A dark and stormy night

Listening to: Cinematic-Cinematic
Well it is. It's night, so by definition it is dark, unless you're in a polar region in summer, which I'm not. And it certainly is stormy. The southerly is howling and whining around the house like a sad lonely dog. So I sit beside the heater and blog.

Spoke to Fishy earlier. She left home just in time to develop a nasty cold. She sounds not very well. Missing having her around.

I got validation and affirmation from a totally unexpected source earlier in the evening. Early in what was my last official game for my Tuesday netball team, I was lining up a shot from outside the circle. The D was getting in my face a little so I stepped away (a defender must be three feet away from your first grounded foot, and if you step away onto your other foot, they cannot follow). The D followed (should have instantly been called for obstruction, wasn't), and then fell into me (again should have been penalised, wasn't). As I was taking the shot, the whistle blew, and the umpire called me for 'held ball' (the ball can only be possessed for three seconds, probably a fair enough call by that time). Slightly miffed I cried 'falling in umpire', as the ball disappeared up the court. This getting no response, I muttered 'f***in bullsh*t' in response to my team mates query about how we lost the ball (I often have trouble with the inner monologue thing during competitive sport) . At the quarter break the umpire called me over. I thought I was to be chastised for undermining her authority, but instead she said I was right to query the call in not penalising the D, as in hindsight it was incorrect, and apologised, admitting it probably cost us a couple of points. In all my playing days, this has never happened before. I was so stunned I could only say 'that's alright; thank you' in a sheepish polite voice. I had my superleague shorts on, which the umpire recognised as she had also played superleague, and this may have had something to do with it.
Between quarters we discussed superleague in general, and the game we were playing, which was very clean and polite, in large part due to the umpire being really good. Having mentioned that I played for the lowest superleague team, the umpire then said that everyone starts somewhere, and that I was a good player, with a very clean game. It's very stoking to get validation like that from a source like that. I've played two games this week and feel I played well in both of them. This is important, as I have a very erratic self impression of my sporting ability (which I think stems from not having much at high school, and being hassled for it.I was a late developer in many respects). Sometimes I think I'm quite good at netball in particular, most of the time I don't. Were it not for not-kate, fishy and ms_netball's exhortations I never would have played superleague. Umm thanks guys, er girls.
For the record we came from 7-0 down to win 21-18. Sure they only had five players, but player for player they were way better than us. I shut down their best A when I was on D (after playing 3 C's, and shooting about 60% for maybe 8-12 points) though, which was fun and rewarding. By the way, never believe a team that calls itself 'Rookies'. They almost never are.


I have pulled something in my right shoulder/upper arm, in an 'injury you don't notice at the time, but which manifests later' sort of way. It isn't quite working right. I noticed this at work, when I almost dropped the cue while playing pool due the to weird pain I was experiencing whenever I drew my arm back for a shot. I think it may be a muscular thing.

When it comes to comments, I'm with homeperm right now. I have noticed I don't accrue comments at nearly the rate that my immediate blogosphere whanau do. I have no idea how many people actually read this stuff. It's not really about comments, mind. It's about expression dude...