08-14-2022, 10:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-15-2022, 01:11 AM by dude_man. Edited 1 time in total.)
I thought the dog thing was an add on to option 3 but it turns out I cannot read so we're churning out a 1k word article in addition to the draft nonsense because I already wrote the dog thing and hey! Money! I have an hour, let's hop to it.
Carissa van Campen is heading up to the big leagues this season, but she's gotten really at home in Norfolk and change is incredibly hard. She knows where all her favorite food places are, does all her training the same way, has done that for like four years now, and now she has to figure out how to move her entire adult life hundreds of miles to Louisianna.
Don't think that she's not excited about it! Because she is, totally and definitely. She was told there would be a plateau that you'd hit in the minor leagues, where there's just no room to improve. And she's been there for a while now, just keeping on doing what she's good at, but making no progress to change her tactics or learn new skills. It's like "if it's broke, don't fix it" but to an extreme that is starting to wear, just a bit. Because Carissa does want to change. She remembers being a kid, learning the basics, and her dad teaching her how to throw the perfect spiral. When she'd nailed that, she felt incredible. She wants that feeling again.
She gets a bit of that at the start of each season, welcoming in the newbies and getting used to their playing style and getting them used to hers. That's some growing plain and it's good. It's different. She yearns for more of it, but is complacent with what she has at the same time. It's confusing and frustrating and even a little scary.
It's time and she knows it. When she talked to her GMs last season to get a read on the Seawolves, and check in with the Secondline, it had been understood that this would be her last hurrah in Norfolk. And it's one thing to know that, and quite another to make that knowledge real. Now it's real. Packing her belongings into cardboard boxes, that's real. Saying goodbye-not goodbye, she tells them each time, just a see you late-to her teammates and the Norfolk staff, that's real.
She even had a teary moment with the pizza delivery guy that brings her a medium supreme every Friday night. She left him the biggest tip she could, and they hugged it out while he tried to give her food recommendations for places in New Orleans. He'd only been there once as a high school senior trip with friends, and hadn't been to a single bar and only two restaurants, but the effort was appreciated. She was fairly sure she could get subpar medium supremes in Louisiana, but the lack of surety was unsettling. What if even her silly little comfort meals tasted different? She'd only just gotten over missing Dutch food, and even then sometimes it'd hit her like a freight train - that she was so far from home, and family, and now she was going even further.
Offseason means a lot of free time. Sure, she'd still be hitting the gym just as hard, but her nights were free, no games. And most of her teammated had headed home to see their families, so no team dinners, game nights, any of that. She'd scoured all the streaming services, binged anything that took place in Louisiana. Lots of cooking shows, vampires, and witches and really just everything under the sun (except the vampires. they didn't really go in the sun). She did everything short of watching Tall Girl, because that seemed like a bad decision and she wasn't that deep into her moving-induced sadness yet.
She tried cooking some things. She found a gumbo recipe and gave it a shot, noting that it was beginner friendly and that she could find all the ingredients nearby. It didn't turn out half bad, and made enough food to last her a week. When she finally reached the end of it, she'd immediately gone shopping to make it again.
Change is good, really, she's decided. Change means she gets a new kit with new colors, and purple is a fun one. She's already preordered her jersey for her dads and she's even started looking at shelters in the area. She nabbed a nice apartement, none of that hotel or teammate rooming while she hunts for an apartment AND trains for the season. It was maddening enough for Norfolk. The apartment is on the seventh floor, and if the pictures serve true overlooks a bustling street, and it's close to the farmer's market. She hasn't been yet, but she had an excellent realtor that instilled a lot of confidence. She's not planning on going anywhere for a while, hopefully this big move will last her a few years, and the apartment allows pets. So she's looking. Half-curious, half-serious. She hadn't had a pet growing up, not even fish, because her family loved to travel and any pets were a hassle. But she won't be traveling, and it would be nice to have someone to come home to. She has her eye on a Shiba Inu, a Dachsund, and Schipperke named "Cerebrus." She looks at that last one at least once a day, finger hovering over the shelter contact button. She'll hit it tomorrow.
But there's only one box to go, and it's all of her Norfolk gear. Her kit, the first one that got busted but she still kept, and her Ultimini trophy. Because once she packs those up, it's over. Her time with Norfolk will have truly ended, and she won't be able to do that until the day she leaves. Early in the morning, she'll stuff everything in that little box and throw it in her car. But until then, it will sit on her shelf, and she will look at it, paused mid-Lousianan-show, and she'll remember. What it was like on that field, with Seawolves fans cheering, every hit she gave and got, and how good it felt hoisting the trophy and the celebration in the locker room afterwards.
Her time here was short, and this apartment, that locker room stall, will be someone else's soon. But for this time, it was hers. And those memories, she will have them forever.
My pup's name is Sammy. He is a black and white mix dog that we got at a humane society in 2012. He's an old boy now, getting a new grey hair every day in his eyebrows or chin. I like to smooth them down and explain to him that he is old and should be taking care of himself better. We got him at 8 weeks old because we went to the shelter to take a look at a dog, but that didn't quite work out. They had just gotten a load of puppies from Georgia (I lived in Maryland, quite the hike) and had 3 girls and 1 boy that they said were Border Collie mixes. Sammy was the fluffiest and had the curliest hair. I held him in my arms and we had him home within an hour.
In the early days, we tried to crate train, but he would cry through the night so we let him have free reign. We had a cat, and got another when we got Sammy, and he and that cat were best buds up until we lost the cat in 2018. We still have Kitty, but she is very rude and merely tolerates Sammy instead of playing with him and cuddling with him. Sammy also took a while to decide he liked walks. When he was a puppy, I would put him on my chest and zip up a sweater around him, and walk with him like that since he would just sit down when on a leash. Now I can no longer do that, as he is fifty pounds and absolutely hates being picked up.
He's been an old man his entire life - doesn't like it when you stay up late because he needs his beauty sleep. He has left the room before because I stay up playing videogames and he cannot stand the clicking and noises. He gets bedhead sometimes when he wakes up and you have to give him gentle pats and smooth down his hair to make him handsome again. He is very handsome usually, and has very fun coloring. The black head and white body throw people off sometimes.
Over pandemic being inside all the time stuff we got bored, and ordered 2 dog dna test kits because my parents were doing ancestry and while the shelter said Sammy was Border Collie mix, we had no proof. Both tests came back with a myriad of breeds, but the large part was Akita and Pitbull, which explains all the fluff and also all the grumpiness.
He's a really lovely boy, and loves floor cuddles and belly rubs, as well as head scritches. He knows how to make the best puppy dog eyes when you try to leave the house, like you're going and he won't ever see you again, and he likes to go outside and boof boof boof when you get home to show you that he was a good guard dog and kept the house safe. He loves the idea of a walk, but when you're actually on one, he'll look at you five minutes in like "are you really going to make me do this?" because he's silly. He loves to run around the yard and chase me, jumping and biting gently on a hoodie sleeve when he catches me. He's a good boy, and I love him a lot.
Of course, a picture (behold the bedhead):
Carissa van Campen is heading up to the big leagues this season, but she's gotten really at home in Norfolk and change is incredibly hard. She knows where all her favorite food places are, does all her training the same way, has done that for like four years now, and now she has to figure out how to move her entire adult life hundreds of miles to Louisianna.
Don't think that she's not excited about it! Because she is, totally and definitely. She was told there would be a plateau that you'd hit in the minor leagues, where there's just no room to improve. And she's been there for a while now, just keeping on doing what she's good at, but making no progress to change her tactics or learn new skills. It's like "if it's broke, don't fix it" but to an extreme that is starting to wear, just a bit. Because Carissa does want to change. She remembers being a kid, learning the basics, and her dad teaching her how to throw the perfect spiral. When she'd nailed that, she felt incredible. She wants that feeling again.
She gets a bit of that at the start of each season, welcoming in the newbies and getting used to their playing style and getting them used to hers. That's some growing plain and it's good. It's different. She yearns for more of it, but is complacent with what she has at the same time. It's confusing and frustrating and even a little scary.
It's time and she knows it. When she talked to her GMs last season to get a read on the Seawolves, and check in with the Secondline, it had been understood that this would be her last hurrah in Norfolk. And it's one thing to know that, and quite another to make that knowledge real. Now it's real. Packing her belongings into cardboard boxes, that's real. Saying goodbye-not goodbye, she tells them each time, just a see you late-to her teammates and the Norfolk staff, that's real.
She even had a teary moment with the pizza delivery guy that brings her a medium supreme every Friday night. She left him the biggest tip she could, and they hugged it out while he tried to give her food recommendations for places in New Orleans. He'd only been there once as a high school senior trip with friends, and hadn't been to a single bar and only two restaurants, but the effort was appreciated. She was fairly sure she could get subpar medium supremes in Louisiana, but the lack of surety was unsettling. What if even her silly little comfort meals tasted different? She'd only just gotten over missing Dutch food, and even then sometimes it'd hit her like a freight train - that she was so far from home, and family, and now she was going even further.
Offseason means a lot of free time. Sure, she'd still be hitting the gym just as hard, but her nights were free, no games. And most of her teammated had headed home to see their families, so no team dinners, game nights, any of that. She'd scoured all the streaming services, binged anything that took place in Louisiana. Lots of cooking shows, vampires, and witches and really just everything under the sun (except the vampires. they didn't really go in the sun). She did everything short of watching Tall Girl, because that seemed like a bad decision and she wasn't that deep into her moving-induced sadness yet.
She tried cooking some things. She found a gumbo recipe and gave it a shot, noting that it was beginner friendly and that she could find all the ingredients nearby. It didn't turn out half bad, and made enough food to last her a week. When she finally reached the end of it, she'd immediately gone shopping to make it again.
Change is good, really, she's decided. Change means she gets a new kit with new colors, and purple is a fun one. She's already preordered her jersey for her dads and she's even started looking at shelters in the area. She nabbed a nice apartement, none of that hotel or teammate rooming while she hunts for an apartment AND trains for the season. It was maddening enough for Norfolk. The apartment is on the seventh floor, and if the pictures serve true overlooks a bustling street, and it's close to the farmer's market. She hasn't been yet, but she had an excellent realtor that instilled a lot of confidence. She's not planning on going anywhere for a while, hopefully this big move will last her a few years, and the apartment allows pets. So she's looking. Half-curious, half-serious. She hadn't had a pet growing up, not even fish, because her family loved to travel and any pets were a hassle. But she won't be traveling, and it would be nice to have someone to come home to. She has her eye on a Shiba Inu, a Dachsund, and Schipperke named "Cerebrus." She looks at that last one at least once a day, finger hovering over the shelter contact button. She'll hit it tomorrow.
But there's only one box to go, and it's all of her Norfolk gear. Her kit, the first one that got busted but she still kept, and her Ultimini trophy. Because once she packs those up, it's over. Her time with Norfolk will have truly ended, and she won't be able to do that until the day she leaves. Early in the morning, she'll stuff everything in that little box and throw it in her car. But until then, it will sit on her shelf, and she will look at it, paused mid-Lousianan-show, and she'll remember. What it was like on that field, with Seawolves fans cheering, every hit she gave and got, and how good it felt hoisting the trophy and the celebration in the locker room afterwards.
Her time here was short, and this apartment, that locker room stall, will be someone else's soon. But for this time, it was hers. And those memories, she will have them forever.
Code:
1069 words
My pup's name is Sammy. He is a black and white mix dog that we got at a humane society in 2012. He's an old boy now, getting a new grey hair every day in his eyebrows or chin. I like to smooth them down and explain to him that he is old and should be taking care of himself better. We got him at 8 weeks old because we went to the shelter to take a look at a dog, but that didn't quite work out. They had just gotten a load of puppies from Georgia (I lived in Maryland, quite the hike) and had 3 girls and 1 boy that they said were Border Collie mixes. Sammy was the fluffiest and had the curliest hair. I held him in my arms and we had him home within an hour.
In the early days, we tried to crate train, but he would cry through the night so we let him have free reign. We had a cat, and got another when we got Sammy, and he and that cat were best buds up until we lost the cat in 2018. We still have Kitty, but she is very rude and merely tolerates Sammy instead of playing with him and cuddling with him. Sammy also took a while to decide he liked walks. When he was a puppy, I would put him on my chest and zip up a sweater around him, and walk with him like that since he would just sit down when on a leash. Now I can no longer do that, as he is fifty pounds and absolutely hates being picked up.
He's been an old man his entire life - doesn't like it when you stay up late because he needs his beauty sleep. He has left the room before because I stay up playing videogames and he cannot stand the clicking and noises. He gets bedhead sometimes when he wakes up and you have to give him gentle pats and smooth down his hair to make him handsome again. He is very handsome usually, and has very fun coloring. The black head and white body throw people off sometimes.
Over pandemic being inside all the time stuff we got bored, and ordered 2 dog dna test kits because my parents were doing ancestry and while the shelter said Sammy was Border Collie mix, we had no proof. Both tests came back with a myriad of breeds, but the large part was Akita and Pitbull, which explains all the fluff and also all the grumpiness.
He's a really lovely boy, and loves floor cuddles and belly rubs, as well as head scritches. He knows how to make the best puppy dog eyes when you try to leave the house, like you're going and he won't ever see you again, and he likes to go outside and boof boof boof when you get home to show you that he was a good guard dog and kept the house safe. He loves the idea of a walk, but when you're actually on one, he'll look at you five minutes in like "are you really going to make me do this?" because he's silly. He loves to run around the yard and chase me, jumping and biting gently on a hoodie sleeve when he catches me. He's a good boy, and I love him a lot.
Of course, a picture (behold the bedhead):
Code:
571 dog words