Blackhawks Down.

Last night I attended my first ever Blackhawks game, courtesy of H. She couldn't believe that neither M nor I had ever been to a Blackhawks game and decided to make it her mission to rectify it. The game had been on our calendars for probably two months and we were all super excited to go.

We arrived about 45 minutes early so we headed to the club, to have a snack and a drink. Once we got there, we realized we were some of the only (1) people not wearing Blackhawks gear and (2) women in the room. Add to those two facts that we were drinking wine and eating calamari (not good) and crabcakes (apparently, awesome) and suffice to say that we stuck out a bit. However, that worked to our benefit as we quickly made some new friends. New friends who had on-ice seats. While the seats that H got us were great -- tenth row, behind the net -- one does not pass up the opportunity to sit on the glass.

Each of us got to sit on the glass for a period. One of the guys served as our "coach" while we were there, explaining a few of the intricacies of the game and mostly, encouraging us to bang on the glass whenever the players got anywhere near us. In the third period, it was M's turn and she was following his direction. As it turns out, his direction was wrong and they threatened to kick her out if she didn't stop. Whoopsy. Putting that aside, sitting that close is just awesome -- the puck whizzing by, the players hitting the glass, and the fans cheering. I was disappointed that there wasn't much fighting though. The one "fight" was more like two guys in a hug headlock than anything.

A couple photos from last night, although you will need to be eagle eyes to see us. First, there is me sitting behind the net at the glass:

And here you can see M, with the coach behind her in the red:

The only bad thing about last night was that it was the first game I've been to in Chicago that resulted in a loss, 4-1, to what was called a mediocre Phoenix team. I might be losing my touch. Despite that, I'd happily go to more games. Go Blackhawks!

Dammit, Lulu.

Cyber Monday is supposedly the best day for online deals of the year. Before 7:00 am, I had about 15 emails telling me retailers' great deals for the day, ranging from 30-75% off.

But not Lulu, oh no. Only they would take Cyber Monday as the perfect day to introduce their "special edition" items. Rather than presenting a great deal today, they offer already expensive items with teeny tiny extra details for 30-75% more.

Maybe it is a cultural barrier. . . they are Canadian after all.

Apologies to Nike.

I have never been a runner. I think the runner's high is a lie. My favorite thing about having arthritis is that it gave me a reason not to do something I've always hated.

And yet, I recently decided that I want to run. It is only because I want to get to cross an actual finish line at a triathlon rather than having the anticlimactic just stopping in the transition area while doing the 2/3rds aquabike. My knees are pretty under control these days -- except when the weather is bad -- so I decided to start running. While cardiovascularly I'm pretty sure I can handle it, I know my joints need more time (a thought confirmed by my favorite Ironwoman). So, I googled it and found a running training plan that would have me running for 30 minutes in seven weeks:

Week 1 - run 2, walk 3, repeat six times

Week 2 - run 3, walk 2, repeat five times

Week 3 - run 5, walk 2, repeat four times

Week 4 - run 7, walk 3, repeat three times

Week 5 - run 8, walk 2, repeat three times

Week 6 - run 9, walk 1, repeat three times

Week 7 - run 30!

Seems totally doable. And, until week 4, it was. However, I seem to have confronted a case of body-willing, mind-weak or mind-willing, body-weak, depending on the day. I have been on the run seven minutes for the past two weeks now because I just can't seem to make myself do the full 30. Sometimes my knees legitimately hurt. Sometimes, I just think they do because I don't wanna.

But as of today, no more. I am telling myself: "Just f-ing do it." And, if it takes telling myself to just f-ing do it three times or thirty times over the course of 30 minutes, that is what is going to happen. Because I know I can do it even if I don't like it.

Wimp.

I am a self-admitted fair-weather bike rider. I think I am kind of a wimp when it comes to riding in bad weather. I define bad to involve rain, snow, ice, strong wind, and cold. Yet, there are lots of sites dedicated to telling you how great it is to ride through the winter. They use a lot of words like "brisk" and "bracing" and "layers." I really do enjoy riding my bike but I also enjoy feeling in my fingers and toes.

I did not start riding my bike regularly until late May despite having it for six weeks or so prior. I kept wanting to but the highs were not breaking 60 and M reminded me that I would have lots of time to ride so why do it when I'd dislike it. As the fall entered, I said that my goal was to ride through October. Thanks to a mild November, I rode my bike to work probably half of the time. (It helped that I spent a week in Colorado though.)

Today was not ideal riding weather, definitely falling into my definition of bad as it was around 40, light rain and wind. But, I rode anyway. I had let M borrow my car so I was faced with walking, taking a cab, riding, or skipping the gym. I think walking takes too long and I'm cheap but I'm not lazy, so I got on my bike. Surprisingly, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was brisk, bracing, and I did wear layers. I do not think I will be a year-round rider but maybe I am slightly less of a wimp than I thought.

In ConText.

It has been about two weeks since my mom entered the brave new world of texting. And, speaking solely for myself, I love it. When she is not frustrated by her phone, I think she likes it too.

For me, having her send and receive texts is fantastic. Given that she is still recovering from surgery, I like to hear from her and know that she is doing okay. It makes me anxious when I don't hear an all quiet on the Western front, since the last time around, she did some wacky, not-good, needing-more-surgery things while recovering. Now, instead of me bugging her with a call, she will send me a text in the morning and let me know that all is well, more or less. Of course, when I have something real to talk to her about, I still call her and talk her ear off.

And, incredibly, on Thanksgiving, I received my first -- and probably last, knowing him -- text from my dad. He can be a bit of a Luddite sometimes but read some story about people only being able to get help in some emergency situation via text so he was convinced that he too needed to enter the 21st century when it came to texting.

Thankful.

This Thanksgiving, in no particular order, I am thankful for:

• My friends. Much like last year, I spent Thanksgiving in the company of my friends and their families. And, it was wonderful. I went to the Parade with H, cooked and ate with M and her family, and then M, her mom, and I all headed over to see O and J, where L and S were with their parents. All are such wonderful, interesting, intelligent, different, caring, welcoming people. I feel lucky to have them.


• A delicious dinner. I'm not much of a Thanksgiving food fan but there is something to be said for sitting down with a group of people and just enjoying the food and company.


• My first-ever pie without my mom's supervision turned out. It definitely looked homemade (a tad ugly) and it did require an emergency pie-crust-burning call to my mom but it was pretty tasty, if I do say so my biased self.


• My mom's recovery from neck surgery. It seems like second time was the charm. She is still in pain but that is not surprising considering that she only had surgery a month ago. Putting that aside, she has movement and motivation that she did not have last year. All positive signs.


• My dad's recovery from his emergency gallbladder removal. You'd never know he came within hours of dying this year by seeing him today. Thank goodness for timely, knowledgeable, skilled medical intervention.


• My floors FINALLY being almost fixed. After three weeks and two nights in a hotel, the most recent leak is nothing but a varnish-smelling memory. Soon, I will have new carpet installed and the summer will be clean-slated too.


• My RA being mostly under control, at least enough to try running. I don't think I will ever be "a runner" but I do want to be able to run enough to do a full triathlon and actually get to cross a finish line, rather than my anticlimactic two-thirds races.


• 2011 almost being over. This year has kicked my ass and done a number on my parents. I feel like 2012 is going to be a better year.

Seatmate Soulmate.

I think everyone wonders about their seatmate on a flight. Nobody wants their space infringed by a stranger's stuff, smell or size. But, as a single person, every flight, I like to hope that my seatmate might be my soulmate. And, I know this game isn't restricted to women. My friend K, who travels WAY more than I do, and I always joke about his seatmate soulmate before his flights.

About six years ago, I was returning from San Francisco with a co-worker. As we were boarding, we both noted a tall drink of chocolate milk getting in line behind us. Long story short, the long straw turned out to be my seatmate and my date for a little while. We are still friendly so I guess that has left me an optimist in the seatmate soulmate game. An optimist despite the fact that my last seatmate was a forty-something lady who was wearing bedazzled jeans, a leopard print shirt, and an especially tacky acrylic French manicure.

Of course, I'm probably 0 for 123 at this point. K is probably 0 for 327, although he said one of his more recent seatmates was close. He was due -- his seatmate the previous time was a big dude who offered him drugs and made him shake him awake on landing since he drugged himself into oblivion. Maybe all this seatmate karma will eventually payoff in soulmates for both of us. Either way, it makes boarding less boring.

Competitive.

I don't generally think of myself as a competitive person, but I know I can be.

Proof: Walking home from dinner tonight, M and I realized that a horse carriage was beside us. And, worse, it was beating us. I mean, I know a horse has four legs and was hauling both a carriage and three people but ain't no way, no how, that the horse was going to beat us.

Sadly, for a block or so, it was a close call. Whenever the horse got close to passing us, it would snort like it knew we considered him competition. And, I would start cracking up. Clearly, I did not have the eye of the tiger tonight. But, thankfully, my lack of focus did not result in us losing to a carriage horse. We pulled away and did not look back.

A win is a win, right?

Floored.

When I left home, I left behind a flooring mess. Thanks to a leak on the 12th floor, I spent four, very long and loud days with drying equipment in my kitchen and hallway. When they came to remove the equipment on Sunday, it did not appear to me that the kitchen floor was dry. I sent a text to the project manager mentioning that. He was supposed to go look on Monday. Then, he said it would be on Wednesday. With me being out of town, apparently he could not be bothered to actually go look until Friday. And, when he did see the floor, he realized I was right. The floor was not dry and needs to be replaced.

So, thanks to no plumbing issues of my own, I have to replace every floor in my place with the exception of my two bathrooms. My kitchen tile needs to be replaced -- hopefully it will be done soon since I cannot currently use my dishwasher or stove. My parquet floors need to be matched, patched, sanded and re-stained. And, the carpet in my bedroom and closet needs to be replaced from June's sewage fun.

I cannot decide if the worst part is the expense, the hassle or the fact that no one has said sorry.

Brave New World.

For the past year or so, I have been bugging my mom to get a phone that she would use to at least accept text messages. My parents are not cell phone users. They have them in case of emergency, travel and meeting me at the airport, as far as I can tell. My dad has the razr that was popular when I was in law school eight years ago and my mom has a cell phone that I'm pretty sure dates back to probably ten years ago. When I had a phone without a qwerty keyboard, I hated texting too. Such a pain in the ass to have to hit the 5, four times to get an L. So, I made it my mission to go get my mom a phone with a qwerty keyboard.

Yesterday, mom was having a good afternoon. We got lottery tickets, went out to lunch (a first since pre-surgery), and then went to Best Buy. There, she astounded me by not only picking a new phone but picking a smart phone. After traveling with my brother and I, she came to realize how useful having a smart phone can be in terms of maps and google. Believe it, I could not.

As she said, she has dipped her foot in the waters of the 21st century now. She isn't jumping in the deep end with all the other technological possibilities but no need for that. And, luckily, I have all weekend to give her lessons on how to use her phone. But, so far, so good. She has sent texts, taken a picture, sent it, and can use her phone as a phone, both taking and making calls. I can feel my life getting easier already!

Fall Fun.

Part of my goal for being in Colorado is to make my dad's life easier. The other part, obviously, is to help my mom recover from surgery. So while he has been at work, I've done my parents' laundry, done the dishes, taken care of the pets, cooked, etc. Because it is fall, there has been yard work to do in the form of leaf-raking.

Colorado is an arid climate. I know most people just picture mountains everywhere but my parents live on the high plains near the foothills of the mountains. Because it is dry, the landscaping is generally a bit of grass that is expensive to maintain, a lot of rocks, and a few trees. My parents' yard definitely fits in this generalization. Not a huge yard and three, small, leafy trees.

Despite that, somehow, it took me three hours and five bags to clean up their yard. And, that wasn't even to a high standard. Definitely nowhere near the level of their backyard neighbor who has OCD and picks the leaves out of the rocks by hand everyday. It was just getting it done. While I was outside working, three of my parents' neighbors stopped to talk to me. Most of them see me maybe once a year or so but I think the powers of deduction should make them figure out that I'm not some hired hand doing the yard work. Each of them made some sort of joke about how fun raking leaves is.

And every time, my response was "This is why I live in the city." Of all the trade-offs between living in a house in the suburbs and a condo in the city, I think it is hands-down a clear winner for the city to not have to do yard work.

Walmart.

As a preface, I understand that the following makes me sound like a snob and/or yuppie and/or urban elitist. And, maybe I am, I don't know. I just know that they don't have Walmart in Chicago, at least not until you get to the very-very edge of it.

I'm currently in Colorado, playing Florence Nightingale as my mom recovers from neck surgery. One of my tasks for today was to go to the store to get some things. Unfortunately, the store involved was Walmart. I don't remember the last time I was in a Walmart but I can say that they have become super-sized. Walmart and Costco and the like might be the reason that the terrorists hate us. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. The people. The clothes. The people. The amount of stuff. The people. The people. The people.

The second runner-up as best part about this was the glee my mom took in sending me to "go be like everyone else in the country and shop at Walmart. The third runner-up was the amount of distaste my grandmother expressed for Walmart when I told her about the trip. Apple seemed to skip a generation on falling from that tree. Obviously, the best part was crossing something off the list of things to be done for my dad. Even with three good things having come from the trip, I'm in no hurry to go back to Walmart.

Karma.

I tend to think that my family consists of good people. I'm no saint and certainly could do more but I give to charity, try to help others, and the like. Overall, not bad. But, recently, my family has gone through some things that make me think that my karma is not very good.

Back in February, I celebrated my birthday with a corneal ulcer. In June, the plumbing in my building backed up during a big storm leaving me with sewage-spewed carpeting. In July, my dad had to have emergency gallbladder surgery, coming within hours of dying due to septic shock. Two weeks ago, my mom had to have her second neck fusion in a year. When my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I gave her two present ideas: (1) a time machine that would go back about four years and trap my parents in their then-healthy state; or, (2) fixing all the plumbing in my building.

On Tuesday, one of the units on the 12th floor of my building suffered a leak. As the water worked its way down the building, a lot of units were left with wet drywall along that pipe. Lucky me, I was the only person with serious damage. Apparently, there is a divider under my unit that meant that the water had nowhere to go and nothing to do but pool under the floors of my kitchen and hallway. Even luckier me, the building bylaws deem this an accident, making me responsible for fixing the damage. So far, it looks like my home owner's insurance will cover the damage after my deductible. In the past two days, I've gained experience with water remediation processes and insurance claims.

Unfortunately, I will be putting that experience to use next week. My mom just called me to tell me that their roof had sprung a leak. I will be out in Colorado, playing Florence Nightingale, as my mom recovers from surgery. Apparently, I might get to play Bob the Builder too.

I'm not sure what my family has done but 2011 is kicking our asses a bit. I think I need to investigate more charitable work or the like immediately, if not sooner.