Can't Blog. Skiing.

Will report in later.

WTF

Did you know that women's ski jumping isn't an Olympic sport? Did you know that there were any Olympic sports where men can play but women can't?

I had no idea until I read this news article and this news article. Apparently, female ski jumpers filled a gender discrimination complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission back in September and a decision is expected soon.

Remind me again what year this is? 1908?

In related news, what would possess someone to name their child "Dick Pound"?

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?

I don't care what you say, I like Quatchi

So, they unveiled the 2010 Olympic mascots yesterday and the general sentiment I've been hearing is one of three things:

• they have nothing to do with Canada - there's no maple leafs/beavers/loons/moose
• they have nothing to do with Canada - they're "too Asian"¹
• what Olympic mascots?

But I don't care what the naysayers are saying². I like Quatchi.

Quatchi is a young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada. Quatchi is shy, but loves to explore new places and meet new friends. Although Quatchi loves all winter sports, he’s especially fond of hockey. He dreams of becoming a world-famous goalie.

Dude, he plays hockey! And I think he's cute! And he's from the "mysterious forests of Canada." *I* live near a mysterious forest! Maybe he lives in my 'hood!



Although I do have to agree with Darren that if you go to the official site and hear the mascots say their name, which you do by mousing over the characters, it's a bit freaky. I like to run my mouse across all of them really fast so that they keep saying their names over and over in quick succession. It's kind of psychodelic.

Apparently, I need to get out more.

¹Seriously, I've heard that a lot - listening to open phones on the radio and reading comments sections on online new stories.
²Or naysaying, as the case may be.

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.

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....

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.

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?

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!

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.

Feast or Famine Part Deux

Not unlike how I went from having no jobs to having three, I went from having no hockey team to being on two!

UBC had announced in late summer that two of the ice surfaces at the torn-down-but-being-rebuilt-for-the-Olympics Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre were ready to go and so there would be rec hockey, but only a limited number of teams could join. And, as such, only teams where the majority of players come from a single group (be it a faculty, a club, a fraternity or sorority) would be allowed to register on a first-come, first-served basis. And being that one of my three jobs is teaching at UBC, I would actually be allowed to play in the rec league¹! Unfortunately, although we tried to do some recruiting, it didn't look like we could find enough players from my old Faculty to reunite my old team and, in the meantime, I was invited to join a team that plays in Coquitlam. But now it turns out that UBC Rec let my old Faculty join up with the Faculty of Forestry, as both Faculties are very small, to make a team. So now I get to play at UBC too²!

Hopefully all this hockey means that I will be in somewhat reasonable shape to run that half marathon that I'm not training for³.

¹Although I am only teaching from Jan to April, so I'm really hoping that they don't tell me I can only play during term 2!
²Provided, of course, that they count me as a staff member for the year, even though my course doesn't start 'til next term. Fingers crossed!!
³Weren't you supposed to be berating me to ensure that I stick with my training program? Shame on you!

They Don't Make It Like They Used To: My Skin

I think I've lost my ability to regenerate skin. I believe this happens when you get old; you just don't heal like you used to.

The front of my right ankle is torn up from two high speed encounters of my leg + a rock on my camping/hiking trip two weekends ago. The lateral side of my right ankle bears a massive wound inflicted on me by my hockey shinpad rubbing against my ankle during my first game back after a hockey-less year.

My right knee has finally recovered, with only a slight scar remaining, from a failed attempt to tag out a runner who was trying to get back to first base after a pop fly was caught, which ended with us both in the gravel and him safe. That was at my last softball game, August 18.

I have two cuts - one on my left knee and one just below my left knee, out to the left side - which I have no idea where they came from, but they seem to be healing rather slowly as well. Below that, on my left shin, is a reminder of a battle I had with a razer blade - which the razer blade definitively won. Lateral side of my left ankle - same deal. And I've just now noticed two scrapes on my right calf that I have no recollection of being there before.

And scar tissue on the top of my right foot bears witness to the cut I got from wearing these shoes - an injury that occurred early in the summer and is only just now starting to fade.

Similarly, a bee (or possibly hornet or possibly wasp) sting on the medial side of my right thigh, which I scratched until it bled as it was itchy as all hell, is still visible, again well over a month later.

And now I have two fresh blisters, one on the back of each heel, from the shoes I keep insisting on wearing with the thought "Sure, they've given me blisters every time I've worn them, but I'm positive I've broken them in now. This time will be different."

Shorty

So I find myself typing out another quick blog posting on my beloved Palm Treo - being once again without a book (or an e-book). This time I'm at the arena, way early for my hockey game due to (a) the innate ability I have to leave early for anywhere I need to go on the assumption that travel will be awful/the bus will be late/my co-op car won't be there/etc. only on those instances when traffic is non-existent/the bus is exactly on time/my co-op car is exactly where it should be when I get there/etc., and (b) the fact that I drive fast.

This time, I give you a list of the reasons why it's great to be short:

• you can fit your hockey sticks in the trunk without having to put the seat down
  
• the big bruiser of a defencewomen thinks she can knock you over, but your lower centre of gravity foils her evil plan

Yup, that's pretty much the only benefits of being short.

A Night of Firsts

So last night I took my first trip in a Car Co-op Car to my first hockey game on my new team. Oh yes, did I mention that I joined the Car Co-op? And that I joined a new hockey team? Perhaps I should back up a few steps.

A few weeks ago, I joined the Car Co-op. It's actually called the Co-operative Auto Network (or CAN), but I just call it the Car Co-op because, well, it's a car co-op¹. The deal with the co-op is that you put down a $500 (refundable) deposit to become a member and then you co-operatively own the cars, along with all the other members. The cars are spread out over the city and you book them online when you want to use them - first come, first served. You pay depending on how much time you have the car and how many kilometers you drive. It's much cheaper than buying a car and since I discovered that I can't afford even a measly $21,000 (after all the fees & taxes), plus insurance, for my beloved Smart Car², this is the only way for me to get my hands on some wheels.

And I need wheels because I just joined a new hockey team, but they play out in Coquitlam. Coq, for those of you who aren't from around these parts, is a 45 minute drive³ from my house. And it appears that I'm the only person on the team who isn't from Coq, so there is no chance to car pool. So I needed some wheels. Hence the Car Co-op.

Plus, having access to wheels makes the idea of getting a ski pass this winter feasible. I've lived in this city far too long without having a ski pass!

But back to the hockey. My new team is awesome! Everyone is so nice and so friendly! And with lots of team spirit! They've been playing together for awhile (only me and one other person are new to the team this year) and there is just an overall positive vibe to the team. I was worried before the game, since I hadn't played in sooooo long, but it all comes back to you, just like riding a bike. Take short shifts, skate hard, stand in front of the net, wait for good player to pass to you & shovel the puck in the net³... or tie up the defenceman in front of the net to give one of the good players a clear shot. I was playing right wing last night (on my former team, I was a centre) and I quite liked it. I still have to get used to the position and where I'm supposed to be under different circumstances, but positioning has always been my strong point, so I'm sure I'll pick it up quickly. [OK, so this is weird. I just looked on the Canucks website to see who is a right winger (and thus, who I should be watching now that pre-season is under way) and, apparently all of our forwards are either centres or left wingers, other than new kid Ryan Shannon. What the f is up with that? Also, Ryan Shannon - get a haircut, you hippie!]

So, yeah, Car Coop - great. New hockey team - great. If you want to join the Co-op, tell them that I referred you and I'll get $20. And you know how much I like getting stuff for free!

¹I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but it was only a few years ago when I actually learned what a co-op is. Before that, I just knew the Co-op as the place where my dad bought feed for his chickens.

²thanks $850 a month in student loan payments!

³Or a 372 hour bus ride. Give or take.

⁴One of these days, I really do need to learn how to actually shoot the puck.

The Chief

Yesterday, I did the Chief. For those of you not from around here, that's a mountain in Squamish. I've been wanting to do the Chief for years, but carlessness, among other things, have meant that I've never done it before now.

It was a wonderful sunny day (likely the only one we'll get for the whole long weekend) meaning we were rewarded with some great views once we got to the top. And I have to say that I like the Chief more than the Grind - better scenery, less annoying stairs¹, and you get to climb up with ladders and chains at parts. Who doesn't love ladders and chains?? Also, more shirtless boys.

Speaking of which, Rachel made an observation. Boys don't get up early. We went in the morning and most of the people we saw on the way up were female. On our way back down, after eating our lunch at second peak, all the shirtless boys were climbing up. Good to note for next time.

On the hike, I got a lot of smiles and comments on my new T-shirt. - including the comment "that is the best T-shirt I've EVER seen!!" Unfortunately, it seems that you can't read what my T-shirt says in any of the photos I took. I'll have to get the ones from Rachel's camera and see if you can see my shirt in them. In the meantime, there's still 25 points up for grabs if anyone can guess which one I bought^{2, 3}!

I was going to do the Grind today, but decided not to as my muscles are a bit sore from the Chief. I was kind of expecting them to be since, unlike on the Grind, where you have a cable car ride down the mountain after the hike up, you hike back down the mountain on the Chief. And hiking down means eccentric muscle contractions, which are more damaging to the muscle than going uphill. I learned that in OAC⁴ Phys Ed class, 12 years ago. And I still remember it. No idea why that one little fact stuck in my brain so well. And why useful things like, say, where I put my keys five minutes ago, or the fact that my bluetooth headset is in the pocket of the skirt I just threw in the laundry, don't.

So, instead of the Grind, I decided to do some tidying and organizing and cleaning today. September's not too late to do my spring cleaning, is it?

¹they keep putting more and more stairs in on the Grind and I find the stairs far more difficult to hike up than natural terrain. I think, being a shorty, my gait just doesn't match up well with the stairs
²I had a few guesses in the comments section of where I import my blog postings into Facebook, but no one guessed right yet.
³And no one who has seen it or who I've told what it says gets to guess.
⁴OAC = Ontario Academic Course (or was it C for Credit) - a.k.a. grade 13.

Clumsy Baseball Players

My sister took my niece to a Toronto Blue Jays baseball game the other day. My niece, who is just over two and a half years ago, reportedly enjoyed all the clapping and got to run the bases after the game¹. She also was heard to say, "That man ran and slipped. He should be careful." "Oh, that man slipped too." My sister tried to explain to her that they were sliding into the bases on purpose, but Madeline would have none of it. I mean, why on earth would someone slip on purpose?

¹Her aunt is quite jealous about this. Why did no one ever let me run the bases after a Jays game when I was a little kid?

Long Weekend Report and Some Overdue Photos

So, as I previously mentioned, the weather forecasters are dirty, dirty liars and it was a gorgeous, hot and sunny long weekend! Highlights include (a) a party on Saturday night to which I brought Canada Day cupcakes that I made from scratch and (b) doing the Grouse Grind again, for the second time in less than two weeks. I have now doubled my lifetime of Grouse Grinding compared to how many times I had done it as of June 21.

Also of note: my time to complete the Grind's 2,800 foot ascension on June 22 was 1 hr 43 mins. Time yesterday: 1 hr 18 mins! Granted the June 22 hike was done with a "let's take it easy" pace in mind as we had a first timer with us, whereas for yesterday's hike I went with a season's pass holder and nearly fainted trying to keep up with him until I finally told him to go on without me and I'll meet ya at the top. But still - an improvement of almost half an hour is nothing to sneeze at!

And speaking of sneezing, I was pretty sure as I sat in Altitudes Bistro that the hike had cured my cold, as my sinuses were clear and I could breathe through my nose for the first time in 8 days... but alas, it's now the next morning and I'm back to being all stuffed up. Perhaps I need to be on the top of a mountain to cure my cold - maybe cold viruses don't like the height.

Also, I was remiss in that I took no photos of either the Canada Day cupcakes or this trip up the Grind. A girl at the party did take a pic for me, but not of the cupcakes.... a pic of me drinking a Granville Island Maple Cream ale - a pic with which to make Sarah very, very jealous! Now I just have to wait and see if she accepts my Facebook friend invite so I can get the photo from her. As for the Grind, we were traveling light - I brought only a water bottle¹ - which may also help to explain how I shaved half an hour off my time (since last time I had a backpack full of stuff). In lieu of, however, I give you a photo of me, Christel and Tenny at the top of Grouse Mountain from the trip on June 22, since I'm a delinquent and haven't posted that yet:

Also amusing: Vancouverites are tree huggers!




¹I realized about 1/2 way up that I had no ID whatesoever on me (my wallet having been locked up in the trunk of the car for safe keeping) and if I fainted or tripped and fell down the mountain, there would be no way to tell who I was. And, since I told my much-faster-than-me hiking companion to go on ahead without me (I really hate feeling like I'm holding people back), if he got tired of waiting for me and took off (not that I thought he would, or anything), I wouldn't even have any money to take the cable car back down, let alone get home! Note to self: wear something with pockets next time!

Something New For Me To Be Pissed Off About

Friday night after my softball game, my team went to the pub for some hard earned post-game beers. A few of my teammates got some of those pull-tab lottery thingys, where if you pull a tab to discover three of a kind, you win cash. As they were discarding the non-winning tickets onto the table, I picked one up to have a look at it and look what I discovered:


Why the hell is the female symbol (♀) only worth $25, but the male (♂) symbol worth $100? What the f is up with that???