting is useful! :)

Dad's in.

Heard back from my mom today. They reversed the decision about letting my dad into the VA home. He's been approved for the dementia wing. He'll be moving over there next week.

Of course, that was counteracted by him being sick and starting in with tremors again as of yesterday. Turns out he was low on morphine and so started going through withdrawls. The tremors come from the withdrawls irritating the brain tissue. They're working on getting his levels back to normal, and Mom tells me he's doing better. By tomorrow he should be back to what passes for normal these days.

Go Storm!

A little while back I'd found out about an offer on the kids' elementary school mailing list for free tickets to a pre-season Seattle Storm game. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and I wasn't sure about it, but I found a way to get all of us to where we needed to go when we needed to be there, so we continued on with the plan and went to the game after all, which was tonight.

It was my first time at Key Arena, and I have to say, it was kinda cool. Our seats were good if not great (all the better for being free). We got there a few minutes into the first quarter. The Key was probably only about half full; lots and lots of women, lots of kids. Very laidback atmosphere, but everyone was in a good mood and having a good time. I also found a food stand that offered a BBQ grilled chicken sandwich with mango salsa and raw veggies rather than chips, meaning that I got to have admittedly overpriced food that didn't break my diet and was actually pretty tasty. I also got to poach a couple of nacho chips from Al, so I didn't have to be without traditional sports food entirely.

The players were good. It was refreshing to watch women play the game, oddly. I hadn't expected that. This is possibly because I played basketball back in the day for a few short years (I had no coordination back then and made a surprisingly good bench warmer). The best part of it was watching my friends play. The boys' team got the glory, but they were universally bad, at least in part because the kids who played basketball were the same ones who played football, and they didn't practice basketball at all until football season was over. The girls' team, though, was actually good most of the time.

My friend LaRhonda... she was like 5'8 or 5'9, strong, intelligent with incredible legs and very coordinated. She was a born athlete and watching her play was a treat. Bobbie was blonde with a thousand-watt smile, slender but quick and graceful. She ran down the court like a deer, but she didn't give way for anyone and played great defense. Kari was all controlled intention. Nobody wanted to be in her way. She was never... angry, really, but she regularly racked up the fouls. Gina was taller than everyone else and had a great jumpshot, not to mention that she could steal the ball from just about anybody. Sherri was a short redhead that was all fire and speed on the court. She usually wore her hair in a long braid -- she was a forward because she could move that ball like nobody's business. Watching the game tonight and listening to the crowd, it was sort of like watching my classmates on the court again.

The Storm won handily by something like 10 points. The boys got these inflatable things to smack together to make noise. Food was had that didn't suck, and no one got sick from it. I got to remember what it was like to be an athlete. Will got to run into a friend of his when he went down to join the kids' conga line on the floor during a break between periods. Overall, a pretty good night. I'd go back.