Reasonable Weekend

Not a bad weekend, I must say... I'm less than hungover tihs morning, but a tad athletically sore after a ball practice yezterday. All is well though... keepin' up the good fight.

Friday night... Flames vs. Wild down at the Wildfire.

Saturday... McDonalds in Strathmore with Benny, seeing Chris, Dale & Graham, feeling rather ill from Friday night, was supposed to help Joe with building his deck.

Saturday night... Canucks vs. Flames again at the Wildfire, Benny & Jeff doing 100 beer shots, Munden telling me about ball practice for Sunday, left reasonably early, night paid for by bets on the Canucks.

Sunday... Ball practice, went and saw Jen, met some of her friends & neighbours... home by 11:30pm.

That's sort of the abridged version of my weekend. So, if you're only here for 30 seconds, that should pretty much cover everything. I'll continue putting some minor details below... you know, what I can remember.

Friday night, I had parked the car at the house and walked down to the pub. I didn't wear my Wild jersey as the game didn't really mean a great deal to me and I thought I would save my energy for the Canucks game the next night. It was a little bit of a gong show as I remember. But as much as Benny and I had to drink, I still left fairly early from the bar. There were quite a few people about, including Anitra and Jessica... who know one I know actually likes. Anitra is a loud, loud, loud large lady who has gotten herself a pretty rotten reputation and has taken a few people down with her. She doesn't have much for redeeming qualities, if any, at all. Jessica, Benny's wife (ha ha), is the loudest, most irritable person I have ever met... and she's large and unappealing to boot. Ugh! The louder the soundsystem got, the louder they got... no one can win. It very well coulda been the fact that those two were hanging around that made me drink a little more than I had planned. I didn't spend too much in there, but I did manage to get pretty bombed. Thank goodness I left there relatively early... not without incident though.

Anitra, being her pushy, annoying self... was hanging around us guys and making comments about her and Benny or something... it just wasn't pretty. But she said something to the idea that 'no, I'm not THAT easy.' Well, knowing what goes on in that pub with a lot of the regulars, including herself (hell, its a small town... you'll hear about it, even if you don't want to), I lost it. I laughed my ass off... almost to the point of laughing and pointing at her... but I don't think I did any pointing. I did laugh... and laugh... and laugh. Probably for a good five minutes. I didn't spare any moment there... I don't really like her and what she does and well, that was how I showed it. It was almost like saying 'fuck off' without actually saying it. At one point, Benny came over to me and said, 'knock it off, man... she's starting to cry.' Don't really know why he said that, he probably took as much pleasure in the whole thing as I did.

After said incident, I took off for home... walking of course. As I walked by Jeff's place, Jay was walking around front and waved me in. So, I sat with them for an hour or so... just enough for one beer, I think. Jeff and Jay were just sitting in the backyard around the firepit having a drink. Most that part of the evening was pretty fuzzy since I was pretty hammered when I got there. I even forgot to tell Jeff about the good burning laugh session I had on Anitra. Ha ha.

Getting up on Saturday wasn't too bad. It wasn't great either... but I've hurt a lot more than I did that morning. I thought I'd cut the hangover off at the pass when I decided to go get some McDonalds and Benny was right behind me on that one. I quickly cleaned out my car and grabbed Benson and we headed to Strathmore for a little grease to soak up the night before. Unfortunately, I found myself cleaning up the car again as when we left McDonalds, I had my fries in between my legs on the seat and in the motion of touching the brakes in the car, I lost the grip on my fries and they went flying towards my feet. D'oh! I'll tell ya... fries cool down in a hurry when they're on the floor of your car.

Between the TV, the bird and the Bradley's coming over early in the afternoon, a recovery nap was somewhat out of the question... although I may have nodded off for a half hour. I think there was still enough alcohol in my system to make me pass out for a bit and lose my memory a little again.

I also wanted to get down to the Wildfire on Saturday to drop off a few more playoff pool forms to a few of the guys who might actually show up to chat a little bit of hockey. Unfortunately, it was only Reese and AJ who had shown up, but I got them up to speed on the pool sheet and they'll be in for sure. Dad and I had a couple beers and a couple games of pool while we were there and man, did we play terribly. We quickly gave up and headed home.

I didn't stay at home long... rather not at all... so, I went over to Joe's house to see how the deck was coming along. There were plans to build his deck and install his hot tub then watch the Flames and Canucks at his house. When I pulled up to his house... no one was there and nothing was being done. So, I called up Benny and him, John & Jeff were looking at trucks all afternoon 'cuz Joe was nowhere to be seen or contacted. Oh well... so I went home and watched some hockey with the folks at home.

The phone call came from Benny that we'd be going back to the "Wildflower" to watch the Canucks/Flames game... and I said I'd meet him after the Hotstove was done in the first game between the Flyers & Leafs.

I got there... Benny got there... Jeff showed up... and we were ready to go for the evening. John said he'd be about... but wasn't sure when. I started off with a beer, but the night before and the early afternoon two didn't let the new ones taste that great... so I switched up to vodka & coke and that made drinking a whole lot easier. Benny & Jeff thought it would be a good idea to play a drinking game with the hockey game and beer shots... drinking one every minute that went by and when the whistle went in the game. Good plan, guys... by the end of the first period, they had switched from drinking because of the game to just drinking for every turn of a minute that they could see. Their goal... 100 shots of beer each.

The game on the other hand was quite good. The return of Ed Jovanovski to the line-up injected a breath of fresh-air to the team and the play from everyone was stepped up a notch or two. The Canucks jumping out to their 2-0 lead in the first and successfully holding on for 2 periods. The Flames' comeback in the third period was a little stressful... two quick comeback goals from Iginla (credited to Giordano) and Ritchie made the heartbeat a little faster and caused Greg to start giving me shit about the whole thing. Dunno why... they had only tied it up. The shame of it all was that the game eventually made it into overtime and the Flames with their point clinched their playoff place. Thankfully, Jovanovski scored in OT to secure the much-needed second point for the Canucks and the bets placed paid for my 6 drinks at the bar.

How did Jeff and Benny make out, you ask? Pretty well... they made their 100 shots each. At about 70, Benny was looking rather green, repeating that he didn't think he was gonna make it and then looking at his watch to shout 'DRINK!' for their next shot. Oh, that was a hurting-type game... glad I had no part in it.

That Munden (that's allegedly his first name, poor bastard) came in and told me that he had lost my number and thats why he never got around to calling me about the ball practices. He had told me that there was another one on Sunday and that I should come out. He gave me his number and I was to give him a call in the morning.

The rain came down Saturday night... so when I was all said and done, again, fairly early... I grabbed Benny's keys and took his car home. I knew he wouldn't be needing them and I didn't really want to get my Canucks jersey soaked. Benny then called me at 3am when he was leaving the bar, making sure I had his keys and his car. He couldn't really remember... ha ha ha. Poor guy, he got wasted. Jeff was probably in a state too.

Sunday morning, I was up and at 'em nice & early... gave Benny a call, dropped his car off at his place. Saw the state he was in... which wasn't awful... walked home, got my stuff ready for ball, filled the car up with gas and met Munden at about quarter to one at the gas station to head into town.

The practice was being held in the West Soccer Centre, almost out of the city limits in the Northwest... clear across the North end of Calgary from Langdon. It was quite the drive. Totally worth it though. I met the coach and a few of the guys and it turned out to be quite the good practice for me. The throwing arm felt really good, the glove was well practiced from floor hockey and my ankle felt really good running and jogging on. I think I impressed enough to get quite a few games in with these guys. I should be able to get some play in at second base, which I absolutely love. I'm still gonna need some practice... but I'm quite confident in playing with these guys.

Afterwards, I headed into Sunnyside to meet up with my future roomie Jen and her friend Carly (sp?) and neighbour downstairs, Chris. We hung out for the rest of the afternoon and quite a ways into the evening. A trip into the core for an art showing, a drink and some nibblys at Vicious Circle, then a trip to Tubby Dog on 17th Ave for a beer and a hot dog, then grabbed Jen's co-worker, Shannon, a case of beer each and back to the house where we sat and chatted and watched Jen's ugly dog, Costas, run around like a maniac. All in all, it was a pretty good night.

That Carly though... she's a wee bit of a little minx and a looker to boot. The Ontario-born 20 year-old has quite a bit goin' for her. Quite the outgoing personality and she was quite a bit of fun... sadly, taken though. Oh well, apparently, she's over at the house often. That's not too bad then.

Chris, really nice guy... a little bit older than Jen and I... but we got along really well. A lot of laughs at Jen's expense... but really good nonetheless. It should be a fun place to live, me thinks.