Making It Up As I Go Along #287

MONDAY...
— Day shift. First time I’m in for a week of days since June. Do okay... not too tired but needing the breaks when they come to go out for some fresh air.
— An hour evening walk. And I don’t much like those. It felt like walking through the mall with cars everywhere and people walking dogs and kids left, right and centre. The second half of the hour was better as the sun went down and darkness shoos people away. I’ll have to aim for a bit later in the evening next time.

TUESDAY...
— Sleep a bit better than last night but am more tired at work. I need to even get up and walk around from time to time.
— Humid day. Felt like about 35 degrees. Still walk with Melissa at breaks though.
— No walk tonight. I talk to Karl on the phone and work on my list for the hockey pool instead. Plus I thought it was going to rain at anytime. I didn’t want to be two kilometres from home and stuck in a thunder storm.

WEDNESDAY...
— Awake, pretty much for good, at 3:50 this morning. My return to day shift takes a bump.
— Work is tough with the sleepiness. Lunch with Melissa, Megan, Leslie and Casey at the cafeteria.
— 45 minute nap after work. Then some cleaning around the house to end the day.

THURSDAY...
— Tired at work. I sleep better last night but still, I guess after several days of less sleep and being active in the morning for the first time in months, it’s catching up.
— Few groceries and finish the cleaning after work. So no walk again tonight. It’s grey and wet anyway, so not ideal walk weather... spick and span house though.
— My stolen blue recycling box has been found. Good thing with day shift, I can be there pretty well as soon as the boxes have been emptied... and there my old one was!

FRIDAY...
— Work is work. The hockey pool is drafted afterwards. I pick 5th out of 12 and am happy with my team. It should go places.
— To my house for a party afterwards. Fewer go than are hoped. Linda, Sheila, Nick, Devin, Janice are there for the evening... Melissa for a short time. Still a fun time with pizza and 1972 Canada vs. USSR hockey on DVD. But I have way to much junk food left in the house after they’re gone.

SATURDAY...
— I’m getting so tired of hearing hockey experts constantly talking about “The New NHL”. The ‘new’ NHL is starting it’s third season now. It’s no longer new... move on! That said... I’d like to see a ‘new’ NHL... one without the stupid shoot-out... that only uses wooden sticks... and outlaws football type, bulletproof equipment.
— Watch the first game of the year. From Merry ol’ England it’s LA and Anaheim. Not a special game but it is hockey.
— An hour walk at midnight tonight. Once again, liking the late.


Things Have Changed
A week of changes. Much has changed... or is in the process of changing through this week.

The hockey season is here again. On Friday, we get together to draft the office hockey pool. Barring injury problems again (cause my team last year was beat up) I should do good. Draft day is usually a bit of fun. Sitting with people you enjoy, discussing a sport that we’re all in to. Making fun of each other for picking one guy we had no intention of going after... cursing each other for picking another that we were about to draft ourselves.

I’m often at drafts thinking back to past pool drafts. Some where you’d pick players in turn... others where you’d bid on each player in an auction format. A favourite memory is of a draft some fifteen years ago. Having Blair, a friend who can tend to be a little ready to think the worst, throw out the name of a particular defencemen. And around the table it went... and nobody else entered on the bidding. “Nope”, “na”, “Not me”, “take him Blair”.

Blair looks around nervously... “what’s the matter with him boys?”

“Oh nothing,” says one. “Nothing at all,” claims another. Unable to resist, I pipe up... “Funeral’s on Wednesday Blair.”

Blair’s mouth drops. “Let me pick someone else!” We had to then assure Blair that the player was indeed still alive... although I don’t think he lasted the full season on Blair’s roster.

And hockey games came back to TV this week. Saturday and Sunday in England. Leave it to the NHL to start the season gimmicky. England being a hockey power as it is. But I could help watching yesterday and wondering if a London based NHL team would be good. The stadium seemed fine... and the atmosphere was good. Maybe a European division isn’t so far fetched? But I really don’t want five or six more teams in the league. Let’s just move Nashville, Atlanta, Anaheim, Florida, Carolina, Columbus, and Phoenix. They could be London, Stockholm, Berlin, Moscow, Prague, Helsinki, and Vienna.

In other changes...

Baseball is ending. Now comes the playoffs. I love baseball playoffs. There’s added intensity to the games and, every season, something magical happens. The dramatics of a game with no time clock... where comebacks are always possible. In the early point of the playoffs, there’s usually triple headers on TV too. An afternoon game, followed by one at supper, ended with a night game from the west coast. It makes you want to take a day off work just to sit around and do the baseball thing.

Also this week... I had a party. I’ve had people (more than one or two) at my place I think... four times since I’ve moved to Ottawa. So once a year. Of course, commitment isn’t an easy thing to get from people. Seventeen were invited... five appeared. Most had reasonable reasons why they couldn’t but a few just simply disappeared. I guess I know a couple of people not to bother to invite next time!

But it was a good time for the group of us anyway. I’m just now overloaded with junk food. I rarely eat the stuff now and never buy it for having around the house, so I’ll have to get people over again soon in order to rid myself of the backlog. Otherwise, I’ll be eating Party Mix for supper and washing it down with root beer!

But the biggest change this week was that at work. I was back on dayshift.

After three months of straight evenings, it was a return to the land of the living. And it was weird. I came in to the office Monday morning, not used to the traffic on the way in. All those people driving through the darkness of morning. And then four or five times more people in the office than on evening shift. Everywhere you turn, there’s someone there. For the first half hour, it felt like an invasion. I wanted to find a quiet corner to curl up in. And I’ve found that from 7:00 to about 9:30, I contribute very little to any conversation that goes beyond a grunt or a one word answer.

But with time you get used to the bodies... drown out the ones you don’t need to hear and be happy to see the ones you don’t often come across. And there’s something to be said for leaving the office in daylight and seeing others all about the place. And then to be able to take your time and watch a sunset if you want to... right from the comfort of your bedroom window.

But that 5:15 alarm clock... now that just hurts.