Bashed Face

I wrote this back in November when it occurred. Just thought I would post it now.

“Ok. Let’s run through it one more time, then I have to go,” Jeanna, our dance advisor, called out.

We all rose to our feet and got in our beginning formation for our kick routine, the one we would be performing at the Semi-Finals for football on Saturday. The music started and I tightened every muscle in my body, focusing mostly on my core. We started doing our kicks. My legs were sore when I kicked that high, higher than my head, but it wasn’t unbearable. We were all trying our hardest to be sharp and smile. Smiling wasn’t that difficult. When you love what you’re doing it doesn’t take much concentration to smile.

We neared the end of our dance and got into “the worm” position. Alisha was going to start it, Robin was right in front of me with her feet on my shoulder blades, my feet were on Heather’s shoulder blades, and Jeannie would finish the ripple. The counts came and we rippled. My upper half came up as Robin’s was going down, though her feet were still up. I started to go down when I realized Robin’s feet weren’t on me anymore. Within a split second, I heard a sickening thud and a sharp pain cracked up through my nose as I felt Robin’s feet hit the back of my head and my face hit the gym floor. The dance was almost over, only one more eight-count, so I finished it.

But as I hit my ending pose, traitor tears raced down my cheeks and my head was pounding. I then noticed my upper lip throbbing, too. Jeanna was staring at me in concern.

“Are you ok?” She asked, “What happened?”

I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t talk. The pain surged through me as I fought to hold back the already obvious tears. I finally explained to her what happened as I raised my hand to cover my nose, as though to protect it. It was already swelling. I felt something wet trickle into my hands and I pulled them away to look. Blood. I knew it wasn’t from my nose. My nose never bleeds. It was from my lip. It had split open and the blood was coming fast. With no need to verbally excuse myself, I stood up and ran to the bathroom.

I grabbed a tissue and held it there to stop the bleeding. When it finally stopped, I took a deep breath before looking in the mirror. Ugh. It was bad. My nose was swelling, shadowed from starting to bruise, and my lip was swollen with a huge split in it. Even with my high tolerance for pain, I cried.

I went and got it x-rayed. Not broken. Good. But it didn’t stop it from hurting. It was then I had to make one of the hardest choices. I couldn’t dance with my nose like this. I knew that. I felt it. There was no possible way without feeling like it was being smacked into the floor a hundred times over. And so, I gave it up: my once in a lifetime chance to go to All-State Dance. Yeah. I feel horrible I didn’t get to go, but I don’t regret my decision. My face is still throbbing. Oh well, it’s not everyday you get your face smashed into the floor. I’ll admit, it’s one thing I haven’t done yet, and now I get to say I have.

I looked horrible for several days. The split in my lip was really deep and didn't heal for about two weeks. The bruising on my nose spread to under my eyes. I looked really ridiculous.

Annie Oakley

One of my mother's nicknames for me-when guns are in mind-is Annie Oakley. Today my parents and I were talking about one of the incidences (I think the very first one) that earned me that nickname. I would just like to share that with you.

Growing up we always had chickens. They were usually plain white, though the roosters were often different colors. They would always wander about the yard eating worms, fallen apples, and whatever else they could find.

One day my oldest brother, Jamin, and I were standing out on the back deck watching the chickens. I couldn't have been any older than 8 years old (though I was probably 6 or 7). Jamin was probably about 16 or 17. Then he got this bright idea. He went inside where my mom was fixing lunch. He asked her if he could see if I could shoot one of the chickens. She thought he meant with a BB gun, and plus I had never really shot before and never at a moving target, so she had no problem with it.

So Jamin brought out his gun. Only it wasn't his BB gun... it was his .22. He handed the me the gun, which was almost as big as I was. He pointed to one of the chickens and said, "Hey, Jess. Shoot that chicken. That one."
"Ok."

I pulled the gun up over the rail and placed the butt of the gun on my shoulder. Jamin stood beside me with a look of curiosity and humor on his face. I aimed at the chicken, bobbing it's head as it walked, and squeezed the trigger...

Jamin's expression quickly changed to shock and disbelief. I had nailed the chicken right in the head and killed it. With the gun still positioned in my arms, I looked up at him.

"She killed it! Oh my heck! I can't believe she killed it!"
My mom walked out onto the deck in answer to Jamin's shouting. "Oh, she didn't kill it," she calmly replied. Then she looked off the deck and saw the dead chicken.

They buried the chicken to "hide the evidence." But it was in vain. When my dad got home, I was so please with myself, that I ran up and told him that I had shot and killed a chicken. The only thing that he was really upset about was that, with a clean headshot, they had buried it, so now we couldn't eat it.

We all find the memory quite funny now. Though, since then, no one has ever told me to shoot anything unless they were completely serious.

Drill Competition

So we had drill competition this last weekend and it went pretty good. We didn't place, but we performed really well. There's definitely room for improvement, but I think our chances might be pretty good this year. There's just one problem.....

Some time during the competition, I really don't know when, I hurt my middle finger on my left hand. It has a funny bump on the side, it's swollen, and this morning it started turning blue. I don't know if it's jammed or broken. And really, I don't know if I want to know. (My mother's famous words that we don't let her live down: "If you can move it, it's not broken." That's a story in itself.) I'm not going to get it x-rayed. Bleh. I'm sick of that and it costs too much. So I'm just dealing with it. The funny thing is, when we do our military dance we have to have our wrists at 90 degree angles with flat hands. Usually, that's not a problem. Now, my finger won't go straight so my hand curls in a funny claw-like way. It actually looks really hilarious when we do the dance, and I feel so stupid. :)

Yesterday I almost couldn't get my ring off my finger. Really, it took me about 15 minutes sitting in church to get it off (my mom and I were switching rings again during sacrament meeting). So we decided I probably shouldn't put it back on that finger.

Silly fingers. They always get the worst of it. :)