Dan Gets A Goal

Imagine you are a thirteen-year-old kid. You have never skated before in your life. Now imagine you decide you want to play hockey. That means you have to play with kids your age, most of whom have been skating and playing hockey for 8 years or more. But you go to your dad and tell him what you want to do and he is supportive. It is something new for him too.

You sign up with a league and get assigned to a team. Then you find out there is another kid who will be skating for the first time as well. You get all the protective equipment you need and some skates and a hockey stick. You learn a bit about shafts and blades and choices you need to make as the cost of all that necessary stuff gets higher and higher.

Through it all, your dad is supportive all the way and you find you are having fun.

The season progresses and you watch all your teammates scoring goals. You hang in there and try to make an impact on the play. You experience the exhilaration of playing on a team that, after a slow start, wins 12 of their last 14 games including the championship for their bracket.

A few weeks go by after the last tournament and you look forward to one more weekend of hockey. The team that you faced in Ottawa a few months before is traveling down to the states to play a couple more games.

The first game turns out to be a rout and your team wins by a score of 15-3. The coach changes things around and you start getting more chances than you could believe. The game ends and you still are lacking a score.

Now it is the final game of the year. The coach once again has gotten creative with the lines and you are vaguely aware of the parents in the crowd getting louder each time you handle the puck.

Then it happens. You skate across the blue line into their zone as your teammates maneuver the puck down the wing toward the goal. Someone takes a shot and the goalie makes a save, deflecting the puck with his stick. One of your teammates regains control of the puck and dekes around their defensemen and sees you ready in front of the goal. He taps the puck in your direction and you execute. You watch the puck glide past the skates and sticks of their defenders and see the goalie react to you shot. As he kicks his skate out to cover the gap and makes an attempt to stop the puck, you see it is too late and the puck finds its way across the goal line and the ref signals a goal. You are at once swamped by your teammates who have been with you on this ride all season. They react as if they are more exhilarated than you. You hear the bank of parents erupt in cheers and applause in celebration of your feat.

This, you tell yourself is why you wanted to play hockey. This is what will make the months between now and November drag on as you wait until you can don you skates once again and become part of another team.

This past weekend, Dan, a first-year player on my son's bantam team didn't have to imagine any of that because he lived it.

Bed Shopping

When did buying a bed become such a monumental undertaking? The price of a mattress set and a bed are approaching the cost of a car in the sixties.

We have been enduring the same bed we have slept in for the past 23 plus years. I happened to mention we were in the market back when I worked for a structural engineering firm. As it happened, one of the partners had a son-in-law or something who was selling a used waterbed. We got the address and drove over to check it out. the box for the mattress had been cobbed together and the whole assembly sat up on concrete blocks. If I remember it right, the whole thing only set us back 50 bucks or something and we were set until I built a frame and replaced the bottom of the box with plywood a year or so later after we had moved into the house.

It was an old concept waterbed without baffles or anything fancy. Just a huge vinyl tube filled with water and a heater at the bottom. The mattress had to be replaced within a few years after my wife brought her old needlepoint habits with her. It seems she was accustomed to doing her needlework while sitting in bed and would slip the needle into the mattress while she was repositioning the portion of fabric she was working on or whatever it is that a person doing needlepoint needs to do. Oops! That did not work so well with the water mattress. I was able to repair it but the heater had been going too so we went ot and purchased a new mattress and heater.

Of late, we have not been getting restful sleep and my better half has been complaining of back problems. It is time to shop.

Once the sticker shock set it, we realized it will not quite be time to buy. Not at least until the mortgage is paid off at the end of the year and we have adjusted to the car payments.

We were hoping to put off the cost of the frame until the financial effects of the mattress set investment wore off. Instead, we discovered that the box we have, although plenty long, is a few inches short and the king size mattress set will not fit.

The cost ranges from $700 or so on the low end to approaching $1500 on the high end. Then there are the choices of firm. plush, pillow-top, traditional, pressure-equalization, and something called viscoelastic memory foam.

Next comes the point where we have to compromise on our selection. I want something more on the firm side that is less pricey. She wants something less firm and pricier. She can see discernable differences and I am not able to see a huge difference between the, choke, less expensive mattresses ($700 is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination) and the high end build-a-shrine-for-it ones.

I never would have though I would have to consider taking out a loan just to get a decent night's sleep.

Can't Get Back To Sleep

Here is what has been happening. I get home from work and do some work around the house and get some exercise. We settle in and perhaps watch a little tube, perhaps read a bit. Invariably, I find my way to the other end of the bed near the tube so the volume can be lowered, thereby allowing my better half to fall asleep unfettered.

There is this moment that occurs next where I find myself turning on my side, my face directed away from the set. It is at that moment that I have given myself over to sleep. I would guess not a minute goes by after that before I am sound asleep.

Some time after that, beyond the time when the timer on the tube shuts off the set, I move back to the other end of the bed and crawl under the covers.

This should be it for the night. Not too long ago, it was. These past several nights, or mornings, some event has happened that awakens me a few hours before it is time to get up. Some nights it is a trip to the can. Other nights it is my partner repositioning herself enough to stir me from sleep.

Once I am awake. That is it. I am done for. I slip in and out of slumber right up to the time the alarms sound. That is the signal for my body to enter the deep sleep I craved two hours earlier.

At this point, the sounds of morning edition on NPR intermingle with one dream or another and I find myself suspended in some ethereal non-reality where I am trying to solve foreign problems that I have no clue about. The logic of these problems makes no sense to me either.

I am aware that the explanation of many dreams is it is the unconscious mind's way of resolving issues of the conscious mind. I am also aware that writing these dreams down before even getting out of bed; or recording them can be helpful in solving whatever issues they are about. I am aware of these things but have found myself doing nothing about them for many years.

The feelings associated with these dreams and these periods of insomnia are unpleasant. I have felt despair, discomfort, fear and uncertainty. The problem is, I have no idea what is triggering these fears.

Freed To Do

When you have been consumed with chasing a college basketball team to as far as east of the Hudson River and a Bantam hockey team to Ottawa, Ontario, you find yourself relieved to have a weekend or two to catch up at home. Such was my last few days. I set my mind to accomplish a few things that needed doing.

The weekend kicked into gear Friday night. While my better half caught the latest HBO broadcast (cablecast?) of Sinbad, I tested out the old calf muscle then showered. We asked the lad if he was interested in going to the retreat with us. It is a local restaurant with great fish that we haven't been to in years. The lad was not interested so we compromised and headed out to the Olive Garden.

Saturday morning found me lounging in bed a bit while my wife headed off to Geneva then Ithaca; back to Geneva then home in the evening. Not long after she left, I dragged myself out of bed and headed out to Wegman's for a bagel and orange juice. After that I did some grocery shopping and discovered I had deleted all my check register spreadsheet files from my PDA.

Since I had back-up files at the office, I planned on heading over there after putting the groceries away. First, I stopped at the Hess station near Wegmans to get some coke that was on sale. I figured it would be a good idea to offer to get the son out of the house so I cooked him sausage and eggs with white toast to entice him to get out of bed.

After a quick visit to the office to upload the files I needed, we were off to Dick's and BJ's to check on some blades and to price the bike he wants for his birthday.

Once home, I cleared the crap that was blocking the four-drawer file cabinet I have been keeping in the basement for the last 8 years. I also cleared most of the junk that has accumulated in the front hall to make room for the file cabinet. It took some time to make the switch but I accomplished my mission while watching the Yankees come from behind to beat the Orioles.

I took a brief nap after than then tested the calf again. After showering, I drove the lad out to play laser tag then returned home after gassing up at BJ's and stopping at Wal-mart to price the minidisc players.

I caught up with my lovely bride upon my return home before she took a nap while I watched 12 monkeys. I woke her up at 10:30 so she could drive out to fetch the lad. After the movie, we turned in.

Sunday was yard-work day. The first item on the agenda was the hose spigot. The one we had has been leaking for the past few years and I bought a replacement last year. Sunday was the day I cut the other one out and soldered in the new one. I must have set a new personal record for completing a plumbing project. It was completed in less than a half hour.

Then I went out and de-thatched and raked and fertilized while listening to the Yankees lose to the Orioles. After relaxing while watching Pure Country with the wife, I headed back to Wegmans to buy some steak for dinner. We also had broccoli and garlic toast and salad with sour cream dressing, a recipe I learned from my mother. I bought some fresh mushrooms for the lady of the house and she nuked some spuds to complete the meal.

My mom called near the end of dinner to say hello and inform us that my Uncle was in Strong Memorial Hospital awaiting a liver transplant. My brother's cat ended up dead at the door to his house, soaked and bloody.

After dinner I read a bit and headed back to Wegmans yet again because I had a craving for Oreo cookies.

When I came home, I thought I smelled gas but when I checked the stove, all the knobs were up and down so I figured it was residual from when I turned them on to cook dinner. A couple of them do not light with the igniter and we need to use matches.

As it turned out, there was one burner that was up-and-down like the rest only it was 180 degrees meaning it was on all night. I discovered it in the morning when I woke up to get the paper a little before 6 a.m. I opened the front and back doors to air out the house then crawled back in bed. When I got up to get ready for work a while later, the odor had dissipated and was replaced with a pleasant fresh smell.

First Gig Of The Season

It was last Friday. I had to leave work a bit earlier than usual. The farmer who had hired us to play for his venison party at a rural golf course wanted us there a half hour before starting time. At least that was the message we got.

The car was packed with my instruments and everything was all set. I had taken care of that part by getting up a little early that morning and lugging the cases with the four reed instruments I play out to the garage before I showered.

There was a slight delay in the parking lot of the office building where I work as I set up the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my band mileage. There were conflicts earlier in the year with my son's hockey that prevented me from making the Mardis Gras gig and the ass job (as I like to call it).

Every Palm Sunday there is a church downtown that has a palm procession through the streets of Syracuse. We lead the procession, playing spirituals while the congregation parades behind singing along. Right behind us walks Ernie the donkey, the reason I refer to it as I do.

Last Friday, once I had the spreadsheet all set up, I put the car into drive and headed out. I was visualizing the routes I could take to get to the other side of the city then south to determine the quickest one. By the time I had turned left from the parking lot onto Fly Road (I like to tell people that I zip up fly road every day on my way to work), I had determined my preferred route before stopping at the traffic light on the corner of Fly and Kirkville Road.

All was smooth sailing until I turned off the Route 5 bypass and onto route 5, heading toward Elbridge. My turn onto Bennets Corners Road is only about 5 minutes on a normal day. Friday was no normal day. No sooner had I accelerated to 55 mph than I noticed taillights ahead and bumper-to-bumper slow-moving traffic. I switched the radio right away to find Tony Bombardo and the traffic report but Murphy's Law was in effect.

There is a restaurant on Route 5 about halfway between Camillus and Elbridge that is called the Inn Between. About the time I saw that approaching on my right, I decided that it may be wise to use their parking lot to turn around and head back to find an alternate route.

I lost a total of about 20 minutes when I doubled back to route 174 and found myself winding my way more or less in the direction I wanted to go. There was a pressing urge that made this whole experience a tad more unpleasant. Before I turned onto Route 5 to find the traffic snarl, I was thinking ahead to stopping on the corner of 5 and Bennets Corners to relieve myself at the stop and go on the corner. Since I was forced to take a detour, the urge grew to become a tad more than unpleasant.

It wasn't until after 174 connected with Bennets Corners that I found a convenient rural drive to pull into so I could get out of the car and relieve myself next to a tree large enough to shield what I was doing from the road. While on 174, Tony Bombardo finally came on the radio to tell me to avoid Bennets Corners Road because a car had rolled over there. There had been a police car blocking the way back toward that rolled car at the intersection or 174 and Bennets Corners.

I made it to the country club with about ten minutes to spare. That is not really enough time to set up all my instruments and the amp I use as a monitor, but I got enough ready so I could play when six o'clock rolled around. The rest got set up during solos by my band mates.

We played a longer first set than usual, mostly because the leader enjoys the first full band gig of the season more so because of the time that elapses between the last and the first. We do not get to play much during the winter months, ass job not withstanding.

It was good to be back together making music. It was good to interact with such talent once again. It was good to enhance my income as well. The venison was not too bad either.

Back To It

When I was younger, I suppose I thought I was more or less indestructible. Never having broken any bones, perhaps I was closer to the mark than most may be. Through the years, I have been running as consistently as my schedule and health would allow.

Last summer, I took on the task of siding the house. I accomplished that goal but noticed a numbness that started growing in my right foot. This was accompanied by some excruciating back pain for a time which led to physical therapy and a slow and gradual journey back to being pain-free.

The numbness continues to stay with me. I suspect that numbness may be what led to my latest injury that occurred abou 3 weeks ago when I pulled a calf muscle in my right leg as I ran down the hill in the last half mile of a 2-mile run.

After consulting my medical running book and applying heat and compression for the prescribed number of days, I sweated it out for a couple weeks until I realized that the muscle had finally healed, in spit of being re-injured on several occassions.

That brings me to last night. The temperatures were warm enough to run without sweats for the first time since last fall. I ran with trepidation after having mixed results on the last run the previous week. I was not sure I had rested the calf enough. Maybe I didn't stretch it enough. I was even considering the inevitability that I may be doomed to walking for the rest of my life.

Still, I wanted to test it to see what I could do. The first mile was extrordinary, considering how I felt after the previous run. Somehow, I had run more than 30 seconds faster than the last few times. The calf didn't start to feel slightly off until after I got home. It seems ok, just not 100%.

The trick now will be to find the right combination of rest, weight training and running to nurture the injury to the point where I am back where I want to be and in the shape I expect to be.

It feels great to be back to it.

Finding The Time

I am trying to find the time to fit these entries into my schedule. It does not seem that I am as busy of late as usual, but some of the things I am doing now are quite different from the recent past.

With two kids active in winter sports, I find my free time between November and April limited.

Now, with only a few minutes left of my lunch hour I will have to get into their latest athletic acheivements at another time. The short report for now is this: My daughter helped her D3 college team to the sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament and my son helped his Bantam hockey team win the lower bracket championship of the snowbelt league.

This past weekend found me getting a jump on cleaning a lot of the stuff that has been accumulatind almost like a growth on my side of the bedroom. I was taken aback at how time-consuming the process proved to be. Somehow, I also completed the Stephen King Dark Tower series and started Bill Clinton's autobiography. We also took the lad to a Crunch game (they lost 0-3 to Hamilton) and we made a family trip to the grocery store before watching the Yanks beat the Red Sox on YES.

The Beginning

The truth should reveal itself in time. All we can do is one thing at a time until we make it through the day.