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ice hockey

Ice hockey history

Turns out one of my uni hockey friends has a long-standing history channel on YouTube, and of course he made a video about ice hockey history. I think I'd have liked it even if I didn't know the creator, enjoy:

Watch on YouTube

Entry tags:

fitness

In shock news, hot yoga is hot

The hot yoga place has two levels of classes: "hotpod flow" and "nurturing flow". In January I found the nurturing one a bit too relaxing and slow, and I've been doing the free yoga classes through work pretty consistently all year, so I thought sure, I'll be fine in the standard class. I'll have to modify some of the harder positions but I'm used to that.

It was hot in the class. Not sauna hot, but I was definitely finding it harder than I'd expected based on the January classes. I took the teacher at her word about it being fine to take breaks and drink water as needed, but well before the end I just had to stop, sit, and let my heart rate come down. She checked in with me, and I assured her that I know my body and I'm not going to let myself faint, but yes it was harder than I'd expected. I've switched my classes for the next couple of days to the "nurturing flow", so we'll see how that goes.

slightly gross body stuff

My workout clothes were saturated when I finished. I thought I was sweaty after Huskies practice (two hours skating hard, trying to keep up with young men), but this was a new level. Luckily I had a hoodie and skirt to throw over the top for the bike ride home - it's a weirdly mild December week but not so mild I wanted evaporative cooling all the way. Absolutely everything went in the wash when I got home.

I emptied my 950ml water bottle in/just after the practice, and had another couple of litres of water over the course of the evening, this time with my trusty electrolyte tablets, and managed to see off the lurking dehydration headache. I'm going to make sure there's electrolytes in the in-class bottle too from tonight onward.

Solstice

Sunrise at 08:07
Sunset at 15:49

On this shortest day of the year, Nico and I went to Clip-n-Climb first thing, cycling there and back together through a heavily overcast but weirdly mild December day. We did a little Co-op run on the way home, and then I unpacked the hire car before returning it. I decided against buses or scooters and walked the hour or so back home, including a little diversion to collect a yoga towel from Decathlon. If all goes to plan, I will cycle to hot yoga this evening in the dark (and quite probably the rain) for the first of my "festive pass" sessions.

(I mean it about being weirdly mild: both cycling and walking I had to take my hoodie off because I was too hot.)

Technically I started the 21st of December still awake at midnight, and watching the first couple of episodes of Shoresy, a Canadian comedy TV show about ice hockey, on a friend's recommendation. (Same director/executive producer as Heated Rivalry although I didn't realise that until after I'd started watching.) Very crude, very funny.

Ice hockey, climbing, walking outdoors, yoga. Spending time with my offspring, thinking of my friends, and taking care of myself. If this is a turning day of the year, it's a good set of things to mark it.

Strictly we are not yet into the "mellandagarna", the in-between days of Christmas-to-New-Year. I'm still working until lunchtime on Wednesday, but a lot of the usual rhythms of my life and my household are paused now. School's out, hockey practice is out, everything has "holiday opening hours" listed and I'm feeling a bit unmoored. (Being ill most of the last fortnight probably hasn't helped.) My yoga pass is part of my attempt to put a little structure on the downtime.

Current Mood: celebratory

MidWinter

Happy Solstice everyone. Wishing you Shininess

(Obviously Happy Midsummer rather than Midwinter to anyone in the Southern Hemisphere)

I am getting to Floomp rather than do a lot of Festive Stuff and Things - which is what I need right now. The first slightly-more-than-half of my year was very intense and I’ve been in rest mode since (and have not had great luck with my physical health although thankfully nothing too serious). So even though there’s some things I’m disappointed not to be doing (I’d really like to get to have some more in-person time with ClosePeople) overall this is the right shape of Solstice for me this year. There are tasty snacks, candles, fancy bath products and a lot of duvet time

Hope you all get to have whatever Festiveness you celebrate being the shape that you want and need

And breathe...

Classes for the first semester are done, and I'm back in the UK for Christmas. According to my study schedule I'm about 8 hours behind on where I should be at this point, but said schedule also assumes that I don't do any schoolwork between now and my return to Belgium on the 29th of December, so I should be able to get caught up without too much difficulty. I am feeling pretty pleased with myself for a)having made a realistic schedule for the semester, and b)having pretty much stuck to it - sometimes getting a day or so behind, but never more than that, and occasionally actually getting a couple of days ahead. It's also been quite helpful at times when I've definitely felt as though I was getting behind to be able to look at it and say "No, actually I'm on track to get everything done as long as continue to work at the same rate as I have been doing so far."

I didn't manage to get to the conversation table I had planned for last week, because I stayed up too late the night before and then spent the day translating Ugaritic tablets, which meant I had absolutely no brain left by the evening, but I shall try again in a couple of weeks. I did go to the cabaret on Sunday evening, which counts both as 'doing a social thing' (albeit with someone I already know, which is much less stressful), and 'practising my French' (albeit largely receptive rather than productive).

The big food order arrived this morning, and I've just got two more presents left to buy, and one to finish crocheting, so that's my plan for today, and I think I'll then be basically ready for Christmas. Tomorrow I'm heading to York for the day, to see

leonato in "Anything Goes", which should be a lot of fun.

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Weekend fun, and the week to come

Yesterday after work I did a library run (more Rick Riordan!) on the way to pick up a hire car for the weekend. Then drove with Charles over to Northstowe for the Kodiaks Christmas party at the Northstowe Tap and Social. Secret Santa, noodles buffet, attempting to introduce an American to prawn crackers - she didn't like them - and a drag queen bingo.

I left the party a little early to go to the last Warbirds practice of the year and was so glad to be back on the ice again. (Yes, in shock news, 48 hours after having a massive mood crash about having a cold forever, I was well enough to skate hard for 90 minutes. It is a weird signal, but a consistent one.) It was ten days since my last practice, and it's now ten days until my next one (Kodiaks 2 on 30 Dec). I missed it so much. Practice was just the right level of challenging that I'm really pushing myself but not feeling like a hopeless incompetent, it was just what I needed, as was seeing my teammates again.

(Charles made his own way home from Northstowe by bus)

Tonight is the last Kodiaks 1 game of the year, for which I will be herding the volunteers as usual, and rocking my lovely new manager's coat (incredibly warm knee-length hooded puffer coat, personalised with the club logo and my initials). There is apparently a post-game clubbing plan. And tomorrow morning I'm taking Nico climbing. Somewhere in there I'm sleeping, honest.

I have 2.5 more days to work this year, and I am so ready to be done. The giant Ocado order is booked for Tuesday evening. I have a very large pile of borrowed books to read, and the rink public skate schedule in my calendar. The hot yoga place had a special offer, so I also have a 12-day pass to get me through the lack of hockey practices. They are quite strict about turning up sick, and I still have a bit of a cough this morning, so I won't be using it today. But hopefully tomorrow.

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Woe (and cheering myself up)

I am the stage of being ill with a cold where it feels like I will never be well again, I barely even remember what it is to not cough, and all is doom. Woe, woe is me. [From experience, this stage is usually about two days before I actually get fully well, but try telling my feelings that.]

(brought to you by having to miss yet another hockey practice tonight, the penultimate one of the year, and being sad about it)

Cheering myself up with the news that Heated Rivalry comes to the UK on 10 January. I am going to be very normal about it. Meanwhile I await a delivery of Rick Riordan books from ~~my dealer~~ the buddy who got me into them, and Instagram is doing its usual creepily-accurate targeting, supplying me with Yorkshire Percy Jackson and advertising a PJ musical in Peterborough next spring.

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Yuletide progress: it is posted!

I have met the deadline and posted the thing! Now we just have the week between today and Reveal Day, also known as "the week where I find all the hidden typos and fix them." Main Collection Reveal Day for the fics is the 24th, and is followed by Author Reveals on January 1.

This year was more work than previous years, for a very particular reason. I got COVID for the first time in October, and while I got very lucky (Paxlovid turns out to work for me, yay!), I am so easily drained to exhaustion, by pretty much anything including brain work, which has never been this bad before. Also, I'm used to multitasking, and hoo boy do I need different strategies and approaches now.

I'm planning for a very long recuperation, since it looks like that's the smart way to go. But here we are, and today is a milestone day. The story is a story, and it's posted, and now I can catch up a little on my Etsy shop (I hardly posted anything new while writing) and my eBay offers (I'm selling most of a half-century's worth of queer and related subjects library, since I'm not a working journalist any more and somebody really should get use out of these books and periodicals).

It's been a long time. I had forgotten the peculiar satisfaction that comes with meeting a deadline.

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Yuletide progress

Yes, I am cutting it close. I blame getting COVID Halloween week, and having to rest like a potato. Which I am still doing, but I have advanced to the stage of literate potato. I hope. Because this thing is due in, what, fifty-some hours?

Anyhow, I came here to post that I have reached the milestone in writing the current draft where I just reread a section and said out loud, "OK, so there are actually a few bits in here that aren't completely shitful." Like, it's a known milestone. So that's encouraging.

Onward.

(Yes, that's why nothing new is in the shop this week. I have been on a schedule of sleep, write, sleep, write, with meds and basic necessities in there as needed. Not enough oomph left to photograph new work and still write and edit. Potato has limited spoonage here. But Potato is too proud to default on Yuletide. Please point people to go shop in the Etsy shop, though. Potato is fretting about this being a rough December for so many artists. Oh! Remind me to tell you about Boxing Day, which is going to be completely bonkers in a new way.)

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Vindicated!

Literally the funniest thing I have read about the Heated Rivalry tv show so far (thanks to the Rec Center newsletter last Friday):

"With Hockey RPF the fanfic was for the romance and the sex, the things canon didn't provide. But in Heated Rivalry canon does provide. So logic dictates that the fanfic is there to make them actually play hockey." - (from bluesky)

It's not just me who wants more hockey in the hockey romance!

(Heated Rivalry is still not legally available in the UK; HBO Max is launching in the UK in March, hopefully it'll include the show when it does.)

Meanwhile my Rick Riordan reading adventure has come to the end of the 10 (ten!) books I bought on Kindle a decade ago for no reason I now remember, so I have been wrangling the local libraries to get more. I'm officially off sick today with this stupid cough, and resting / reading a lot.

I could be reading through the large pile of library Riordans ... but no
I could be reading one of the other four library books I have out that are due back this week ... but no
I could read one of the several books I already bought in December ... but no
I could go wild and watch the episodes-so-far of Percy Jackson on Disney+ (challenge my inability to watch anything by myself!) ... but no
I am actually reading a modern AU fanfic of Much Ado About Nothing and vaguely wondering about challenging my inability to watch anything by myself with the Tennant/Tate production

Rob Reiner 1947-2025

These go to eleven.

As you wish.

Don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge and make me nervous.

None more black.

YOU DIRTY BIRD!

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.

You can't handle the truth.

I'll have what she's having.

Give me a big bag of that effin' pig feed and ten pounds of that bitchly cow corn.

Inconceivable!

You gotta ask me nicely.

I'm your number one fan.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Too much. There's too much fucking perspective.

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Twin Cities history: 1980s, ARA (Anti-Racist Action), Baldies, punk, music, Uptown

Um.

I tried to write an intro for this, but all I can do is gesture incoherently. No, I wasn't a Baldy, I wasn't a skinhead, but the milieu affected my life for Reasons. If you watch this documentary it may give you a better understanding of (some of) what made Minneapolis in the 80s what it was. Or maybe you were there too, and this will be an interesting tour of byegone days.

I really want to get together and share stories of those times. For now, here, have a pretty good documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=8BSDZ1DIEIQ

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The Friday Five on a Saturday

Did you get an allowance as a kid, and if so, how much was it?

Nope. I could earn money for doing chores, but it was never a guaranteed tranche of money. And by chores I mean things like washing and hoovering the car, or heavy yard work, not cleaning my room or doing the laundry or dishes. Those were just expected.
How old were you when you had your first job, and what was it?

I was fifteen. I tutored a classmate in pre-calculus at community college where I took summer classes. She paid me $10 per session and would take us both for coffee afterward in her fabulous beat up orange Corvette. We were both so happy when we got our final grades and she went from getting a D to a B+. I often wonder what happened to her.
Which do you do better: save money or spend money?

Oh, spend it, for sure. If I'd been better at saving, I'd be in a much better financial position. But would I have had as much fun? I think not.
Are people more likely to borrow money from you, or are you more likely to borrow from them?

The former. I don't like borrowing money.
What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?

A house.

Socialising and French (attempt number 343 to start posting regularly again...)

...but I have (sort of) a plan this time. I've put a weekly reminder in my diary to post, which I hope will help, and I'm going to create a sort of vague template of 'things to update about' which I can follow if I'm feeling uninspired, but not restrain myself to if there's something in particular that takes my fancy.

I had a resolution this semester that I was going to study less and socialise more, which is perhaps not an entirely typical student resolution, but felt like it would be appropriate for me. I largely failed. This is partly because there were a number of occasions where I made a plan to go to an event, and then when the time came around I was faced with a choice of going outside and travelling to somewhere with lots of background noise where I would have to interact with unfamiliar humans, or staying in the quiet warm library with my books and my translation (or other work), and somehow the latter was always much more appealing.

So on the one hand, it doesn't actually feel particularly unhealthy that I'm studying instead of socialising because that's what I want to do rather than because I feel it's what I should do, but on the other hand, if I want to reach the stage where I have a francophone circle of not-unfamiliar people to spend time with here, I'm going to have to go through the 'socialising with unfamiliar people' bit first.

On a related note, I am feeling a bit frustrated with my (lack of) language acquisition here. Before I moved out lots of people suggested that being here and using French on a daily basis would lead to a big improvement, but it doesn't seem to have happened. Partly that's probably because I'm /not/ really using French on a day to day basis. I mean, I use it in the shops and to read the news and listen to announcements on the railways, but my actual day to day work is in English, and although I can read fairly fluently, follow to audiobooks and some podcasts, and have an interesting conversation 1-1 with plenty of context cues, no background noise and an interlocutor who is speaking clearly, I still struggle in fairly basic situations without those accommodations. And crucially, I don't think I've improved significantly since moving here, so I need to do something more active to improve, so I've found a "table de langues" to try next Wednesday evening, and if I just don't go to the library after my final lecture that day, it should be easier to escape it's gravity.