Gamey, No Games, and Game On

We were alone for Thanksgiving since it isn’t “our” holiday and no one decided to come down and see us.

I didn’t mind. I got in my cooking zone and got the pheasants and ham going, worked on the sides and brought it all together right on time. I could have been a chef in another life.

The meal was good. I’d never had pheasant before. I brined it prior to roasting to keep it moist and flavor it. I never understood what the term gamey meant, but after eating the pheasant I understood. It was good, but it had this gamey flavor that chicken or turkey doesn’t have.




We put our Christmas tree up and luckily Carter hasn’t been too rough with it. He likes taking ornaments off and then not putting them back on. We also brought out this Homer Simpson in a Santa suit that dances and plays music. He stands in front of it and dances along with Homer as he sings Jingle Bells. It’s really funny, and we got a video of it to embarrass him later in life.

I agreed to help a buddy from work do the plumbing in his laundry room on Saturday. I was hoping it would be like a five-hour job, but it turned into an 11-hour job. We took out all the galvanized which was a bitch because of the suspended ceiling. That took about 4 hours. Then he hadn’t bought any of the fittings we needed so we went to Menards and Lowes. We were putting in PEX so he really didn’t know exactly what we needed. We got shutoff valves tied into the old work and some of the PEX run and called it a night at about 10:30 Saturday night.

I came back on Sunday and we got the PEX knocked out and pressure tested in less than two hours. No leaks. Now I’ve got a favor in my back pocket. I could have been a plumber in another life.

Sunday evening we had our hockey game against the Orange team. It was a battle against the team a group of us broke off of since last season because we didn’t like playing with these teenage jerk offs who never passed the puck. It had the potential for a really good game, unfortunately one of the league refs who also plays two divisions higher than our league decided to play for the Orange team for some “rehab”. WTF?

He didn’t look like he had lost any steps, and he basically shut us our offense down playing defense. One of our guys had a breakaway, and he chases him down from center ice and takes the puck away from him.

I was taking the puck up the side and he kind of muscles me into the wall and I fall down. I put my hands up with a “where’s the fucking call” look on my face. I didn’t really mind though, I play a physical game so I don’t mind if I get pushed around a bit. Unfortunately, about a minute later I’m bringing the puck up the same side and he’s in about the same position. He knocks the puck away from me up the boards, I need to spin around to my left to chase after the puck. My stick is in my right hand and he is in the path of my stick if I don’t lift it up and swing it around. I bring it up and I feel meat as my stick connects with his jaw. It wasn’t too hard (no blood, no teeth lost, serves him right for not wearing a full cage in the lowest league play), and I really didn’t mean to do it. It kind of reeked of retaliation though.

We lost 4-0. We had no offense. I need to call the league manager today and voice my disapproval of A-League players “rehabilitating” themselves in C-League games. EDIT: We were awarded the win. The league manager didn't even need any convincing. One of the refs at the game had already talked to him about it, and I thought they were all just dicks.

Long weekend, short week this week. I’m taking Friday off.