pretty things and.. um.. uglier things

the pretty part of this post comes courtesy of the Cherry Blossom Festival last weekend. despite this being my 7th spring living in DC, it's only the second time i've made it downtown when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. and the first time i went, i had my camera stolen later that day, so all my pictures went with it.

this year was misdemeanor-free, happily, and Sunday was one of the only gorgeous days we've had recently, so it all worked out nicely:

[full set here.]

which brings us to... the not so pretty. i went to frisbee again last night, which i play way the heck out in manassas. and not on a team, per se, but just with a bunch of guys out that way who like to play. and unfortunately, the only place they have to play (that is lit up at night) is the tennis courts at a local highschool. there are three tennis courts lined up in a row, and we play lengthwise across the back court of the three of them, so we're never crossing the nets or anything.

however, the tennis court is PAVED, as you might imagine. for this reason, our games are not super intense in the diving-for-discs kind of way, and no one really gets (too) hurt. usually.

until last night, when i plummeted face-first onto the asphalt.

i, uh, got my feet tangled with another guys' while i was trying to cover him - while running - and just sort of went straight down before i knew what was happening. i broke the fall slightly with my knees and hands, but bore most of the brunt on my left shoulder, before bouncing my chin off the pavement.
this picture was right when i got home, when my shoulder was still a nice oozy bright red.

this next one is from this morning, where i'm happily starting to scab up a bit, but you can see a bit of the massive bruise that is going to be coming in underneath the scrape on my shoulder. it is tennnnnnder there today, hooboy.

not shown: the massively bruised right knee (i was wearing running pants, luckily, and only scraped off a little skin through them); my scraped palms; or the red knuckles and back of my left hand. yes, i managed to scrape both the front AND back of my left hand. and no, i have no idea how i managed this.

i love how i manage to do this not 36 hours before i'm scheduled to spend 4 days in a bikini. i rock.