My Feat of Strength was lugging home about 25 pounds of groceries and then doing a half-hour of circuit training. My limbs are noodles right now.
I don’t even want to get into the Airing of Grievances because I’ll be here all night talking about the handbasket in which the USA is going to hell. At least it’s not this cute little one on my tree:
This is an older ornament, so old the little holly bulbs next to the birdie are a bit chewed up, likely from a dog we had, a Shepherd Husky mix. Beautiful dog, and super intelligent, but she had a knack for chewing up Christmas decorations. She was a bit of a racist about it, too: She only chewed the head off the Black king in our manger scene. My father replaced it with another Black king and she did it again, and this time she ate the Baby Jesus too. So my parents got a completely new manger scene and you guessed it: She chewed the head off the Black king again. At that point my father just got another White king and she left that one alone.
That’s all I have time for tonight, folks. Some of us DO have to work this week, ya know. Full day tomorrow, off Christmas Day, full day Thursday, half-day Friday, then I’m off until January 6, whoo-hoo!
Sunday Stealing is still on vacation, so here’s an old one.
A – Ambition: To actually be able to retire. That’s not looking likely. And lemme tellya, if Trumpty-Dumpty and Apartheid Clyde try to do anything to Social Security and Medicare, I will join whatever class-action suit needs to be rendered against them.
B – Birthday: October 21
C – Computer: PC, always. Currently a Dell that is 5 years old. I really should buy a new one before any tariffs kick in. Maybe after Christmas but before the coronation.
D – Dream: I love the one I have of Marko Saaresto (front man of Poets of the Fall) in which we’re standing in a famous D.C. bookstore called Kramer’s and he asks me to help him pick out a book for a child relative back in Finland. I pull out my tablet and type in a line from one of his songs–“I’m secretly grateful you’re sharing this moment with me” from “No End, No Beginning”–and he says “thank you” and we pick out a book and then have lunch and people-watch. Now pardon me if I cry for a second because I was supposed to be at this concert and one in Manchester with my friend Tracy while on vacation in England for a week, but my heart attack said otherwise.
E – Exercise: Cardiokickboxing, interval training, interval treadmill, and The Firm because I’m old school like that.
F – Favorite Food: Today it’s grapes. Tomorrow it might be something else.
G – Garden: Would love to have one. Wouldn’t love to work on it.
H – Hobby: Coloring. And I still have not finished that stupid snowflake!
I – Idol: Joaquin Phoenix. His compassion for animals humbles me.
J – Job: Health writer. Oh, excuse me, I write for clinicians so they’re calling people like me medical journalists now.
K – Kids: Too gamey.
L – Location: Virginia
M – Military: Should only be deployed as a last resort.
N – Name or Nickname: T-bird
O – Optimist or Pessimist: Cynical optimist. Yes, there is such a thing. Ever hear of “plan for the worst but hope for the best?”
P – Pets: I miss mine.
Q – Quote: I hate writing. I love having written. — Dorothy Parker
R – Reads: Mystery, horror, historical.
S – School: Gee Dubya, Class of ’88.
T – Travel: Yes, please.
U – Unfulfilled ambition: One day I will get some fiction published. Or poetry. Or something other than journalism.
V – Vacation spot: I used to love ski resorts. No idea now. I haven’t had a real vacation where I go somewhere far away for at least week in years. Many years. Might have been my honeymoon in 2001. I can’t remember. See: crying, above.
W – Wardrobe: Mostly athletic wear for hiking and the gym.
X – X-tra facts about me: White people say my eyes are brown. People of color say my eyes are hazel. People of color are correct.
Y – Years online: 25
Z – Zodiac sign: Libra sun, Aquarius moon, Sagittarius rising.
Well, that was fun!
A few entries ago, I wrote of my mother’s mistaken belief that Emperor Penguins were six feet tall. Speaking of huge penguins…
I wonder if Pesto will ski, like today’s ornament, one of my new ones from this year.
Tonight’s entry is inspired by Mary over at Red Nose, a devout hockey and Washington Capitals fan.
I love hockey, too. One of my first memories, if not the first memory I had, is of my father sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed listening to a game on the radio.
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
“I’m listening to the Rangers game.”
“What’s a Rangers game?”
And the rest was history. My father was a Rangers fan until Long Island got its own hockey team, the Islanders. Then he switched. He used to love the “grudge matches” between the Rangers and the Islanders, which, admittedly, have always been pretty intense, even rather bloody at times. I grew up an Islanders fan, as the team’s first season was 1972-1973, when I was six years old, and enjoyed the fun of being in high school for most of the Islanders Stanley Cup Dynasty.
Then in the 1990s, after I decided to make the D.C. area my home, I decided to adopt a local team, and so I adopted the Capitals. I had season tickets in the 1997-1998 season, when they went all the way to the Stanley Cup finals only to be swept by the Detroit Red Wings (still can’t stand ’em). That season coincided with my Year Off from Men, and I traveled with friends to see the Caps play in a whole bunch of different cities, including in western Canada in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. I went full die-hard, actually.
My parents were not pleased. In fact, when I went home to visit one Christmas, there was a sign on the front door in my mother’s handwriting: “This entrance for Islanders fans only. All others use rear door.”
AND SHE MADE ME DO IT, TOO. I remember my father telling me “You’re lucky we didn’t change the locks. I had to talk her out of it.”
“Don’t worry, I still love the Mets.”
Wrong thing to say, as my family was a house divided on that, with my father a Mets fan and my mother a Yankees fan. And my father called me out on that, too. “You can’t pick a Washington baseball team because they don’t have one.” (The Nationals came back to D.C. in 2005. And, um, well, I adopted them, too, but my parents were both gone by that point.)
“Okay, the Jets. I will always love the Jets.”
At least I stayed true to my word on that, bag over my head and all—yes, we still do that—because they haven’t won a Super Bowl since I was two years old. I am now 58, so do the math.
Image: USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
I’m willing to bet the guy next to him with his eyes shut is a Jets fan, too. The expression says it all.
But I will never—and I mean NEVER—be a fan of the D.C. football team. I never liked the name “Redskins,” but “Commanders?” What kind of tone-deaf Handmaid’s Tale toxic masculinity crap is that? NO, don’t tell me it refers to the military. D.C. is one of the most well-read and liberal cities in the country, and The Handmaid’s Tale TV series was in its white-knuckling fifth season when the new name took effect. Whoever made the decision didn’t read the room.
As for hockey, I’m sticking with the Caps. If the Islanders go further in the playoffs than the Caps, I’ll root for them, but my heart rocks the Red, and so here is tonight’s ornament.
zenzalei 