The Heat Is On...

Again: hot, humid, poor air quality. 

After I needed an hour to recover on a midday walk with Jace, I made some changes in our routine. I've been driving him to a park for morning walks: Mathews Park to Oyster Shell Park, or Taylor Farm. I need to get up earlier to make this more efficient and cooler. I've shortened our other walks. Even though Jace is always game to go further, it's not good for him. 

I'm always psyched to see our doggy friends on walks like Dylan, Ruby, Holly, and Poppy. I was happy to see the beagles, Julie and Jerry at Oyster Shell Park yesterday. Today we passed Poppy on Maple Avenue--that made my day.

We've been watching a lot of Olympic events. It's been kind of haphazard, but fun: gymnastics and swimming, track starting today. I even saw some shotput today. I've also been re-reading some Preston & Child books. I finished the latest today. The new book will be published August 13th. I hope I am first on the waiting list. I'll have to go to the library that day. In the meantime, I'll do some re-re-reading. 

Today I met my friend Chris at the Sono Arts Festival. It's so small--a shell of its former self. We lucked out with a break in the weather, and it was nice to hang with Chris. 

Saturday Night Movie: I Tonya

Jeff and I recently watched I, Tonya. It was more of a why not rather than a must see, but I enjoyed it.    

The acting was very good. I was impressed by Mckenna Grace as Tonya at 8 to 12 years. I checked IMDB, and I've seen her in a few things--most recently The Handmaid's Tale. Margot Robbie first appeared as Tonya at 16. That was not believable: it took me out of the scenes. I wish they had hired another young actor for a scene or two. Sebastian Stan was very good, as was Paul Walter Hauser. As for Allison Janney--she was very good, but I don't think her performance was Oscar-worthy. 

I watched much of Tonya's story in real-time TV coverage. She didn't have much of a say in how she was depicted there. It appears that she was abused for much of her life and had trouble breaking out of that cycle. The media took its turn as well. 

I always had some sympathy for her as an underdog--as an outsider. No one needs yet another fairy princess.

Roller Games Revisited

Last Saturday my brother called to tell that Roller Games was on TV. 

In the late 60's and early 70's, I was a big fan of Roller Games. My father took the family to a Philadelphia Warriors game, and I was hooked. I watched games on TV every Sunday night and soon was attending games in person every Wednesday night. 

I also watched Roller Derby with the San Francisco Bay Area Bombers on TV, but the Philadelphia Warriors of Roller Games were my team. I was most interested in the Roller Derby when they showed old games with Buddy Atkinson, Dru Scott, Mike Gammon and Judi McGuire on the New York Chiefs. At the time, they were all Warriors, and Mike Gammon was my favorite skater. 

This article gives a good description of roller derby vs. roller games. (I didn't know any of this at the time--just figured there were two leagues.)

The games this weekend was from the Roller Games of 1989-1990 season--my least favorite era. These games included a "Wall of Death" and an alligator pit (apparently the alligators were only used once.) The only skaters I remembered from my day were Little Richard Brown (another fave from the Warriors--I loved when he and Mike were on a jam together) and the Living Legend Ralphie Valladares. Annoyingly, "jams" were called "scoring cycles" and "jammers" were called "jetters."

Then there was Roller Jam in 1991-2001. I liked seeing Richard Brown again as well as the third generation skater Sean Atkinson (son of Buddy and Dru,) I remember seeing him as a child at a game at the Cherry Hill (NJ) Arena. Jeff and I got a kick of out of Roller Jam (I guess I corrupted him.)

We watched the A&E series Roller Girls that aired in 2006. There wasn't much skating shown, but it was interesting to compare the on- and off-track lives of the skaters. After watching the Roller Games last weekend, I found a documentary about the revival of Roller Derby in Austin called Hell on Wheels. 

A few years ago, Jeff and I saw a bout of the Connecticut Roller Derby. CTRD is a flat track league and it was kind of boring. I guess I'm old school.

Mets Beat the Dodgers Tonight

It's been a lot of ups and downs for the Mets this week. After losing the series to the Phillies in a Sunday night game, the Mets swept the the Diamondbacks in a four game series.

I was upset at last night's loss to the Dodgers 9-2. I couldn't watch anymore so I did the dinner dishes. (Note to self--watch bad Mets games to get inspired to clean.)

Tonight the Mets won 3-0; a pitchers' dual until the bottom of the eighth when Rajai Davis hit a three run double to score all the runs the Mets needed.

As usual, deGrom was awesome; as usual the Mets didn't score for him. But we got the win. We're still alive. Can this be the beginning of a new winning streak?

LGM.

Superbowl Sunday

Jeff has a tradition of making chili on Superbowl Sunday. That was nice because I worked all afternoon.

I'm not much of a football fan, but I was rooting for the Eagles. It was a combination of things: I grew up in the Philadelphia area; I'm sick of the Patriots winning; I was rooting on behalf of my dad. I recently learned that the Eagles had never won the Superbowl. I'm sorry Dad didn't get to see the moment when they did.

I found one of the announcers really annoying. I said that he must have been in love with Tom Brady. Apparently it was Cris Collinsworth. Melissa McEwan said he had a timeshare inside Tom Brady's ass. No matter what happened in the game, his response was to explain how Tom Brady would do something and the Patriots would win.

The commercials were disappointing. I admit I'm the wrong audience; I'm not a fan of commercials in general. I did like the Eli Manning Dirty Dancing ad.

Don't get me started on Justin Timberlake. I never saw his appeal.

At least baseball season is coming soon.

U-S-A !

Jeff and I don't watch soccer often, but we do watch the World Cup. Today we watched the end of the Mets-Dodgers game before we turned on the final women's match. Amazingly (pun intended) the Mets took the series with a big 8-0 win today on a second strong pitching performance by Steven Matz.

When we switched to the World Cup about five minutes into the game, the USA was already up two goals to none over Japan. Shocking. The US team ultimately won 5-2.

All in all, a good sports day.