The summer that never came

A year ago at Rockaway Beach...

I been waiting around for summer to hit since May, patiently waiting and all of a sudden it was fall. Yepp, I got cheated out of summer, and that makes me NOT very happy! It makes me wanna cry - gigantic tears.
I do not demand much of summer, but I need two weeks of unbearable heat, of warmth that loosens my bones and joints and makes me wish the weather was more shitty. This year I was not given those two crucial weeks that makes me live through the cold and dark winter...
My batteries have not been recharged, I am still running on that spare reserve battery that I was left with this spring...

Go on a vacation you might suggest - but there is no money for that - I have spent my money helping out with derby. And on the other hand there is no time for a vacation... life is just full of a bunch of must do and must be right now...

And dear friends, I am not complaining at all, not at all... I don't mind... just once in a while, but everythign would have felt so much better if there would have gotten those two weeks of utter heat, of heat that would have made my knees stop hurting and made the beach luring...

Ok - I admitt I am TOTALLY and COMPLETLY complaining... I WANT MY SUMMER! GIVE ME MY DARN SUMMER YOU DAMN SUMMER HOGS!

Off to Stockholm for a breath...

So my brother has his long awaited birthday party - my hamstrings are still hurting, my girlfriend is coming and we are setting off to Stockholm. Yesterday we went and saw Coco Rosie and it was really amazing - it stormed on scene and I swear it was snowing... It is August and we are all freezing, it is not fair, I have no clue were the summer went... Stockholm today - back on Monday!

Well, we are gonna to finalize our roosters for our games during Nordic Light on the train... be there or be square.... F*** we had practice on Wedesday, and you can tell everyone have been away for the past month... life aint easy at times... Let's pick it up... because you know when you got it!

Killed by myself... with some help of some Rocky Mountain girls

The are always sooo attentive.... my dear Crime City

So Rocky Mountain went quite hard on my hamstrings, DeRange has this amazing heel-to-toe stride that we all tried to learn, yeah... and aperently that is NOT what my hamstrings like a few days later - that in combo with running forward on the toestops and slowing down while running full-speed... yeah... adding to that is that we ran downhill intervals during an offskates session... all this together left me with overworked hamstrings... A sensible and smart person would have gone home to Sweden and layed down and done nothing for a few days...

I am not this person, I held an off-skates practice with my team... running and jumping over obsticles... yeah... I did that until it felt like someone was jamming a knife into my hamstrings (or more like 5 knives) and I fell to the ground... the next day I held a four hour practice... everytime I tried to do something that involved sprints, I fell to the floor in excrutiating pain (true story) and since sprints and stops is what derby is all about, I just had the pleasure to coach even more... yaya... no skating for poor me... buhuuu... Like HONESTLY... I have NEVER been in this much pain in my hamstrings before...
So know I'm on a ibuprofen diet... yeah... probably for the best... I cannot even walk fast... I think I might get better by the day after tomorrow... I feel a sudden urge to do 200 sit-ups... and a plank...

Rocky Mountain Camp post-party

Well, I blame the Germans... even if we are in UK

It's never to late to do a plank... 3 am at the hotel

Who knew derbygirls were so talented at making pyramids on rotating podiums... it is almost like as if we were cheerleaders

Deranged and Loony bonded by 3 hours non-stop dancing

Me and AJ sharing a moment with a rose

So what do you do with people you haven't seen for a long time and you find yourself in Birmingham... yeah, you go and find an almost empty bar that plays 80's music and drink a few jägerbombs, dance, build a pyramid, dance some more, take random pictures, get harassed by ugly Brittish dudes, plot how to get an american citizenship, talk about skating, dance, drink a few jägerbombs, dance... try to remember that I am wearing a skirt (AJ's) and not pants... skirt starts to act like it thinks it's a belt.. .dance some more... and BAM bar closes down... we stroll in fountains, get chased out by the officers (without funny hats) and then did lots and lots of planks while drinking beer!

London Roller Girls vs. Rocky Mountain

Knickerblocker Glory streaching after the game

So last weekend was spent in London and Birmingham, and it was fantastic, and sad, and amazing. I realized how much I acctually do miss playing high-level derby, and at the same time it was great to see old friends, make new friends, play and practice and just not have to be the strict coach... I liked that quite a lot!
The bout was no big suprise, London did draw first blood (that was a suprise), and then after that they did not score much while RMRG kept on putting points on the board. I must say that I am very impressed by Kamikaze Kitten - she was doing great jamming for London, and I must say that London had great walls, but against the well-oiled machine that Rocky is, they just did not match up.Stephanie Mainey did some great job jamming, but she is a fierce blocker, and I must say I also have a soft spot for Raw Heidi :-D.
DeRanged jammed amazingly, Psyko was cocky and amazing on hte track (I think she's the only skater that I know that get away with the attitude and still is so lovable) and Rocky are just so well times and has some amazing team-work... and AJ looked great - even if she just got back from an ankle injury...  Yeah... it was great to watch, the bout was intense and not boring a minute even if Rocky were winning, with A LOT.
Oh, and we did not end up in the middle of any riots either... a weekend of sucess.. .I will write soem more about the camp when I wake up tomorrow morning... we just got back from off-skates practice and that ontop of the weekend... my hamstrings need some loving!

Off to London...

Dear world...
I am off to London of all places... and Birmingham... I got myself an ACTUAL derby vacation, that meaning that I am going somewhere - NOT coaching BUT skating... yeppers...
yeah... over and out....

(and yes, it is derby related)

I am meeting Krazy Kris at the airport in about 45 min, so I better run of now... hasta la vista babes... see you another day!

Giving up the Booze

Me and my nice petting bunnies in Stockholm

Kicking into gear....
So this weekend I decided that I am over it, I am over getting a little to drunk going out, I love to drink with food, I like to have a few really good beers, I just don't like being hammered and falling into chairs while dancing. So from now and on - no more shots - only really YUMMY beers and good wine... and ok, the pre-party wineschorles...
I am not that much of a fun drunk - I am much more fun sober or slightly tipsy, so I think I am gonna stay there, because I like to be fun, I like to have fun. And also alcohol totally ruins your fitness, and I need to get back into gear, with Nordic Light only three weeks away, a game against Berlin only seven weeks away and Sweden is playing Finland the 8th of October... not to talk about the World Cup in December. Yepp, let's all kick into gear, get more fit, have more fun and work harder! Cheers ;-)

From Berlin with love...

We also call her MONKEY at times

Rotation also made us smell the flowers - there were signs with the Latin AND German names

Rotation took us for many walks - and everywhere I found something to play with

We had to hide in a play-house because it rained so hard, and then we walked to the car in our underwear

We went to Hanna Hellfires Baby Shower and I petted a dog

I did the Bunny with Bunny aka Beatrix Slaughter, my old team mate from Gotham

So I am currently suffering from writers block... so I guess I'll just go with the old saying, a picture say more than a thousand words, and just imagine how much those seven pictures with captions are saying... they just told you all EVERYTHING about my Berlin trip.... well, we also as I said earlier scrimmaged with the Berlin Bombshells (thanks for having us), I got SUPERSICK for 24hours and almost thought I was gonna die, we watched the worst movie ever... I promised not to tell ANYONE we watched it... we walked by Master Blasters skateshop that is under construction, and it looked hella nice, we spent lots of time with Rotation and as much time as we could with Shevil, since she had to work... and then we took the darn bus home...

And it rains again...

two of my favorite things in Sweden

We went to Berlin and it rained and the bout was cancelled (not because of the rain but because of Air France being bitches and going on strike). We scrimmaged with Berlin Bombshells and that was all good. It was fun to see Shevil and Rotation again, we made them shirts saying ''Swoony hearts Shetation'' and we stayed on their coach as usual... After Berlin we headed back to Malmö, just to move onto Stockholm, in Stockholm we went of an amazing outdoorskate and hung out with all the Stockholm girls.
And today it's time to head back to Malmö - more driving ahead and it's raining... I am honestly REALLY sick of driving and rain!

Vaccation from CrimeCity

So Crime City have a two week vaccation - no work for the leauge to do, for two weeks... That is probably not gonna be as easy as it sounds for me, but I am trying, I am trying. Me and Loony leaving tomorrow to go to Berlin and watch Berlin Bombshells play Paris Rollergirls, so our ''vaccation'' is not derby-free. Vix is taking a bunch of orders to Oslo, where they started a new league not to loong ago, her and Ninja are going to teach them a couple of basics, so we all keep busy.

And when we are not busy with anything else, we go skate outdoors (Loony think ya all are sick of ppl outdoorskating)...

I mean serious business... until the afterparty

before party

Soooo.... I woke up this morning and Loony emptied the bag I brought back from the afterparty, and in it she found some money (probably mine), a lighter (not mine I quite smoking almost 4 years ago), Loonys MVP medal, a thing of cottage cheese (I think I might have taken that from the after afterparty), the good-luck mascot that one of our team-mates gave to us (and it was NOT left in my care) and my scarf....  yeah, I have this habit of accumilate things during drunkan shennanigans... I guess I am MUCH more serious on the track than off....

Crime City wins over London Rocking Rollers Rising Stars

CCR getting ready to bout!!

It was a little jittery before the bout, because many of or usual skaters are in US, on their own adventures... but it all ended up being all good... I think the final score was 300 - 43... We did our thing and it worked out... I am really proud over how far CCR has come in only 6 months... It is increadble to realize that almost none of the girls on todays roster had EVER played a bout in February, most of them acctually passed minimum skills in January, (some in April). Yeah... I am proud of how great we work together, how dedicated we are and how much fun we have (even if I might yell at them at times...) and Loony finally got the MVP she so well deserved!
But yeah, now I'm home and feeling a little off, I got quite a bad hit to my head, yayaaa... so now I have to decompress and hopefully be well in a little bit so I can go to the afterparty!

My heart and thoughts go out to Norway

Who knew my picture would make it to French Elle

Picture stolen from French Elle

Someone should have told me when I was a teenager that my photo would grace the web-edition of French Elle.... ha ha ha... the interview is actually with Fenix Fortsomfan, one of CCR's skaters.I guess I can just sit back and wait for all those modelling agencies to start calling me now... ahhhh... my life is so hard!

The venue for Nordic Light

And don't worry kids, the floor will be covered with ''sports court'' or it's like, so you will NOT be skating/watching skaters on supersticky floor...

Crime City vs. London Rockin Rollers on Saturday

On Saturday, we will be bouting London Rockin Rollers, and we just wrote the line-ups, we had a great scrimmage yesterday and I feel ready and I think the team does. We have never been in the hall where we are bouting before, so the floor will be a little of a suprise... SUPRISE! But I guess life is full of suprises and you just have to live with it...

Scrimmage at Stapelbädden

And at this picture Loony is jam-reffing...

It started to rain and I thought we would have to cancel practice - but then we ended up not having to!

First we started with the usual big pack warm-up and then into some never-ending pacelines... good for endurance... and when we were streching the first raindrops started to fall... and then some more.. .so we figured maybe we will get one or two jams in before the rain will hammer down and we will ahve to spend the rest of our practice indoor talking rules and strategy... But OH how wrong we were.... it just sprinkled for a bit and we kept on playing, and all of a sudden we had been playing for 40 minutes and no rain... YAYAAaaa... everyone seem to get more an more comfortable on our outdoor track, we also have a few girls that are developing into quite accomplished derby skaters... CCR are looking better and better... makes me proud and happy.

Today a girl from radio were there and interviewed a few of us, and I got to say my favorite things about derby ''it's a team sport, we are ALL important'' and also that ''rollerderby is a sport, a different but amazing sport, and it is not the apperance that shows who is a derbygirl, but the attitude and the love she carries for rollerderby''... amen

You really cannot do it all... I probably will die trying...

I look better in colors than stripes

Sometimes I feel like my entire world crumbles and stress gets to me, but I guess that only makes me human. I love derby to death, I think we all are aware of it now. So I try to learn every aspect of rollerderby, but I guess I am not perfect, and sometimes it's OK not to know everything. But trust me dear friends, I try, I try to know everything...
I spend my days asking referees nosy questions and to be honest, NSOing is still a mystery to me, I mean I get it, but I couldn't do it. But honestly, I don't see when I would have the time to do it.
I have tried to help out refereeing at times, and dude, that shit is hard too...sometimes I think we get our referees to little credit...
Since I have an attention span of a five-year old, it get's quite messy everytime I try. Maybe I be a good jam-referee, at least I know I could keep up with the jammer, but I might get her confused with a blocker or other jammer or maybe even someone in the audience looking like a unicorn... yeah, I am VERY easily distracted... but when I block I am very focused on the jammer, so with some training I might become really good at it. As long as I remember I am a jam referee and not a blocker and try to take the blocker out that I am supposed to call lead...
Yeaahhhh... I guess I probably should just continue to play derby... yeah....  well, now I am off to scrimmage practice... (not refereeing)

ps. I am wearing jeans to practice today...

Outdoor skating... yeah... again...

I know, I probably bore you to death by keep on posting about my outdoor adventures... It is summer in Sweden, and it is amazing to just go and skate, stop on the cliffs and jump into the water... Ninja did her Laura Croft pose and the sun just kept on beating down on us, not to bad of a day. Days like this I wish I lived in Barcelona or somewhere where the season lasts longer. Here in the north, we grab onto every second we have, we turn our pale faces towards the sun and we try to skate as much as possible.

Outdoor practice - you better dress in jeans

picture stolen from facespace, from practice yesterday

We have smooth concrete on our practice track, but outdoors and concrete still means that when you fall, you fall hard. So my advice is to wear tights and jeans shorts... Just will make you lose less skin, I know some people are under the impression that rinkrash is cool, I'm just under the impression that it hurts. I have had rinkrash a couple of times, not to talk about the snow/icerash I got during the summer snowboarding... NOT fun - just painful. So covering up my skin against rashes, is not really rocket-science to me....

I once again want to say that our track is aaaamazing, and I am gonna start using my narrow poisons on it, after the bout, because my Pure wheels are so heavy, and skating is feeling sluggish!

Don't miss out on Battle of the Nordic Light

It is only a month away, time flies when you are having fun... the tickets will be more expensive at the door, so don't be scared, just get them online HERE!

One year ago

The one really fun thing with writing a blog is that you can go back and see what you did exactly a year ago... and exactly a year ago I played Madison with Gotham Allstars...

Oh, and dear readers, I created a little poll to the left - please go ahead and add in your answer to my simple question!

Crossdressing in Rotterdam

Fisty and Loony got the real sized glasses, I totally lucked out

Guess who is who!

I did it! I got Major Madness to wear pants... and I must say that his skirt is VERY comfortable! His boots are a probably 3 sizes to large for a girl like myself... yeah... (and for you who don't know Major Madness, he's a referee from Essen and very prone on wearing man-skirts he also told me Merby is VERY bad for his nails)
Rotterdam party was fun, Loony, Fisty and this girl KickAss decided on some public peeing from the dock that the after-party was held at and I did not score a big beer glass - the bar only had three and Fisty, Loony and the medic managed to get to them before me. Apperently people in this part of Europe drink beer out of very small glasses, I am not sure I approve of this! I prefer the German way of doing it... but then I want good beer, I am quite a beer snob. Just ask Loony, but she likes it, she just asks for the same beer as me! But more about Holland, that language is crazy - their way of say kitchen sounds like the Swedish way of saying kuken (and that means cock in Swedish)... so yeah, since we (me, Loony and Fisty) are such teenagers we ended up standing around the bar saying (maybe yelling)'' KUKEN, KUKEN, KUKEN'' several times...  the bartender was kind of ''what do you girls want from the kitchen?''
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Fisty had to fight the medic out of her bed... (that just came out wrong) and the next morning Blauwe Bill (the guy who made it all happen) couldn't find his wallet, but later on he aperently discovered it in his fridge....

Oh, I love derby - now on my way to coach with Loony at our outdoor track - and she just finished printing the shirts for the bout this weekend. It is sunny outdoors and I have spent all day catching up on sleep we missed out on driving to and from Rotterdam (about 24 hours all together ) and catchign up on e-mails - both SwedeVix work and stuff for Crime City Rollers!

I am a hoovering bench-coach

Prepping for coaching tomorrow in Rotterdam

Long walks in the sun in Rotterdam

For some reason we have been sitting around the dinner table and chatted about Major Madness balls, how Fluke Skywalker is his light twin and how Blauwe Bil forgot to buy plates for the food and Loony bought hairdye from a scetchy store on the corner. We also decided that NSO's and Referees are getting a nice off-skate session with Fisty, and so are the more advanced girls too... they are getting treated to an entire hour of off-skate. Me and Loony are feeling nice, so we are NOT going to start the practice with the Black Widow...
Bill made us really amazing food, and now I'm gonna go to bed and NOT think about ball, because there are no balls in derby... so we are just gonna watch the Real L-word.... better than porn, I think it can actually be classified as porn, but there are no balls in that show either.
yepp...
over and out
ZzZZzzzZZzzzzz

Running rollerderby bootcamp in Rotterdam

Rotterdam late afternnon

Me, Loony and Fisty (not to be mistaken for Fisti from Gotham) have travelled all night in my trusty Volvo all the way from Crime City to Rotterdam. Tomorrow we will be caoching some fiiiine rollerderby in a bootcamp that is ending in a public bout/ scrimmage. We are super excited to be on the road again, and continue to coach... not that we ever stop coaching...

Next weekend we will be playing London Rockin Rollers in Malmö, it's Crime Citys thrid bout, and we are really excited to play our long-way visitors. It sort of sucks with training halls right now, we just don't have any, so hopefully there will be no rain next week, so we can get ready for the bout on Stapelbädden and our lovley outdoor track.

Crime City is now in the WFTDA AP program

This is not a part of the scrimmage...

Hard work pays off! Yayaaaa!!  We celebrated our new status by having a practice on our out-door practice track! Getting ready to play London Rockin Rollers in a 12 days... and we don't currently have an indoor practice space... but hey! We do have a WFTDA regulation track painted for our pleasure in Stapelbäddsparken! Thanks to Malmö City.... coolest city in Sweden, increadably supportive of rollerderby!

And also a HUGE thanks to WFTDA that have accepted us into their AP program, it means so much to us and we are ready to work really hard to become full members! It is AMAZING! Hard work is done and more to be done! And also a big CONGRATULATION to all the other leauges that made it in!

Weekend in Crime City

Bonnie Bompa, Pia and Finnish girls

Bonnie Bompa, Evil Eye, MadFist, Kneebender and Juicy

Me and Loony had one of those rare weekends that we acctually were in Malmö, the entire weekend... but no rest for the wicked...soo...
This weekend we as in Crime City held a little bootcamp, we had girls from Gothenburg Roller Derby, Aarhus Derby Danes, Kallio Rolling Rainbows, Copenhagen Rollerderby, Stockholm Rollerderby and probably somewhere else attending. And it was the best time ever... it was FUN and we all had a blast. It started up with advanced on Friday, while Saturday was our basic day and ending with Sunday being advanced drills ending in Scrimmage - White vs. Black.
It was good for us, since we had a chance to let the girls, that are skating against London Rockin Rollers on the 23rd of July, skate together. We are running a little of a newer roster since some of our skaters are going to RollerCon in Vegas.

Well, the weekend was a success and everyone seemed like that had a great time, and once again I must say, like I have done so many times before, that it is so amazing to see how European Rollerderby is coming along and how everyone are pushing themselves, each other and developing.

I got to enjoy hanging out in parks, jumping into the ocean all derby sweaty, drinking peoples beers, talking rollerderby and not-rollerderby with a whole bunch of amazing people... and in the end we cut Maloonys hair... but that was not even during the weekend anymore... and Bonnie Bompa supplied her and the two crazy Finns with two bottles of vodka...

After bootcamp swimming....

There is a Derby Street in Copenhagen

35 km skate did happen (that's 21 miles)

Kris is inspecting the lack of tan

We sat by the airport and watched the flights land

Copenhagen is a great city to skate in, today started with a beach skate and we ended up by the airport watching flights land... it was quite cool.... we all got a nice knee-pad tan... and we are EXHAUSTED. Maybe not the best thing to do before a two hour practice! Yayaaa....
Krazy Kris and Mad Maloony is really INSANE company to take on the streets with...

Heading South in Sweden and Derby Boot Camp

Always fun to meet and skate with different girls!

After exploring the nature all morning we (me, Loony and Krazy Kris) jumped into the car and are heading back south... Stockholm is done for this time and hopefully we will be back next month. This weekend Crime City are running a little bootcamp, we have girls from Aarhus Derby Danes (Denmark), WestCoast Bombshells (Sweden), Kallio Rolling Rainbows (Finland) and some other random girls coming for the weekend to share som rollerderby fun.
Saturday is for everyone, some basic drills (that you never can do too much of) and endurance and, and on Sunday we also invited some of the Copenhagen girls, since we will scrimmage. This is going to be super duper fun....

It was nice to be in Stockholm and not coach a derby camp, it was nice to talk to people about something else but derby, even if we did sneak in some derby... there is always derby to be snuck in!

Rollergirls in the Nature

Exploring the world without the skates.... Me, Krazy Kris, Jazz Ass and Malooney went on an adventure in the nature.... We almost got eaten by a sheep and we fed a horse som grass, and some mosquitos totally fed on us... we felt VERY accomplished...

Derby wedding... HussInsane and Krazy Kris

finally married

Finally it is offical, Husse and Kris are now real derby wives, it is the second derby marrige I have had the honor to administer, the first one was Fenix and Bea....

The sauna re-visited

Two Danes and parts of Team Sweden

So yesterday was my annual Midsummer non Midsummer party - and as it always tend to happen, everyone ended up in the sauna with beer, rosé, gin&tonic and me and my wineschorle... the up and downs of the drunk... we had a beer relay where Jazz crashed into the grass and we did semi-nude jumping into the lake... Krazy Kris and Enoc were our play-leaders and made us play merrily in the sun... we even had a game of soccer going for a while...

For some reason I volonteered to get all the meat for the the party, I don't think why I thought I was qualified to do that, considering I was vegetarian for 10 years and Loony still is... so we walked around the supermarket aimlessly and just picked up some random meat... and of course I ended up being the BBQ girl too... yeah... I don't know why people want to get food poison so badly that they let me be in charge of those things...

My new AMAZING socks

Vix and Loony drinking weinschorle in Rålambshovsparken

Yesterday we also spent a little time in Rålambshovsparken, has som wine with Vix Viking (well, WEINSCHORLE) and chatted. Vix is the other half of SwedeVix Skateshop and used to skate with London Roller Girls... She is tiny... OH OH OH OH... and I got new yellow mustasch socks... HOW EXCITING is that! I am almost peing myself looking at them... Like seriously! So Awesome.... good things with owning a shop.... product testing... even if I'm not really sure that you need to product test socks... but I swear to you all! They are fab!

Chillin in Stockholm

So one day we spent in Malmö, before we headed up to Stockholm (that is a seven hour drive) to see friends and family, but also to host the annual ''non-Midsummer but Midsummer party''. So yesterday night was chill, since the party is tonight, so we just hung out at Jazz Ass place with CalaVera, Smashed and Twisted, had a beer or two, made the very Swedish dish tacos, almost went to a dive dyke bar to watch dive dykes, but ended up watching Fight Club... I fell asleep on the floor despite the fact that I made the strongest coffee (and most disgusthing)...

So we have 24 people coming over to my mothers house - to eat drink and celebrate that we are going towards darker times... and of course the law of alla jävligheters jävlighet - the water pump has broken, and we have no water... So now we gonna pretend we are little scouts and do what Tim Gunner would tell us ''make it work''...