Making It Up As I Go Along #224

MONDAY…
--- Edmonton loses the Cup in game seven to Carolina. The players and deserve the win but this may be the least deserving city to have the Cup in its possession. People there would rather see a monster truck than the Stanley Cup.
--- Big storm this evening. Even losing power for ten minutes or so with lots of wind and rain and lightning. Kind of neat.

TUESDAY…
--- Work is kind of busy with a presentation in the afternoon as well. A walk this evening is nice.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Not a bad day… busy at work… lunch with Shannon… some catch up time with Laura… and a phone message from mom and dad and their European trip.

THURSDAY…
--- Busy work day. Lunch with some I haven’t had it with in a while. Sarah and Kiyomi… and Linda Scobie. Mike is there too but I’ve seen lots of him lately.

FRIDAY…
--- Not so busy at work. Lunch in CNI (a rare thing for me) with Laura and Karen and Atlas and that gang.
--- Atlas, Trevor and I go for golf after work. Rusty but fun all the same.
--- Go home to die… tired after golf.

SATURDAY…
--- Work some overtime today. Back to AFIS for the first time since I took the CNI supervisor job. It’s a nice change.


You’ve got to see the Baby!
It’s a tough thing to avoid the family life if you want to be a part of modern western society. I’m up late watching a hockey game on TV. The Stanley Cup is won and the players hit the ice in celebration and parade around the famed trophy to the delight of all. This is an event that has gone on for generations. We have black and white footage of Maurice Richard and his team mates in one of the happiest moments of their lives. If ever there has been a moment for the macho man, this is it!

Yet somewhere in the last ten years or so, it was decided that the player’s wives and children need to hit the ice with them. So now, instead of a pointless clichéd interview with a player proclaiming giving 100% and loving the team mates who he’s shared this with, we get TV cameras and microphones shoved in the face of a player’s three year old kid… hoping for a “Kids Say the Darnedest Things” moment.

I’m not saying family isn’t important for an athlete. But there’s a time and place for everything and I’d much rather the black and white footage of Richard and the boys than Carolina defenseman, Glen Wesley’s family portrait time. It brings the Seinfeld episode to mind… where Elaine and Jerry are pressured for the entire show “You’ve got to see the baby!”

And a few days after it’s all over. Chris Pronger asks out of Edmonton because of family issues. No other details have been made available yet but I don’t know what happened in the eight to ten months since he signed a five year contract to play in Edmonton. I left my home for work. I haven’t asked the RCMP to send me back to my home city to do my job. I know it must be tough to be away from family… I’m always away from family. But if you sign a contract to play hockey in the NHL (or any other professional sports league) you must understand that, for the terms of the contract, the city you live half the year in will not be your choice. If you get traded you’re traded. And if you are far from home, that’s the way it is. I don’t care how much money an athlete makes but I do feel they have to honour commitments to the cities they play for. If all players want an exception made for them, we’re back to a league where only a handful of cities can remain competitive. Sometimes, the even playing field has nothing to do with money… it sometimes has to do with attitude.

Even I come up in the family question this week. That is to say, it has been suggested that, at my current age… and being single… my best bet to find someone may now be as the guy who slides in with the single mother for the ready made family. So now my ability to find the right woman will depend on my ability with her kids. Not that it wasn’t hard enough searching for a girl I would get along with. Now I will need to consider her kids too.

Truth be told, the above paragraph may very well not be the intended message I received. But it came to mind after I received it. I may be over blowing that one but it does add a feeling of pressure if my main goal is to actually find someone to share the rest… or at least some portion of… my life with.

So the single guy can’t watch the championship game of a sporting event anymore without having a doe eyed child mumbling into a microphone while sweaty daddy beams. And favourite athletes may ask off of the favourite team because he has dragged his wife too far away from his in-laws. Single or not, in-laws play a roll in my life too.

And the single guy in his mid thirties has to consider that he may always be single or maybe he’ll just have to join a family of woman, her children, and the occasional dealings with the father of her children. Other situations are possible… but the odds are starting to stack up against mid thirties single guy… especially if he’s not looking for children.

So what can one do? Drown oneself in work? Think again! Our office is a baby making machine. This calendar year, some eight or nine babies have been or will soon be born. It seems that once a month, another co-worker lets the secret out of the bag that she’s pregnant… or he’s about to become a daddy. And the cycle starts new each time. Pictures of the drowsy infant are e-mailed around the office. Computer screens show female co-workers lying in bed with weary smiles. I never expected to see these co-workers in this way. I’m not sure why I should see it now.

And a few months after the picture, the visit. Think of the reaction Michael Jackson gets when he walks through a throng of screaming fanatics. Or the reaction David Beckham would get if he walks the streets of London. If Elvis returned from the grave to play an all day music festival.

This is the reactions you see when the babies come to visit the RCMP. Dozens of women run from their work to hold the baby… to tickle the baby… to watch the baby cry… to try to “goo goo goo” the baby back from the tears to the smiley mode that was present before they scared the be-Jesus out of it in the first place!

I’ve got no problems with babies. I can understand how people who are the parents of babies love those young lives more than anything else in this world. But I don’t think a baby’s appearance should have rock star reactions either. Be calm everyone. Form a single line. Have your twenty dollars ready to hand over to mama… cause baby’s time ain’t free!

Hey, if pro athletes charge for appearances. And I see their babies on TV, batting at the Stanley Cup with baby paws, I’d expect to have to pay in order to see a baby up close too!

After all, to us non-parents, all babies look the same. So I can take no chances. I must meet every baby I can. Because the one I avoid may be that celebrity baby who got to parade the Stanley Cup around the ice in front of millions.