daily life

At the Hockey Game


Is it game? Or match? Or maybe meet? I have no idea. It was Fan Appreciation Night at Rexall Place, which is where the Edmonton Oilers play their home games. It is games, I think. We did not see them. We watched a WHL junior game. The Oil Kings versus the Rebels, who are from Red Deer. Both teams are just about dead last in their division and when we left, after the second period (it’s period, right?) because Katy was getting tired and it was late, the Oil Kings were winning 4 to 1. That’s goals. I do know that. But not much more.

 

My husband, Rob, has played hockey nearly all his life, and my late husband, Will, was nearly as interested in hockey as he was in NFL football, but even with their combined instruction so far – I still can’t make heads or tails of the game. Why is some body slamming against the wall (or is it boards?) okay and other times it elicits a time-out (that’s a penalty and you sit in a box for it)? I don’t know and neither does anyone else because when I ask, I get the “it all depends” speech, which leaves me as unenlightened as ever. 

 

Katy thoroughly enjoyed herself. She got to have popcorn and a Coke. She is almost never allowed pop (it’s pop up here not soda) and that in itself is noteworthy. There was plenty of extraneous activity to keep even the marginally interested spectator engaged. Things like the usual t-shirt giveaway every 10 minutes or so, and some blond toothy twenty-something who kept popping up on the big screen above the ice to yammer at the crowd about prizes and giveaways and contests whenever eager young people in the employ of the arena were not hurling things at the spectators. I asked Rob if he recognized the young man. Was he a local celebrity? TV or radio? Only to be reminded by my husband that we don’t watch TV. Right. Hard to keep up on the local talking heads when you listen to XM exclusively and read the newspaper to find things out about the world – mostly beyond Alberta because if you only watched the local TV stations for news, you might wonder if the rest of the world had been destroyed in some geological disaster or nuclear accident that we didn’t hear about here because, well, it didn’t happen in Alberta.

 

Unlike the last hockey….thing….I attended with Will about eight or nine years ago this one flew by, but mainly because I was sitting next to Katy. She had many questions about the goings on. Most of them I couldn’t answer with any degree of accuracy, but she appeared to be fine with that. She was very concerned about the officials’ safety and well being.  Probably something to do with their decided lack of protective gear. She also seemed a bit worried about the players who jumped over the wall onto the ice instead of using the door.  She wondered about the coaches and decided that she didn’t want to be a hockey player herself because I mistakenly referred to the intermissions between periods, as “time-outs” and she didn’t like to be timed out.

 

As we were leaving, I became aware that my boots were glued to the floor by some congealed liquid. Pop, no doubt but aside from this, the arena was remarkably clean. Even the washroom. If you know me, you know that I have an aversion to public washrooms due to their general state of disgustingness. The washrooms at Rexall Place have that worn out look that much of Canada’s public areas do but it was clean. There was even a washroom attendant to mop up the sink area which, if you watch Oprah at all, you know is just a cesspool of germs that makes sitting on the toilet seat about the cleanest thing a person can do in a washroom.

 

Katy acquired an Oil Kings flag in the gift shop on the way out and wheedled unsuccessfully for a jersey (I would have liked a t-shirt myself), and we emerged from the arena to find it was still snowing as hard as it had been when we arrived. Winter is cruel. Parking lots and sidewalks have been snow free and dry since early in the week and spring threatened. And so, it follows that snow must fall. It is only mid-March and this is Canada – as I am reminded often when I read about the warming and melting back in Iowa.

 

Katy is excited about her next hockey game. She has a flag to wave now and knows that if she wants something free thrown at her, she must stand up and wave or dance for the webcam like the little boy that the perky talking head spoke to at one point in his give-away madness. The boy looked about eight or nine and would dance suggestively on demand much to the delight of the crowd. Rob remarked that the kid would be much in demand by the ladies someday, provided that he was playing on that team.

 

I think a hockey game here and there would make a nice family outing. Like hiking  and camping, it is a Canadian thing to do and we are fast forgetting our American ways in favor of our new home.

 

 

Getting My Hair Done


I was dragging around yesterday at lunch and Rob noticed. He asked me what was wrong and I told him I had a hair appointment and didn’t feel like going. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound like anything to be morose about and it seems silly, but as I explained to Rob – I just wanted to do something other than sit for two hours in a salon making small talk with my stylist. Fredrique is a nice man, but we rarely ever talk about anything but American politics and American cultural defects. Cindy, my previous stylist, would chat with me about kids – mine and hers and tell me what she’d been up to. The time went by much faster. But the best thing about Cindy is that she would let me not talk if that’s what I wanted. I didn’t feel any pressure to fill the air or entertain her. And then there was the sitting for two hours without much to do. Okay, I could have taken a book and I did talk my yoga for dummies, but I really wanted to spend some serious time on my writing. My writing muse is feeling quite neglected and isn’t happy with the snatched moments I have been getting in the past couple of weeks. Life calls and I answer and the muse knows this is the reality, but she was pouty yesterday because my best friend sent me a very belated birthday gift of a novel formatting program. The muse very much wanted to spend a few hours with it yesterday, but I had this hair appointment. We are finally getting to take our honeymoon as part of the trip. Katy is staying with the folks and Rob and I are taking off for a cabin in Southern Illinois for five days on our own. I can’t have grays and roots showing. Hairy legs perhaps, but not grays and roots. So, I sucked it up and went to the appointment. And it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Reading helped. The shampoo girl gave me a great scalp massage. Reminded me a bit of the lonely caregiver days when I would go to get a wash and style at Cost Cutters just to have someone rub my head. Sad, pathetic days. Yesterday it mainly reminded me of Rob and the way he rubs my head at night when I am laying on his chest. Happy, contented days. Having my hair done in the middle of the day is another reminder of what a different life I live now. I don’t have to be anywhere at any given time expect for school drop-off and home in time to meet the bus later. I have things to do – shopping, housework, cooking, working out, writing – but there is no specific time table for any of this. I don’t have to dress any particular way, so I am usually pretty casual in my yoga togs. I don’t wear a bra anymore. I don’t shave my legs. I never wear make-up. They were things that seemed so non-sensical  when I had to do them and did I really have to do them? Or was I just lock step with all the other women in this post-feminist era? Yoga duds aren’t professional. Bralessness is too provacative. Make-up free is a sign of disinterest. Hairy legs are just gross (and another sign you don’t care about yourself or upkeep). A new blogging friend asked via a comment why I didn’t identify with feminists. And perhaps this is part of it. Feminism is just another way we women pressure each other to conform to a standard that does not fit every one of us. I never wanted a career. I just wanted a job that I enjoyed. Do what you enjoy and the money will follow. Isn’t that what they say? I never saw motherhood as limiting or men as evil. Although both can be true, motherhood is about sacrifice and most men are not bright enough to be evil – just annoying (as are women). Feminism is black and white and I have always known that life is not that simplistic. Being blond is my only girly vice really and even that takes a back seat to my muse.

Random Thoughts Now that the Weirdoes are Gone


Now that the stat counter has plummeted back to normal, the decidedly mixed feelings I have been having about blogging have returned. I like the exercise and the discipline of it, but I can’t shake the feeling that I am little more than entertaining peep show for all but a handful. I am interested in other things besides blogging about my own life exclusively. Politics. Well, not so much but I am incensed about the fact that sexism is sticking me yet again with a self-entitled and smug male. It’s feeling like the Reagan era all over again when I had to listen to people telling me how wrong I was about trickle down economics and deficit spending and that Reagan really wasn’t a doddering old front man for the evil wing of the Republican party. Charisma is the only thing that matters to Americans anymore. It’s why Bill won and Hillary won’t, and the sad thing about that is that she would have left a better legacy than he did. I am also thinking a lot about my writing and what excites me about it and what I am struggling with. I love just sitting and writing. Seeing the words appear on the screen. Watching characters come to life and their stories unfold. Lately I have developed a habit of taking people I see when I am out and turning them into characters for a story I am working on. There was the no-necked cafeteria worker at the Royal Albert Museum and the double chinned woman at the imaging place yesterday. I wrote about them practically on the spot because I always have a little notebook and pen in my purse these days to jot ideas down as soon as I can. And pens. I am writing with pens now when it used to be I could write with nothing but pencils. How odd is that? I remember Will teasing me about my aversion to writing with ink and he wondered why I couldn’t seem to put anything down that I couldn’t erase. I wonder now too and wonder what has changed more – me or my life. Some might argue that it is my life but I am not so sure.