Because I have the sense of humour of a 12 year old boy, I share this with you

glumbert - How to taunt a hockey player

They weren't kidding when they called these habanero potato chips "Death Rain." I think they gave my internal organs third-degree burns.

This concludes my blog posting for today. You can blame the shortness of my blog posting on whomever scheduled my hockey game for 10:15 p.m. on a Sunday night. I don't know who they are, but they better hope I don't find them.

Choose My Own Adventure, Ottawa Style!

For my Christmas present, Sarah and Dave offered me a "choose my own Ottawaian adventure." In the interest me not having to carry a bunch o' stuff back on the plane, they gave me some options of fun things to do in Ottawa, including:

• Canada Science and Technology Museum
• Museums of Civilization and/or War
  
• The Green Door vegetarian restaurant
• watching the Senators game¹
• the Diefenbunker, Canada's Cold War Museum
• National Gallery²
• chainsmoking episodes of Veronica Mars

I chose: most of the above. I'm unable to go to the National Gallery due to the fact that they have sculpture of a giant spider outside. And you know how I feel about spiders. Museums of Civilization and/or War are out because, um, I'm neither civilized nor war mongering.

Today, Dave had to work today in order to keep us in the style to which we have become accustomed while Sarah & I picked up the cats from the cat spa³, then went to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The C.S.T.M. kinda made us feel like Canada hasn't done a whole hell of a lot in science and technology that isn't related to snow and/or hockey. Although we did learn that Ernest Rutherford did the work which earned him his 1908 Nobel Prize while in Canada. Which, you know, you think they would have mentioned when we learned about the Rutherford model of the atom in high school and university chemistry classes, given that we went to high school and university in Canada. But whatevs.

After the C.S.T.M., we came home and Sarah made us some super delish veggie sushi. Just like The Eatery, but with much better service. We chain smoked the first four episodes of Veronica Mars, which Sarah has been telling me about forever, but which I had never watched before. Now I'm totally into the mystery and need - and I mean NEED - to find out whodunit. Then we watched the Sens game, followed by the Canucks game - both which had happy endings. And now I be tired. But before I head to bed, I give you me, in a stupid large snowbank. With a pink hat on:

¹although not live, since it's sold out. But with PVR-y goodness, we can watch it without pesky commercials
²I can't link to this site, because I am afraid that a picture of the giant spider will be on their site.
³Where they had been living a life of cat luxury while S & D were away for a few days of family Christmas visiting.

Second Only to Sex....

... that was how the goalie who played for our team last night described hockey¹.

Also heard in our locker room yesterday:

• Spit or swallow?^2,4


• I can eat 6 men.^{3, 4}

We won 6-0, after losing the past two weeks (our first two losses of the season, after 9 straight wins). And *I* got an assist. I managed to get open in front, took a pass from the centre and shot a mighty shot⁶ which the goalie just barely managed to stop... it was too hot for her to handle and she let it rebound, a rebound that was then picked up by the other winger who shot it in the net. And the crowd⁷ went wild.

This entire posting was not just a lame excuse to talk about my assist, why do you ask?

¹although she did also say something to the effect of "my husband would kill me if I said hockey is better than sex," which makes one wonder, really.
²This was allegedly in reference to the Skittles gum that was being passed around the dressing room before the game. Gum which I, upon reading the label and seeing that it contained shellac⁵, declined to chew.
³This was allegedly in reference to gingerbread men. Allegedly.
⁴For the record, it wasn't me who said either of these.
⁵So I just learned something new! I didn't want to eat shellac because I have memories of spraying it on paintings in art class as a kid to preserve them. But when I just read that Wikipedia entry, I saw that it's made from bugs! Ick! Glad I took a pass on the squished bug gum!
⁶"Mighty" may be translated as "I actually shot it at the goalie"
⁷There may or may not have been a crowd that may or may not have gone wild.

Photo by notanartist on Flickr

I <3 Winning Stuff

I can't resist a contest¹. But a contest with Vancouver Giants tickets and two day passes to Mount Seymour for prizes and a chance to promote donations to the Vancouver Food Bank? No way I'm missing out on this

The contest is being run by Miss604 in honour of her blogiversary². You may remember Miss604 from such blog postings as: she beat me in the race to post a picture of oneself in a printer box and these overpriced Canucks earrings are cool!

You may remember the Vancouver Giants from such achievements as winning the 2007 Memorial Cup, getting into 5 simultaneously on-ice fights with Kamloops Blazer players and playing a team whose goalie smiled at me.

I've been skiing at Mount Seymour one time, last season, when they had free ski passes for women on Monday nights. My friends were all "meh, it's just a mountain" but I thought it was pretty awesome. Of course, I grew up and learned to ski in a mountainless place where they are called "ski areas" as opposed to Mount Such-and-Such.

And last, but certainly not least, a shout out goes to the Vancouver Food Bank. The Food Bank helps tens of thousands of individuals every week - you can click on this link to donate to them.

¹Procrastinate on getting around to writing my entry for a contest, yes. Resist, no.
²I would like to point out that I have fulfilled my contractual obligations³ for this contest at a mere 51 words into this blog posting. Yet I will continue to ramble because that's just how I roll.
³OK, technically, there is no "contract", but it just sounds cool, no?

NHL All-Star Voting

You know you want to go here to vote for all your favourite Canucks. And remember, it's not a beauty contest, so it's OK to vote for the Sedin twins.



And if you win the trip to the All-Star Game in Atlanta, you have to take me, k?

Real Time Canucks update

I'm working late tonight - had to do some brainless work that needs to be done for this report that I'm writing, so I'm listening to the Canucks game as I work, as the Great Convexity¹ has decided to let me stream the radio broadcast today³. And there's been 5 goals⁴. in 10 minutes and 30 seconds! Craziness! OK, I just had to share that. Now back to my regularly scheduled brainless work.

¹"The Great Convexity" = what I'm now calling my work computer now. It's the only one of gadgets that actually ended up with a name².
²Except for the ones that are, uh, named after Canucks.
³The last time I tried, it stubbornly refused to work, even after I turned it off and turned it back on again, which, as we all know, is the only thing that can fix a problematic computer.
⁴ Two Canucks goals that counted, one disallowed because of a too quick whistle; and two goals by the bad guys.

Nancy, don't read this post! You too Jeff!1

My niece is turning 3 this month. So, being the super aunt that I am, I actually decided to buy her present well in advance of the date, in order to be able to it to her in time for the big day².

So, I’m standing in a toy store and another shopper notices my deer-in-headlights look and says to me, "Are you looking for a birthday gift?" and when I say "Yes!!" her immediate question is, "For a boy or a girl?"

"A three year old… girl," I say, with a bit of hesitation. To me, the "three year old" is the more important part, but to her, not so much.

"Oh, I only have boys, so I know all about toys for boys, but not for girls."

"I never buy girly toys," I say. "I prefer "boy" toys³ myself."

She shows me this air hockey toy thing were you get to kick the disc thingy, which floats on air of its own accord, around your house. Its edges are padded so it's OK to play inside.⁴

"Too bad it's hockey," she says, "They used to have a soccer one." "I play hockey!" I say, "This is perfect!"

And it was like she didn’t even hear me. Almost as if “girl” and “hockey” in the same sentence did not compute within her brain. She just kept going on about the soccer one.

We chat for a little while longer and then, as she leaves, despite the fact that I am holding the air hockey toy and have loudly declared “I am *totally* buying her this!”, she says "It really is too bad they don't have the soccer one, it would have been perfect for her."

WTF? I mean, the soccer one is the EXACT SAME TOY, just painted differently!

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve actually decided to give my niece the hockey toy for Christmas because I’m going to Ontario for the holidays, so I won’t have to mail it (it’s kind of big for mailing). This is in no way because I want to be able to play with this toy too, which I can’t do if I mail it to her now, but I can if I bring it with me for Christmas. I can’t believe you would even suggest that!

For her birthday I’m giving her this:

I found this toy in the same store while talking to the woman who is unable to understand that girls can play hockey. My sister had this game when we were little. You fill it up with water and then you press the little white button on the front to send the little balls floating up and you try to get them into the little plastic bucket in front of the crab. Simple, but I swear to you, hours and hours of fun!! And if Madeline doesn’t like it, I know that Nancy will!

I also got her this:

It’s bubbles that don’t burst when you touch them, so you can like grab them and carry them around with you. God knows what chemical is in them that allows this to happen and I’m sure we’ll all get cancer and die from it, but damn, that sounds like hours and hours of fun!!

¹That title is there because I don't want my sister and her bf to read this blog posting because it will ruin the surprise for them of what I got Madeline for her birthday.

²Unlike the rest of all y'all, who routinely receive your birthday presents from me a month after your actual birthday. Apparently I am a super aunt, but somewhat of a mediocre friend.

³By which I mean toys that are marketed for male children. Not the other kind of "boy toy." Not that I object to those personally, just not for my niece!

⁴If the idea of people kicking stuff around in your house is a problem, Nancy, speak now or forever hold your peace. Oh righ, I told you not to read this posting… hee hee!

Support My Hockey Team!!

So, speaking of Vegas, want to support my hockey team to play in a tournament there? We are trying to raise enough funds to go to the Lady Luck Cup tournament in Las Vegas in April.

We are doing a fund raising raffle and I need to sell at least $50 worth of tickets (preferably many more than that).

Here's the 411:

• Tickets are 1 for $2 or 3 for $5

• First Prize: a beer fridge full of beer
• Second Prize: two tickets to a Canucks game
• Third Prize: a trio of 26ers (probably like rum, vodka and gin, or something like that)

We will be doing the draw at our fundraising pub night on January 19th and you don't have to be at the pub night to win. I know the prizes aren't very portable, so for my long distance readers, if you want to buy a ticket or seven and then you win, I could sell the prize and send you the cash!

Wanna buy some raffle tickets? You know you do! Email me: apo_b100 AT hotmail DOT com

P.S. If we raise enough money, I'm sure that my team will get up to all kinds of hijinks in Vegas and I promise to blog said hijinks. I would expect it would be something along the lines of this type of thing. So you could consider buying a raffle ticket to be an investment in your future blog reading enjoyment.

P.P.S. Another fundraiser possibility that we considered, but didn't have enough time to do this year was a calendar. Sort of the "girls of hockey" kind of thing. Would you buy a calendar of me and my teammates like, for example, wearing our hockey jerseys and looking all cute and suchlike? Just doing a little market research for next year....

Hockey Terms That Sound Dirty

Listening to Canucks games on the radio, I've noticed quite a few terms that the commentators use while describing the game that sound dirty¹, including:

• "he's got good hands"
• "he stuffed it in"
• "poke check"
• "making moves"
  
• "gets his stick in there"
• "scoring"
• "two on one"
• "hitting from behind"

Any other ones that I've missed?

¹Proof, yet again, that I have the sense of humour of a 12-year-old boy.

Xmas Party's?

Went to Nevermind, my favourite place to see Canucks games, to watch my beloved Canucks kick some Calgarian ass^1,2 tonight. While the portabella mushroom burger at Nevermind is delish , their grammar leaves something to be desired:

Nevermind, perhaps you should go back to putting up signs about Chuck Norris.

¹See you in hell, Calgary.
²The cardiac Canucks pulled one of their patented let-the-opponents-score-2-goals-in-like-5-seconds-to-make-it-a-one-goal-game-and-give-Beth-a-coronary moves in the third period. But they managed to hang on for the win, so I still love them and would have all of their babies upon their request.

Flu Shot Bribery

On my way to purchase a celebratory¹ extra-hot-soy-mocha-with-whip yesterday, I walked past a grizzly scene in the hallway. People rolling up their sleeves to voluntarily be stabbed in the arm with a needle. A NEEDLE!!

Ya, so, they are trying to get people at my workplace to get the flu shot. Getting the flu shot at this hallway-based "clinic" will serve as your entry into a draw for:

• Running Room gift certificates


• a digital camera


• an iPod


• fancy pants treatment at Spa Utopia


• a 3 hr charter sailboat trip²

This presents a conflict for me - a conflict between my desire for free stuff and my sheer terror of being stabbed with a needle. In this case, however, I'm coming down firmly on the side of "for the love of god, don't stab me in the arm!!!" But it's not just that I would like to avoid blubbering like a little baby, as I usually do when confronted with a needle, in front of co-workers. Generally speaking, I'm in favour of vaccines. I've had my MMR, tetanus and all those other delightful stabs in the arms that prevent much more painful conditions. But I'm not overly confident in the flu shot. The thing with the flu virus is, it mutates. A lot. And so every year when they design the flu vaccine, they try to predict what this year's flu will be. Sometimes they get it right (or at least close), but other times, not so much. As a healthy, immune competent adult, I don't feel it's worth getting a needle, possibly getting the "flu-like symptoms" as a side effect³, all for a vaccine that might be against a strain of flu that doesn't even exist.

What do you think? Do you get the flu shot? Would you if your workplace bribed you with fabulous prizes?

¹Celebrating (a) finally, at 2:30 in the afternoon, getting through the backlog of email/snail mail I had upon returning from my trip and (b) being awarded 3 assists in my Sunday night hockey game, two of which I remember actually getting⁴.
²A three hour tour. A three hour tour.^5
3They always make a point of saying that you can't get the actual flu from the flu vaccine, since it's not made from a live virus. But if you are getting "flu-like symptoms," isn't that pretty much just like having the flu?
⁴ In fairness, I got screwed out of an assist that I clearly made a few games ago that the ref didn't record, so this just evens things up .
⁵Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Photo attribution: That photo of a big scary needle was stolen from this guy, from here. But it had a Creative Commons license on it, so it's all good.

The One That Got Away

As you can tell from the top the screen, my blog kinda needs a new name. I've never been good at naming things. As a kid, I had a stuffed bunny rabbit named Bunny, a stuffed frog named Froggy, a stuffed puppy dog named Puppy, and, believe it or not, a stuffed penguin named Pengy¹. Probably the low point in my naming things career came when my sister and I got this set of stuffed teddy bears with movable limbs; she had the big one, I had the little one. Their names? Mr. Movable Bear and Baby Mr. Movable Bear. My one great shining moment in naming something occurred in 2004 when I came up with a brilliant title for this article, but the instructor of the course for which I wrote that paper was not a Kubrick fan and thus my moment of naming-ability glory came crashing down.

My blog has been nameless for quite some time. I briefly tried out Total Perspective Vortex early this year, but it didn't stick. As you can probably tell, the only way this blog with have a name other than Bloggy is if I steal something from film or literature. But I'm OK with that, if only I could find something that I liked.

And then along came Infinite Jest. I've been reading IJ for about a thousand years now, ever since *somebody*² recommended it to me. Don't get me wrong, it's a *fantastic* book, just very, very long and quite dense, so it's been taking me a while to read³. As I was reading, a great name for my blog occurred to me when I read the following description:

"The monologues seem both free-associative and intricately structured, not unlike nightmares. There's no telling what'll be up on a given night. If there's one even remotely consistent theme it's maybe [hockey]⁴."

That's a description of Madame Psychosis's radio show, but don't you think it fits my blog perfectly? Don't you think I should change my blog name to "Madame Psychosis"?

Unfortunately, I appear to have missed the boat. By 4 years.

So, instead, I've decided to use the name Madame Psychosis for one of my other nameless things - my laptop. I brought Madame Psychosis to work today, because my work computer, which is currently nameless⁵, is a freaking piece of crap.


¹I still have all of these stuffed animals, except Pengy. I don't know what happened to Pengy. Poor Pengy.
²You know who you are.
³I guess if there is ever a good time to be reading a really, really long book that takes you forever to get through, it's when the library workers go on strike for three months and counting...
⁴the real phrase here may or may not have been "film and film cartridges" rather than "hockey"
⁵although I can think of a few choice names for it sometimes

Behind the Visor

For years, I've been using a visor on my hockey helmet that doesn't fit properly¹. In fact, I've been using it since I started playing hockey almost 5 years ago. It was a handy-me-down from my ex - he didn't like playing with a full face shield, so got himself a half visor and I acquired the ill-fitting full one². After 4 years of hockey, this visor is now scratched all to hell and it's always fogged up something terrible. And, really, when you think about it, it's probably not the best idea to have your safety equipment jury-rigged together. So I finally broke down and bought my own properly fitting visor.

Attaching said visor to my helmet, however, was no small feat. I mean, look at these directions:

Aside from the fact the chart that tells you if this visor will actually fit your particular helmet is *inside* the packaging (meaning you don't know for sure until you buy it if it's going to fit), you seem to need an engineering degree to assemble this damn thing. They appear to have one set of instructors for like 5 different types of visors, so it's all "For concept II protectors (type 1 and 2), thread the chin strap through the chin cup and face protector as shown in figures 2 and 4." And I'm all "mine is what concept? what type? whose figure? My cat's breath smells like cat food." I mean, for crying out loud, you need a 3 part picture, with multiple arrows, just to loop the chinstrap through the side of the visor:

... and that's before you even start attaching screws and clips and suchlike. Speaking of which, does anyone have any idea what these screws are for?

Because they were left over when I was done and I don't see anything in the instructions saying what I was supposed to have done with them.

Anyway, although it did take much longer that I expected, by some miracle I seem to have attached the new visor to the helmet in enough time to actually blog this before I have to go pick up my co-op car for tonight's game.

Also, I'm fighting off a cold, so I've affixed some warning signs to my water bottle:

Hockey players tend to drink out of any bottle on the bench and, since I'd hate to get any more people sick than I've already infected, I figured a couple of bright purple signs will help.

¹It's an adult-sized visor and all my equipment is junior boys.
²I'm of the opinion that this face is far too pretty not to have full protection.

Canucks game recap

My recap of last night's Canucks game:

Taylor Pyatt scored after a beautiful shot by Brad Isbister hit the post, bounced off of Taylor and went into the net. A Pyatt-Isbister double team - it's like my dream come true!

Then some other stuff happened, but we don't need to talk about that.

In other Canucks news, I want these earrings, which I just saw over on http://www.miss604.com/. The thing is, I don't $73.99-plus-tax-want them.

Seriously, 80 bucks? Seriously?

Blog Action Day

Although my previous post was, at least in part, about the environment it was not actually intended as part of Blog Action Day. I actually didn't know about Blog Action Day until Darren mentioned it in the comments on that post.

In his post, Darren asked "what is your big eco-sin?" Like most of his commenters, I try to be good to the environment:

• I don't own a car - I take the bus to work and for most of my transportation around the city, and I joined the car co-op for getting to hockey games
  
• even when I do take a co-op car, I usually try to do multiple things on a given trip (such as go to the grocery store after my hockey game) in order to minimize the number of car trips I take
  
• I'm a vegetarian and I don't wear leather
• I use a travel mug¹ to avoid using paper cups and I bring my own Tupperwear container to the cafeteria to avoid using Styrofoam containers
• I bring my own bag to the grocery store so I don't have to take plastic ones
• I recycle anything that can be recycled²
• I turn the lights out in the bathroom, the kitchen and the photocopy room at work when I leave them³
• I use the back of old printouts as note paper before I recycle them
• I don't buy anything new if I can get it used instead and buy almost all of my clothes in consignment & thrift stores
  
• I rarely fly anywhere⁴

But I do have one big eco-sin. I leave my computer on. All the time. 24/7. Even when I'm at work all day, my computer at home is on. And the main reason I do this is a rather ridiculous one - when I come home, I like there to be messages waiting for me. Even though I haven't had my landline and it's accompanying answering machine for months now, my natural inclination when I walk in the door is to look for the little flashing red light telling me that someone cared enough to call me! And since I don't have that anymore, my msn serves that purpose. With my computer on, people can msn me all day long and when I get home, I have messages waiting for me. OK, now that I write that down, I see it's silly. Starting tomorrow, I'm shutting my computers off when I leave.

On a related note: why, since the librarians have been on strike for four months, were all the lights on in the local library branch when I walked by there tonight?

¹A friend of mine said that he feels if he can't have his act together enough to bring his travel mug with him, then he feels that he doesn't deserve a coffee. I think this is a good philosophy
²and in light of the 4 month garbage strike that has, mercifully, just ended, this is a real sacrifice as I can barely fit in my kitchen because I have so much recycling piled up in there!
³and have noticed that some of my co-workers have started following my example
⁴Although, truth be told, this has more to do with my lack of money (thanks, $70,000 of student loans!) than with a conscience choice to fly less

Al Gore Would Be Ashamed of Me

I have a confession to make. I like driving cars. I want to be good to the environment and I don't even own a car, but I really like driving! As you know, I joined the car co-op so that I can get to my hockey games out in Coquitlam. Well, for today's hockey game, I booked a 2007 Mazda 5. When I booked it, I had in my head a Mazda 3. I like the Mazda 3. The Mazda 5, however, is pretty much a station wagon¹. Boo! But the cool thing about the Mazda 5 is that it has a feature where you can drive the car as a clutch-less manual. Like with the Tiptronic™ transmission of my beloved Smart Car, you can drive this car like a manual, but without having to step on a clutch. I like to call it "idiot-proof manual," because if you don't shift correctly, the car will eventually shift for you. The system for shifting is a little wack - you put the gear selector² into "M" for "manual", a position from which you can then shift up and down by pushing the stick down or up. Ya, you read that correctly - to shift up, you push the stick down and vice versa. Shifting up shifts down, shifting down shifts up, people wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people³. Driving idiot-proof manual really reminded me how much I love driving a car with a manual transmission. The first car I ever owned, a 1989 Honda Civic, was manual and I loved that car. Interestingly⁴, I learned how to drive manual on that car and it didn't have a tachometer. Fortunately, it also didn't have its muffler properly attached most of the time, so I learned to shift gears based on the sound of the engine. Driving this 5 today was trickly as the engine is so quiet, you can barely hear it and I'm not used to looking at a tach to know when to shift.

Another point of note from my trip in the Mazda 5 is that the car has way too many cup holders. And if I, the woman whose only concerns when car shopping are "will my hockey gear fit into it" and "does it have a cup holder?", am saying that, well, you just know it must be true. Seriously, there are no fewer than FIVE cup holders accessible from the front seats. FIVE!! Granted, hockey and various other weekend activities may leave one somewhat dehydrated, but how many beverages am I expected to consume in a 45 minute car ride?

Oh ya, and in case you don't believe that I love to drive, here's the odometer reading on my old Honda Civic the day she died, some 7 years after I bought her for $2000. When I bought her, I believe she had about 150,000 km on her.

RIP, little buddy. I miss you.

¹on Wikipedia they refer to it as a "minimini van" because it's not as big as a minivan, but it has sliding doors and seats 6. But it felt like a station wagon to me! Ick!
²For the record, I had to look that term up. I usually just call it the "stick," but that feels like it's more for a manual than an automatic.
³10 points to the first person who correctly identifies where I stole that line from.
⁴If you don't think this is interesting, try learning to drive stick with a tachometer!

Limpy

So apparently you really are supposed to train for a half marathon.

Yes, once upon a time, I registered to run the half at the Royal Victoria Marathon under the mistaken assumptions that:

(a) registering and (b) announcing to the blogosphere that I have registered should be sufficient motivation to get me up off my butt and back into running.

Note to self: the above assumptions are incorrect. Two weddings (and all the associated events), a softball league, wisdom teeth extraction and my general delinquency this summer all combined to give me sufficient excuses to not train adequately. And by "adequately" I mean "at all." But I registered, dammit, and I was going to run come hell or high water.

Another incorrect assumption was my belief that carrying one's CareCard with them during events in which they have the potential to become injured will protect them from injury. As it turns out, carrying one's CareCard only prevents injuries of the severity that require use of said CareCard. Injuries that don't quite require medical attention are fair game.

Also, when someone says something like "If you injure a foot, Beth, make sure it's the left one. I've injured my right foot, so if you injure your left, we can drive Lauren's car together - you on the gas and me on the clutch - if Lauren happens to injure herself" is just tempting fate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first. I should tell you about how we were 15 minutes late starting the race. There were 6 of us staying at my old roommie¹ Dani's new place in Victoria. Another lesson learned on this trip: 30 minutes is not nearly enough time to get 6 people up, dressed, fed and out the door for a race. But the time we arrived, the start line looked like this:

Just a few volunteers standing around. The thousands of people running the half marathon - long gone.

Figuring "thank goodness for chip time!" we took a quick photo and headed out:

Jo, Dani, Sheila, me, Lauren & Tim.

Well, Dani and I headed out. Tim went in search of the bag check to leave his jacket before he started, Jo and Sheila, who were going to run the 8K² rather than the half marathon went in search of its start line and Lauren, who ran the full marathon which didn't start for another 45 minutes, went with J & S. We ran 3 km before we caught up with the slowest of the half marathon walkers, that's how far behind we were. And we were reported by the cops... as we ran past one of the cops stationed along the route to control traffic we heard him say into his walkie-talkie "10-4, I've got two runners coming along here." I said to Dani, "They are onto us! Quick, run!" Hee hee.. running humour.

Around about the time we caught up with the walkers, I told Dani to go on ahead of me. I'm not nearly as fast as her and knew if I continued to try to keep up with her, it would spell trouble, so she went off on her way and I continued to run at my slower pace. The route was very pretty, going through Beacon Hill and then out at a road along the water. My body started to realized that I was really, truly going to make it keep running and, for a while, seemed OK with this decision. Then a pain showed up in my left foot, but it decided to try out my right foot to see if it preferred that location, and next transferred itself to both my knees simultaneously, followed by my lower back. A slight headache showed up, but I'm pretty sure that was because they had very poorly spaced water stations and I was getting a bit dehydrated. I grabbed two cups of water at the next water station, and then found there there was another water station very soon after. Weird. Finally, the pain decided it liked my left foot best out of all the places it had tried out and took up permanent residence there. At first I figured it would go away as it had before and kept running. When it firmly stood its ground, I decided that perhaps a 2 minute walk (instead of my usual 1 min walk for every 10 minutes of running) would help. It did not. Finally, around about the 15 km mark I asked myself, "Is it worth continuing to run on this foot that is clearly unhappy about being run on and risking a more serious injury that could put you out of hockey?" Once I phrased it that way, I knew what I had to do. I had to walk, or rather limp, the last 6 km of the race. After all, any form of exercise that isn't hockey is just off-ice conditioning, in my opinion. And so I limped. And limped. And limped. I limped so much that my right hip and ankle started to hurt from overcompensation. And yet I continued to limp. Because really, what else are you going to do? I certainly wasn't injured enough to stop at the medical stop (although I did think about it) and I had to get to the finish line, where my friends would be waiting for me.

As I continued on my way, I started to resent the volunteers who were positive, cheering on the runners and walkers with a "good job!" When I ran the Vancouver half, I found these cheers to be really motivating, but as I limped along, berating myself for not having trained more, all I could think is "You people are so insincere! I'm not doing a good job! I'm doing a terrible job!!" A few volunteers along the way did seem to notice my limp and the grimace that I'm sure was on my face and gave me a sympathetic smile and that was muchly appreciated.

In the end, I hobbled over the finish line, got my medal and, surprisingly, found my friends who had finished a half hour before me. And that was the end of the race I never should have run!

My plan now, as I sit here icing my feet⁴, is to take a small break from running. I may do the occasional run if the mood strikes me once my feet are healed, but winter is time to focus on hockey and skiing. Come the new year, I'll start thinking about the Scotiabank half marathon, which happens in June. But I'm going to train for it. No really, I've learned my lesson!

¹Firefox's spellcheck tells me that "roommie" is not a word, but suggests that I actually mean "commie" here.
²I say "were going to" because they didn't, in the end, get to run. As it turns out, the start line for the 8K (which started at the same time as the half) was already taken down by this point.
⁴I'm icing my left foot, which was the main injury, and my right ankle, which feels strained from having limped on it for 6 km, as well as everywhere else I've had to walk since then. My feet are the thermostat to my body however, so making them cold is making the rest of me cold too, despite being in my warm bed with two blankets and a warm laptop on top of me!

Sunday night, 11 pm seems to be the time when hot Vancouver boys do their grocery shopping. Safeway was positively crawling with them. It's something I've been wondering about for a while, because I rarely see hot boys in the grocery store, yet I know they must acquire their sustenance at some point - you can't build those muscles without protein!

Unfortunately, Sunday at 11 pm was also the time that I, being on the way home from my hockey game, decided to take advantage of the fact that I had a co-op car by stopping in at Safeway for some groceries.

On the way home from my hockey game. As in my hair is in pigtails, tied back with a bandana, no makeup, sweaty and disgusting.

Sigh. Sometimes you just can't catch a break.

Hockey, Hockey, Hockey, Hockey

Anyone wanna take a wild guess who scored the first goal of the season for my new team at UBC? Anyone? Wild guess?

Yes, in true Beth style¹, I planted myself in front of the net, waited for the good player² to make some fancy moves and take a great shot, and then I pounced on the rebound and stuffed it in the net! Some may call it a garbage goal. I prefer to think of it as my excellent positioning saving the day! Also important is the technique of celebrating loudly and pointing in the net, just to make sure the ref sees that the puck is, in fact, in the net. This is followed by turning your back towards the ref so (s)he can clearly see your number, ensuring that you get credit for your goal (as the ref tells the scorer keeper which player scored). Refs can be lazy, so you have to make their job easier for them. Sometimes I wonder if you started celebrating and pointing into the net when I goalie actually had made the save, would they count it as a goal just because the ref wasn't really watching and assumed you'd seen it go in when (s)he hadn't?

After the game³, the Aggie contingent of of the team⁴ stopped at the 7/11 for post-game Slurpees. I had a Car Co-op minivan, which is the closest C0-op vehicle to my house, and being in a van with a bunch of hockey gear brought back memories of hockey seasons past, which often involved getting a ride home after the game in Andrew's or Jill's van and stopping at the 7/11 for post-game Slurpees. Mmmm, Slurpees.

Also, for the record, late night hockey games are soooo bad for screwing up your sleep schedule. Tonight's game started at 11:15 pm and I was sooo tired before the game that all I wanted to do was go to bed. But after a game of hockey, you are so jacked up that you just can't sleep for like 2 hours. I didn't get home 'til almost 1:30 am, took a shower, played some Facebook Scrabulous and only now am I starting to feel like I can get to sleep. And I bet it will be very difficult to get myself out of bed in the morning. Ugh! I really hope all of our games aren't so late!


¹a.k.a., Anson Carter style. Carter used to play with the Sedin twins on the Canucks. He would also just plant himself in front of the net and wait for the good players to shoot, then pounce on the rebound. He was the leading scorer on the Canucks that year. This resulted in his being under the delusion that he is a good player, so he asked for tonnes of money in his next contract and, as punishment for being greedy and vain, he was sent to live in Ohio.

²In this case, it was an excellent offensive defenceman we have on our team. I think her name might be Sandra, but there was a lot of new people so I might have the name mixed up. For now, she's known in my brain (and hence on my blog) as Red-Shirt-Who-May-Be-Named-Sandra.

³Which we lost 6-2. RSWMBNS scored our second goal. We were actually pleased with that score, as the other team was quite a bit better than us, with many of our players brand new to the game, and I thought they'd have twice as many goals against us.

⁴Which consists of myself, Kim & Sharon at the moment, although we are hoping to recruit more.