Am I, a hockey player and hockey mom, superstitious? Hells yeah. We hockey folks are extremely superstitious. It’s a crucial part of the experience. For example, one simply does not mention the word shutout until the horn has sound. Inevitably, if those words are mentioned before the game has ended, the other team will score. Do not be the guy that kills the shutout. Also, if the team is on a winning streak and you’ve worn a particular coat to the rink, don’t think you’re changing your coat now. You simply cannot mess with the mojo.
Hockey players have their own set of superstitions like taping their sticks a certain way, dressing in a certain order, wearing a particular undershirt, and playing a particular song in the locker room and for warmups. And then there are goalies, they’re so special. Watch a goalie at any level and you’ll see their superstitious ritual. Mine used to stand up hit the right post, the left post, and then the right post before moving into position. Marc Andre Fleury talks to his goalposts every time they give him a hand.
As for us parents, once we ensure we have the winning outfit/jacket on, we’re ready to head for the rink. Once there the routine is often the same, for me, it was to go grab a coffee from the nearest Dunkin’ or Starbucks. Naturally, this would lead to several pregame bathroom trips to ensure the bladder was empty before being trapped in the penalty box for the game. Other parents will sit in the same spot. Some parents, however, will move if the game isn’t going well. Goalie parents will migrate every period as will the forward dads. It’s crucial to the team’s success that every parent sit or stand at their winning spot.
In today’s edition of First World Problems, I present to you my Roomba I3+ EVO and Braava wet jet combo. I upgraded my Roomba after Lord Vader died an unceremonious death after driving through a large puddle the Piggie had left on the floor. This combo represented a big upgrade from my original duo: the Roomba 960 vacuum and the Braava jet 200 mop. Well, at least it was supposed to be an upgrade.
Lord Vader was not a self-emptying Roomba, but he was reliable. You put him on the charger, he charged and at the appointed time he vacuumed. With my new combo Pinky and The Brain, it’s not so simple—neither of the new combo charges with any reliability. I have to double-check that they’re on the charger properly and charging. Sometimes Pinky goes to the dock and its brushes keep spinning making a mess of the docking station.
Perhaps they should ponder cleaning my floors
Now poor Brain can’t seem to find its way off the docking station. Recently, whenever I’ve gone to start the Brain, it says it’s stuck on a cliff and can’t move. If only Pinky was a little more fearless, he would overcome that cliff. This defeats the purpose of having a vacuum and mop that can run daily simultaneously. I could go on and on about this subject, but I won’t bore you with my First World Problems.
The most important invention in your lifetime is…
Oh boy, this is not an easy one. There have been so many things invented in my life that it is hard to nail down. I think I’d have to go with the internet. For better or worse, it has put information at our fingertips and let us become connected to people around the globe.
Todays prompt is to list ten things that I know with absolute certainty. Personally, I think ten is a mighty high number these days judging from the nonsense I see on social media. So here are my ten things:
My world revolves are my boys.
Another day above ground, no matter how rough, is better than being below ground.
My dogs light up my world and I don’t think I could live without one again.
Hockey is the greatest sport in the world and the Q is wrecking it by removing fighting.
An adventure with loved ones is worth more than a material gift.
European chocolate is much better than American.
MTV in its current iteration absolutely sucks and should be off the air. I miss spending time watching music videos.
If you’re going to order a steak well done, don’t order steak.
That’s my list. What ten things would be on your list?
Brief Athena update. She’s slid back a little bit this weekend. Although she’s more stable than she was the previous weekend. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to be in any pain and has not lost her appetite at all. These days she’s enjoying donuts, puppy ice cream (loves the cheese bacon flavor), and roast beef. Her favorite places to hang out are her new bed or the couch.
So I have a story that includes everything even the kitchen sink. I give your fair warning that this story is going to be gross and make you question life. Unless you have teenage boys, in which case you’ll strangely find this story believable and dare I say normal. It all began in a gate community west of the turnpike…
Our story starts off with a peaceful evening in our house. The parents and puppies have gone to bed and all is quiet. Anakin is trained to use a pad. Consequently, we leave him out at night and he usually sleeps in our bed. Sometimes, however, he misses the mark. Tuesday night he missed the mark Consequently, he left a land mine in the middle of the floor.
The Mayor, who has a weird aversion to lights, got home from hockey practice after we were already in bed. He doesn’t like the lights on, so he left them on. Unfortunately, this meant he didn’t see the land mind Anakin had left for him. Fortunately, he was still wearing his shoes, so it didn’t get all over his feet. It didn’t crunch or anything like that. It did, however, make a mess of the bottom of his shoe.
So you may be asking yourself, where does the kitchen sink play into this story? Well, I’ll tell you. Apparently, the Mayor decided the right place to clean the dog shit off of his sneakers was our kitchen sink. But wait, it gets worse. He also decided to use the brush we use to scrape dishes clean to clean his shoe. To be fair, he cleaned up the crime scene, so you wouldn’t guess what happened to the kitchen sink the night before. However, he also left the scrub brush there like he hadn’t just used it to clean up dog shit.
This all came out yesterday on my lunch break. At first, I was sure he was kidding. There’s no way he would wash shit off his shoe in the kitchen sink. But then I remember, he’s a teenage boy with the common sense of a toddler. In the end, we ended up throwing both scrub brushes away since he didn’t remember which one he used. He is also now acutely aware that messes like that need to be cleaned outside with the hose and a tree branch. As for the kitchen sink, it’s been bleached and cleaned. Yet, I still can’t look at it the same way.
So the Super Bowl memes have been killer since Sunday. Especially the super bowl memes involving the halftime show. Like most folks my age, I absolutely loved the halftime show. It brought me straight back to the late 90s-l and early 2000s. Consequently, I decided to compile some of my favorite memes from the Super Bowl. Your welcome.
I had a people of Walmart experience this weekend in Charleston, As for Charleston itself, we didn’t see much of it. The weather was pretty terrible Sunday. It was way too windy, cold and rainy to do anything outside. We did, however, have a most interesting adventure at Wal-Mart. Elizabeth and I decided to stop there on the way back from our coffee run, so we could grab some essentials. As we parked I was telling her why I always avoid Wal-Mart.
This trip did not disappoint. As we were checking other, we heard a commotion behind us. Two women were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. I got the feeling that it was over a guy, but they were so hard to understand. Finally, the lady in line called out her foe for getting a fight while working. Yes, one of the combatants was a Wal-Mart employee.
Once the facts of her employment are brought up, the employee ran behind Elizabeth and to the front of the store. The employee tore of her vest and threw it before coming back for the customer. Meanwhile, she’s screaming that “she’s not employed no more.” Concurrently, the floor manager was running full board, while screaming call 911, to grab the employee before she made it back to the customer. Honestly, it was scary. The two women were completely off their rocker.
Needless to say, I’ll not be going back to Walmart anytime soon. Although to be fair, there were people begging at the entrance to Target. I’ve never seen that before. I also had a man come up to me at the hotel multiple times asking me where the mall was located. Spoiler alert, the mall was visible from the hotel parking lot. It was so weird. You would think he would have found the mall in his own after the first day. After my most recent people of Walmart experience this weekend, I won’t be stepping in that store anytime soon.
Day four of virtual school was one for the history books. Particularly, if your history books focus on dumpster fires or shit shows. If so, this day was legendary. We all knew it was coming, didn’t we? I mean, I think we’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop. And today that mo-fo of a shoe dropped. This means the low expectations I wrote about yesterday came to fruition today.
First of all, my thyroid is raging. I’ve been so hot at night I can only manage with one light blanket and the thermostat at 72 degrees. My doctor will be adjusting my dosage down a bit come next Tuesday morning. It also means that falling asleep and staying asleep has been a real challenge. For some reason, I don’t fall into a good deep sleep until early in the morning. Anyway, I remembered to get up to take my thyroid meds, but I slept through my alarm to wake up the boys. Fortunately, this wasn’t an issue for my Mayor, who was ready to go to school by 7:00 am.
On the other hand, this was a problem for Goalielocks. As soon as I woke up, which was still before school started, I ran upstairs to make sure he was awake and ready to attend class. He sat up in his bed, grumbled, and laid back down. I proceeded to repeat my message; i.e. get out of bed and get ready for class. This time he sat up. He told me he knew he had to be up and asked me to close the door so he could get dressed. I shut the door, albeit it not tightly. He then yelled at me for not being able to close the door right. Teenagers are so pleasant in the morning. Aren’t they?
Thinking he was up, I headed out to grab my coffee. As you may know, Dunkin’ coffee is essential to my ability to function as a human being. Afterward, I took the dogs out and went to work. It was a long commute to work from my couch to my room, but I made it safely and without incident. I got some work done before going to yoga via Zoom. It was at that point I realized I hadn’t heard my middle child moving around upstairs. Before relaxing into child’s pose, I texted him and added a find my iPhone alert. He responded pretty quickly asking why nobody had woken him up for school. Seriously?
Obviously, he made me mad. Since he was now up and attending class, I continued with my yoga class. I was hoping that the beautiful yin class taught by Jennifer would help calm me. Fortunately, I finished the class feeling like a new person and completely calm. At least for a few minutes. Naturally, the calm left me after interacting with my two star pupils, who were in stellar moods today. How lucky am I that both were in a piss poor mood? At dinner, Goalielocks was still insisting nobody walked him up. This despite the fact I had a full conversation with him this morning at 7:15. Anyway, today was the type of day I have dreaded. Thankfully, we only have one day left in the week.
Here’s a list of our day’s activities:
*I read Mary Barton, by Elisabeth Gaskell. It’s really getting good now! We have a murder mystery on our hands.
*It’s only day four, but I was feeling inspired. Consequently, I wrote a poem about the first week of virtual school. While it’s no The Raven, it gets my creative point across.
*I ran two miles and walked a mile today. Naturally, I listened to Metallica and watched Curb throughout my run. I am basking in the joy of accomplishment.
*I survived day 3 of virtual school. I am keeping my eye on the prize aka the weekend.
*We had no hockey practice tonight. It was family dinner night. I cooked pork carnitas tacos, which were awesome.
*BBG 2.0. week 12 day 4: cardio and yoga
*I took my puppies including sweetAnakin for a walk.
Affiliate advertising supports this blog. By clicking on the link and making a purchase, you are helping to support the blog with no added cost to you. I appreciate your support!
Monday memes might just be the best way to start the week. Fortunately, the NFL playoffs this weekend gave the internet plenty of fodder. As you may know, I’m a life long Vikings fan. Thus I am used to disappointment this time of year. They’ve conditioned me well over the last 39 years. Nevertheless, their pathetic performance Saturday did boggle my mind.
Thankfully, there’s still hockey and plenty of time for the Wild to break my heart as well. As daylight broke today, I thought a fun topic for today’s blog would be NFL playoff memes. Sadly, the Vikings provided a lot of material for today’s post. So without further ado here are my favorite playoff memes. Enjoy!
Affiliate advertising supports this blog. By clicking on the link and making a purchase, you are helping to support the blog with no additional cost to you. Thanks!
“I lost a tooth, but I lost it,” Goalielocks wrote in a short note to the tooth fair. He was six years old at the time and had just lost his second tooth. We brought him up to bed and my hubby dug in his pocket to pull out the tooth, but it was missing. Unfortunately my husband, who was holding on to the tooth until bedtime, misplaced the tooth. Goalielocks was beyond distraught as was my hubby, who felt terrible.
Since there was no hope of finding the tooth in time for bed time, we suggested that Goalielocks write the Tooth Fairy a note explaining what had happened. My idea of a note includes a greeting and a signature, but his was much simpler. He drafted his note, showed it to us and placed it under his pillow.
That night the Tooth Fairy arrived and left him a $20 bill. Clearly, there was a level of dad guilt built into the payout here. When Goalielocks awoke and found the $20 bill he was ecstatic! Even though he had gotten up early to get to school, he was dancing around happily. Since he’s not a morning person, much like his mom, this was quite the sight to be seen. He simply couldn’t believe that he got $20 for the tooth we lost.
As we laid Goalielocks down to bed the next night, it dawned on him that perhaps he should write the Tooth Fairy another note. He did and again she was quite generous with her payout. He continued his new nightly tradition of writing a note, “I lost a tooth, but I lost it,” and kept getting paid. Yep folks the dad guilt here for losing the tooth was serious. Finally, after I shared the story with my colleagues, one of my co-workers volunteered to write a note from the Tooth Fairy to Colin. Thankfully, that well written note from the Tooth Fairy put an end to the nightly notes to the Tooth Fairy. Lesson learned that our kids are quite industrious and parent guild definitely exists.
This blog is supported by affiliate advertising. By clicking on the link and making a purchase, you are helping to support the blog with no additional cost to you. Thanks!
Day one in Chicago has been fun. We beat the storm in, which was fabulous. In fact, it really didn’t start to snow until nighttime. After leaving the airport in my sexy Buick rental car, we hit Target to pick up some snacks and drinks for the room.
For Goalielocks, Target was just one more delay in eating a nice, hot slice of Giordano’s pizza. We checked out and quickly headed to Giordano’s thinking the storm would stay at anytime. Fortunately, we could leave our groceries in the car as we ate. I definitely miss that ability in Florida where we have to race home so our freezer items don’t melt!
Giordano’s was the perfect anecdote to a long day of travel. Our short layover in Detroit afforded us no time to eat. Consequently, we were quite hungry. The beauty of deep dish pizza, at least for me, is that one piece will leave you satiated for the rest of the day. In fact, neither Colin nor myself ate the rest of the day. Our late lunch at Giordano’s was enough to tide us over for the rest of the day.
The snow was absolutely beautiful this morning. We got about five inches at the hotel. The major roads appear to be relatively clean with some of the side roads still quite slippery and snow covered. I’m truly not looking forward to driving forty minutes southwest for tonight’s game. As for the temperature, it’s still pretty comfortable. The wind, however has picked up quite a bit, which is blowing snow everywhere. Meanwhile in Minnesota, my Mayor and hubby were enjoying sub zero weather.
Our hotel is nice enough and centrally located to the mall and Dunkin’. I dropped Goalielocks and his friends at the mall this morning, so they could do something other than look for ponds near the hotel. While they canvassed the mall, I headed to Ikea. I love that the store reminds me of my Scandinavian travels and the AirBnB’s we stayed in that were filled with IKEA items.
After the mall, Goalielocks and his boys headed back outside to cause trouble. They found some nice snowballs. The majority of which seemed to end up on Goalielocks’ pants and hoodie. He’s now down to one pair of pants that isn’t soaked or muddy. His nice Adidas joggers got a bit muddy after he broke the ice at the edge of the pond. You can only imagine how happy I was upon hearing that story.
While Goalielocks wrecked yet another pair of pants, I decided to do some yoga. I took a risk and did a vinyasa video from Fightmaster Yoga. It felt incredible, but it definitely got my heart rate pumping. I did modify some of the exercises to bring my heart rate back down. I’m not sure if it was the fact I’d only drank coffee today or Graves’ disease, but it was annoying either way.
Meanwhile in Minny, my Mayor is having a blast with his team and has already hit White Castle twice. Like I’ve shared before, he’s got an iron gut. At present, he and his team are playing at outdoor game not far from my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Tonight they’ll head down to the Excel Energy Center to see the Wild attempt to play. Last night, the Mayor got to see one of our favorite coaches and his mite coach, Coach Ryan. It’s awesome how hockey introduces you to great paths and how your paths keep crossing through the game we all love.
