A weekend on ice

So, on a more positive and uplifting note, I give you a curling update. Because it's been awhile and I know how some of you pine for these things.

We had our second bonspiel of the year at the club this weekend. Normally we would have had more by now, but the Mixed Nationals kind of through a bit of a crimp into our plans. But we're making up for lost time. There will be at least four more between now and the end of the season, plus regular league play.

In league play we're doing ok. The reformed Team Shattered Dreams from the 07-08 season is having a pretty good year. We're 5-2 and the two games we lost were to the same team, which also so happens to be insanely good. So barring catastrophic collapse, it looks like we're on our way to the play-offs. And Team Shattered Dreams won a mini-bonspiel just before Christmas. I procured Cathy a sandwich maker at that one.

(As Cathy is a curling widow during bonspiel weekends, most prizes won during such events are normally given to her as a way of saying thank you.)

This time Team Shattered Dreams was at partial strength. Brandon missed the game this afternoon as he is practicing fiddling on a roof. And Stephanie passed on playing this weekend because she wanted to go and hang out with a boy. Tsk.

So we had a few new players, but we managed the same result. We won all three games and came away with the win. Which makes me pretty happy. I'm not a bad skip, but it's always nice to have really good players in front of you who can make your job easier. And also a Third who can keep me calm when I want to start throttling things helps a lot.

It's still hard for me to relax during these games, even though they're meant as fun. I'm insanely competitive when it comes to curling and it brings out aspects that I'm not happy with. It was good that I had two players this weekend chilling me out and trying to get me not to curse as much. Well, on the last point they were marginally successful. But it was happy cursing. Honest. Well, mostly happy cursing.

So what did I win for all of this? Well, one of the prizes I can't talk about, because it works well with something I was planning on getting Cathy for Valentine's Day. But I did win a nice door prize. Alas, not one of the airline tickets. But I did win 100kg of cargo shipping with First Air.

Which is a very nice prize. We still have the Cape Dorset print we need framed. So we can get that done in Ottawa over Easter and ship it back. Cathy is also looking, God help us all, at what she could buy at Ikea and get shipped up.

So a good weekend on the ice. The next bonspiel is Buttons and Bulls, which is darts, curling and quite probably excessive amounts of drinking. As I don't care much for darts, nor am I much of a drinker, I might give it a pass. But we will see.

Last Five
1. Clap your hands - They Might Be Giants
2. Rental car - Beck
3. Girl on the wing - The Shins
4. Swearing song - Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellas*
5. Holiday - Green Day