Making the Right Call

Is it too harsh to say I’d like to do my entire career as a rugby referee again?

I became a ref for a lot of reasons: I loved rugby but wasn’t very good at it, I’m really good at following rules, and the best referees have been known to get free trips to Fiji and other glamorous locales where rugby rules.

My first game, officiating over two teams of high school girls brand new to the sport was brilliant. They loved me, I loved them, and all the other refs at the tournament patted me on the back and welcomed me to their world. I felt the sun smiling down on me as I shook the girls’ hands after the game, congratulating them and telling them they did a fine job. One girl stayed late to talk to me about reffing and my playing career, and I applauded myself for being such an outstanding role model. It was a few hours before I realized that I’d spent the entire game calling her team by the wrong name.

Of course, high school girls aren’t the only ones who play rugby. Most players are men, the big burly ones of stereotypes, many of whom have been playing at least since I was a high school girl.

Once I got into a fight with one player over some of my calls, calls I proudly stood behind until the end of the game, when I didn’t call a minor infraction just to get back at him. The teams that day were criminally unmatched: PAC a national powerhouse, and Rocky Gorge a bunch of past-their-prime enthusiasts whose website proclaimed “Win or lose, we still booze.” I can still see the ball falling from the hands of the PAC player and landing on the ground in front of him. I can still feel the eyes of everyone on the field as they turned to see what I would do. I did nothing. I let them score the try, despite the infraction, then I whistled to end the game and beat a hasty retreat.

It was a long time after that before I returned to reffing, but as a favor, I volunteered to ref a men’s college game. At least college men were, for the most part, younger than me. At the beginning of the game, a senior ref asked the captains how it felt to have the prettiest ref in the union officiating their game. The two boys looked at me, then back at the ref, confused.

It only got worse. I awarded an undeserved try, then, just in case anyone on the pitch was still on my side, I called it back. When the game was over, a player who had been three years behind me in college came over to pat me on the head and tell me to stick with it.

I never reffed again. And if I ever get to Fiji, I’m pretty sure I’ll be paying my own way.

Who's a Big Winner?

The Bohinkas are. Tonight Katie, Gimmy and I repped the gang at Global Justice trivia. And we WON, bitches. With a little help from the table next to us, we won the tie breaker to win round 2. We got a $25 gift certificate to ACKC, which was probably the best prize of the three gift certificates.

I Entered an Essay Contest

For a blog called Lizard Writes, you were probably wondering where all the writing is. Other than on this page, of course. And the answer, for a long time, has been there isn't any! Until now.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the Bethesda Literary Festival website. Usually I find things like this the Monday after they happen, but this time, I had more than a month before the festival! (I did, however, miss the Bethesda Dance Festival that was held that weekend. Can't win 'em all.)

Anyway, the contest was to write 500 words on one thing in your life you'd change if you had the chance to do it again. I wrote about my illustrious career as a rugby referee. Obviously, it's not the most deep essay topic, but it really is an experience that I have a lot of regrets about. And I don't think I would go back and like, tell my grandmother I loved her one last time, because it would be too sad to relive that again unless I could Quantum Leap in and out, and that wasn't specified in the rules. Plus, I tried to make the essay kind of funny, and humor is my strong suit. Obviously.

So if you would like to read the essay, leave a comment and I'll post it. Katie's already read it, so if you don't tell me you want it, I'll figure you weren't going to read it anyway. Also I need to prove I have friends and things like that.

Come on, people, don't make me write an essay about how I regret telling you I wrote an essay!

Is It Weird

That I want to go to this? Writing and Yoga

(Usually when you have to ask yourself that question, the answer is yes.)

Whatever, bitches, it's my birthday.*

*May 12 is not my birthday, but it is part of my weeklong birthday celebration, which will culminate with the 2nd Annual Abingdon Drive Ice Cream Social. Mark your calendars.

I'll Never Be Happy Again

We were thisclose to being Cinderellas. I keep waiting for someone to jump up and say, "But you see, I have the other slipper."

But I'm afraid that the Cinderella metaphor doesn't match up perfectly with basketball after all.

If This Is Real ...

Like really a 9th grader and not a comedian, then give the kid a book deal already! Actually, give whoever wrote it a book deal. It's the funniest thing I've read in a long time, and I just finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which is hilarious.

(h/t to Kate, of course. Why should I come up with my own stuff hers is so good?)

Cookies! Finally!

So, if you've had as hard a time as I have this year finding Girl Scout Cookies, DCist comes to our rescue! Check out the cookie locator. You can thank me later. With Thin Mints.

Who's Dancing Now?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming of smugness and self-congratulation to bring you some exciting news. AU is in the NCAA tournament!! For only the second time in the school's history! We beat those rat bastards from Holy Cross--something we could never do when I was a student--to get there. And we (I share fully in this victory) shot 71% from the field in the second half. How's your alma mater doing? (Smugness on!)

In other, significanly less great, alumni news, see Kate's post on the bleak future of the QHS band. Let me use a simile related to AU's awesomeness to explain how stupid it would be to cut music at Quakertown. The band at Quakertown shoots about 80% from the field at all times. They are incredible. And about 10% of the student body participates in band. The football team on the other hand, and let me put this delicately, blows. It shoots about 30% from the field at all times like a certain Jesuit university with an inappropriately named sports team. (Turns out, despite what I learned in Catholic school, the Crusades were decidedly not awesome, Crusaders!)

And the football team, unlike band, is only open to members of the male persuasion. And, if Varsity Blues has taught me anything, it's that football will corrupt the hell out of you. When's the last time you heard about marching band hooligans gang raping their fellow students to impress new recruits?

I don't hate football, and I don't advocate cutting it. But if you're looking to save money, I'd think that you should at least think about cutting programs in the order of whose participants have, as students, fathered the most children. And not the most successful program in the history of your school, aside from girls' cross country.

Under a Luna Moon

Kate nails Lunafest with her review. But she fails to point out (though I guess it should be obvious from the context) that everyone there was a yuppy mom. Who else would do something called stroller strides? And for the record, I will be an awesome yuppy mom. I'm already obsessed with sports AND reading. Two things that all hyper perfect children have to participate in. I also enjoy the occasional beauty pageant...*




*No I don't.

Luna Moons

You're Not the Boss of Me

So the other day I was taking some Facebook quizzes (I should live in Paris), and I came across one called "What Kind of Wife Are You?" Despite the fact that I am not a wife, I do think that I would be pretty kick-ass at it, and not in a scary desperate-to-get-married-and-make-babies kind of way, but in a stuck up, condescending, over-it-all kind of way. Like I could be a wife if I wanted to be, but I'm not, but I'm still good at it.

And of course, my suspicions were confirmed. According to some Facebook app, I'm totally a good wife.

But this isn't just another blog about how great I am. There are plenty of those already. This one is about my favorite favorite question on the quiz.

It said something like your husband comes home and tells you to quit your job. Your response is.

Now, before I tell you what I said, I have to qualify my response by saying that most of the answer choices were a little absurd and some kind of mean. One was that you'd tell your husband that there was no way you could afford to quit your job on his "puny" paycheck. But my response was "laugh in his face," mostly because the idea that Wes or anyone would say that to me is facially absurd. I'm not saying I'd never quit my job because my nonexistent husband asked me too for a really important reason. But if he told me to, well, either he'd be kidding, or we'd soon be going through a real divorce.

Mmmm Mmmmm, Good!

Last night for dinner I ate popcorn, french fries, and a cupcake. Afterward I felt greasy and queasy. I'm a grown up!

I'm counting this as the fourth installment of things that kinda make be barf, because they literally did. Also, I can't believe that I have a cupcakes tag.

Tina Fey gets me.