Unsportsmanlike

After my team's first game of the playoffs, if curling had a penalty box, I expect I'd be sitting in it tonight.

To say things did not go well in the first six ends would be putting it very mildly. To say I responded to adversity with humour and grace would be an outright lie.

Curling places a lot of expectations on its players when it comes to etiquette. You're supposed to maintain a calm demeanour regardless of whether a shot comes out well. No 'touchdown dances' allowed. I didn't throw my broom or a tantrum, but down 6-2 in the sixth end, there was a distinct lack of smiles and cheer on my side of the ice. Inside, I was boiling, my mind churning, filled with very nasty thoughts about my play thus far, (terrible) the play of my teammates (less than stellar) and the play of our opponents (awesome, dammit!).

After the game, one of the opposing players suggested it wasn't much fun playing such "Gloomy Gusses" and one of my own players pulled out the phrase, 'poor losers'.

The thing is, we didn't lose. Thanks to some lucky breaks and good shots from my teammates, we managed the win. But it didn't feel much like a win when I spent more than three quarters of the game with a 'thin in the lip' sour puss. I'm not proud of that one at all. As my vice pointed out toward the end of the sixth, it's not The Brier!

Onward and upward next week.

Moving into the 2000s

This little luddite is taking a big leap into the future this week.

I am now the proud owner of an itouch, after several technological hiccups along the way. I'm obviously not against technology, blogging after all, puts one firmly in the technological zeitgeist, doesn't it?

I'm just sort of a... buffet technophile. I listen to podcasts when I walk the dog, but I won't have cable or satellite. I was an early adopter of the cell phone, but just recently said goodbye to my 6-CD changer when it unexpectedly died.

So, here I am, waiting for the latest of my CDs to load into itunes, and wondering, where on earth did I get Maria Callas' arias, and is it really OK that they've been sitting next to Meryn Cadell all these years? (Of course I alphabetize-duh!)

I wonder whether having everything loaded (at this rate, sometime next year, I expect) will change my listening habits. Well, I guess it has already. After all, when was the last time I savoured the incomparable Callas?

The question is, when will be the next time?

A cure for what ails you 2

When you're in a funk, no matter what colour of funk, I think one of the cures (after Scandinave, of course,) is green.
Two weeks ago, I put some seeds, basil and thyme and a decorative grass, into those little peat pods you see in the gardening section of hardware store these days. They're in their own little windowsill greenhouse after careful watering. I'm not sure how they managed to germinate, since I had the lid off nearly every day, looking for, hoping for evidence of growth, anything at all.

Today, six little basil plants and five little thymes are about a centimetre high. The grass, inexplicably, has just one little shoot growing. Even so, I get a smile every single time I look at them.

I forgot to put on labels, but I'm pretty sure the basil and thyme will tell me who's who when they get a little older.

A reprieve for news

What a relief to hear the group which controls telecommunications in this country has decided against allowing broadcast outlets to knowingly broadcast false news.

Of course, there's lots of false news that already gets published, thanks to lazy and/or overworked and undertrained journalists. There are plenty of folks in the media ready to reprint whatever they're told over a beer, or simply rewrite what gets sent in a news release. Others, too, have an agenda they sometimes not-so-subtly push, thanks to favours or perceived favours from the people they're covering or a hatred they developed for someone else. It happens especially in smaller places where nearly everyone has a history of some sort with everyone else. Even so, it never fails to surprise me when people quote back to me some of the total crap or halftruths they have heard or read.

It's tough to stay above the fray when you live near the people you cover, especially when their decisions affect you every day. But as one of my j-school teachers often said, "You can't be objective, but you can be fair."

By fair, I mean actual fairness, not "fair and balanced" as used by FOX "news" which uses fair and balanced the way the 'holy roman empire' used holy.

A cure for what ails you

Next time you're in a funk, whether it's a blue funk or just some sort of pinkish-green one, I have the solution.

The world seems a better place following an afternoon at Scandinave.
(They did not pay me to say this) It's just..... lovely.

Five 'rounds' of hot, cold relax and the world is a better place. Even as I heartily complain about the cold plunge and don't actually do it as often as recommended, it really does make a difference. If you avoid the cold plunge, you miss out on rejuvenation and get only the relaxation. Which is fine, too.

Thanks, Tammy and Carolyn for the suggestion and the great company. I'll be back!

If you can't say something nice...

I've been struggling for things to write about in this space for the last few days, not because I have nothing to say, but because a winter funk has left me with very little that wouldn't seem like petty complaining.

I recently finished a book called The Happiness Project, an extremely thoroughly researched piece of stunt journalism which reinforced some notions most of our grandmothers would have espoused. Gretchen Rubin says there is happiness to be found in focusing on the positive and maintaining a happy mien in the face of the blues.

In that spirit, here are some positive observations:

I'm glad I have a new dishwasher, yes glad, even though the one declared dead last weekend was only a few months off warranty. I am happy we were able to pay for the new one outright while supporting a local business. I'm thrilled my sweetie knew how to install the new dishwasher in time for the dinner party I had organised. While not ecstatic about it, waiting even longer to save up for the items I was hoping to buy with the cash we laid out for the dishwasher will teach me patience. Patience is a good quality to cultivate.

hmmmmmm.
I'm not sure it's working.

Four Days and a Question

Maybe you can help me with this one: why are there so many lovely, fabulous and amazing women with lousy men in their lives or no partner at all? Why do the lousy men have no problem finding a women to put up with them?

This is an eternal question for me, but was renewed this week after a chat with one of the kindest women I know. She has one of those smiles that's so genuine and real, when you're with her, you just know everything's going to be fine. She got married a few months after my sweetheart and I did, but sometime before Christmas, she left her husband, after being alternately ignored and belittled these last eight years. Tellingly, her family is not unhappy about the move, in spite of their deep and abiding belief that marriage really is supposed to be for better or worse; they're just glad she's not allowing herself to be treated like dirt any more.

But here's the thing: the guy, who wouldn't come to family functions, who was too busy to spend any time with his children, who spent much of their relationship telling his wife she was stupid and silly, already has a girlfriend.

He started dating four days after 'the talk' that led my friend to leave.

FOUR DAYS. That's all it took.

I fully expect my fabulous friend will remain single for some months, perhaps even years to come, while her soon to be former husband has already moved his new girlfriend and her child into the house, which he kept in the split.

How does this happen, and more importantly, where is the awesomely good guy my friend so richly deserves?

Super Monday

Well, I'm glad that's over with, and happily, there were no wardrobe malfunctions.

Now, I know there are people for whom the Superbowl, and American Football for that matter, are a big deal, and who wouldn't miss a Sunday parked in front of several games in a row. I just don't know any of them.

For me, and pretty much everyone I know, we're fans of the spectacle, but not of the game. The most commonly-asked question at the Superbowl party I attend each year is, "who's playing?"

We're interested in the food and the visiting, but the game is just the excuse to get together. There was a time several people at the gathering tried their hand at 'knowing things' about the game, but it seems they now realize it doesn't earn them any respect, so they've let it go.

Several people in the party I was at didn't even come in to the room with the big TV- they stayed at the buffet.

So, with Lea Michele and Christina Aguliera's vocal histrionics over, and the game won by... who was that again? we can now, get back to our regular sports programming.

Hurry hard, it's four weeks to the Brier.