Simple things like my gender role make me feel like a loser all the time.  I can’t seem to do “woman things” right.  I’m not house proud, not into days at the spa, I have no regular hair dressing appointment, I never get manicures, I absolutely hate shopping, like I-can-barely-get-groceries hate shopping.  I always forget to wait and see if someone else will carry my bags.  I have to remember to giggle appropriately, which is of course never appropriate.  If these things sound like a silly way to gauge the merits of a woman, they are.  And yet… there’s Twilight, and Latisse and boob jobs and people inject Botulism into their faces.  Ugh.

Continue reading "Just can’t win"

@RyMartin24:”@bigjonallred Trading Joe Pavelski, American Hero, would be a crime against our beloved country.”

There were others, some involved threats of violent acts which I would rather not quote in case those tweets go badly for the tweeters.  Others did say they would consider it, but without them, where would the fan friction come from?

So, should the Sharks acquire Rick Nash?  What about Carter?  Carter would cost less up front… No.  No and no and no.  I’m just one fan but I’d be willing to say “no” 15,000 times if it would make a difference.

Continue reading "Trade rumors and torment"

One of the cats went missing. It was the night of the Sharks game in Detroit.  It was not one of the friendly pet cats, but a familiar furry face nonetheless.  He’s been on the ranch for nearly ten years I think, the wild tuxedo cat named Fred.  I felt unaccountably guilty.  Even if I was sure a coyote would come calling, Fred was so wild I could not have done anything about it, short of camping out overnight. 

This made me look up the definition of “Cassandra complex.”  I was glad to discover that it is not actually future vision. It doesn’t even apply here because I don’t know what the heck I’m predicting. I’m a terrible prognosticator.  Some friends asked if I had lotto numbers for them anyway.  Gotta love friends who know how to ignore that you’re batshit crazy.

Continue reading "Lines and signs"

Later, Ryane Clowe said “We’re looking for wins…” (Sharks Talk)  That made me start humming “in all the wrong places….”  When I start humming country songs, I know I’m in a bad place, is that stale beer I smell?  I moved on to a better tune, that old standby from Monty Python.

Continue reading "Looking for wins"

“There have been a lot of teams that came in and tried to do it. Some have come extremely close, others haven’t,” McLellan said. “We’re going to take our kick at the cat and see what we can do.” -Working the Corners

Was Todd McLellan’s peculiar choice of words a malapropism or a Freudian slip? Could it be both?  Cats, unlike cans, are famous for quick, evasive action. There’s a high likelihood that the cat is unharmed and the kicker ends up on his caboose.  Is that what McLellan is trying not to think about?

Beating Detroit will not be easy, it hardly ever is with or without a winning streak on the line. McLellan has been slow to say who the starting goalie will be. I really don’t think it matters right now.

Continue reading "Kick the cat, or the goalie"

I am no more a cartoonist than I am a journalist so consider yourself warned.

Continue reading "Shark intervention"

Before I can stuff my temper back in its box, the Lightning score,  taking the lead—again. But Vlasic gets a little revenge, ties it up.  Then, of all improbable things, White scores a go ahead goal.

I’m dizzy with all the ups and downs of this game.

I review my list: get points, win a lot, stay healthy, pick up a forward… two out of four is not excellent.

Not good, guys.

Before the last game I was worried about some pretty routine things that do tend to happen, just not all at once on the day I talk about them.  I suppose that would be different if I were writing a group itinerary, in which case writing things down would presumably be part of why they came to pass.  I guess I feel like I wrote a reverse itinerary yesterday, a great big jinx.

Continue reading "Seeing red, and White"

The length of it didn’t worry me.  The Sharks haven’t played as well on the road this season, winning just over 62% at home but only 52% on the road.  I didn’t count OT points but I guess I should.  Do that and they have points in almost 69% of their home games, 68% on the road.  A rule of thumb: don’t quote me on the math, I can’t count.  Still, that didn’t worry me.

I was worried about the teams the Sharks are playing on this trip: Tampa Bay, Carolina, Minnesota, Columbus, throw Detroit and Nashville in to spice things up, and then remember Washington.  I don’t know where to put Toronto on the worry scale, but I don’t think they tip the balance. On average, it’s not a daunting list.  I looks like a gift horse.  You don’t want to look it in the mouth because it would be rude but also the chances are good that the gift is older than it appears and it probably has crummy teeth.  The gift horse will require extra care and feed and, in the end, will be more of a burden than a gift.

Continue reading "The gift horse"

When Sharks training camp opened in September, there was a growing optimism. Stalock skated for the first time. He slowly worked up to a rehab stint with Stockton, a minor league affiliate for the Sharks and Edmonton Oilers, making his return on Jan. 21. -Mercury News

It’s a very good story about a player and a recovery that is just this side of miraculous.  Yet Emmons doesn’t mention the name of the minor league.  Sigh.

The league’s name is sort of like Ulysses S Grant’s middle name: just initials.  Unlike Grant, the league does have a proper name where the initials are: East Coast Hockey League, but nobody out here calls it that.  It’s one of those names that tells you where someone came from but not what or where they are now.  “Taylor,” for example: once upon a time, someone in that family was a tailor, probably in England.  The odds are pretty slim that this person is actually a tailor in England now.

Continue reading "The league with no name"

I think the Sharks had a similar experience in St. Louis.  Maybe they didn’t skate long enough in the morning to figure the ice out.  Maybe they didn’t practice hard enough to notice.  The result was a bunch of guys who all looked like they were skating with broken feet on dull skate blades.  Once they were in the game, it was too late to fix a problem of that magnitude.  Despite all that horrible bad luck and maybe a touch of poor preparation, the Sharks did some admirable things in this game. 

Continue reading "Quicksand and Passing"