Wanted to get down some notes while they're fresh in my mind.
First off, didn't go to the WizardWorld LA convention. I've gone the past few years, but this was just a bizarre weekend and I couldn't spare the time. I had to travel to San Diego for a wedding - and as luck would have it, I had some work to get done, too.
So Friday, headed down the coast, stopped in Orange County, and spent some time at Disneyland. And then in Fantasyland, I ran into - of all people - writer Kent Redeker. We took pictures of each other with our respective camera phones, as if we needed conclusive Bigfoot-like evidence that we actually did run into each other at Fantasyland.
Finished up at Disneyland as the traffic cleared up, then headed down to San Diego. Saturday during the day, I was seated behind my laptop computer - getting a chunk of work done.
Saturday night was the wedding of Mark and Shira. They're one of these couples that went to college together, had a zillion friends in common but never met each other, and then five years later they meet and fall in love and get married. I met Shira in the dorms, but we were never friends - that same year, I met Mark through floor hockey and we've been friends ever since.
The wedding was a blast - any occasion to get together with all your friends from college and get completely wasted. I stumbled out early, so I could get back to work. Apparently, I missed the mass migration of everyone to a hostile takeover of a T.G.I.Friday's. Ah, just like college.
And then Sunday, headed back home to turn in my work and play some ice hockey. Some very weird ice hockey. Scored two goals - both of them horrifically ugly in their execution. If goal scoring is an art form, my goals were Anne Geddes or Thomas Kincaid.
The first goal was a one-timer - got the pass and tried to immediately blast it across the grain, high glove side. Instead, I whiffed on it, and it bounced slowly between the goalie's legs and crawled into the net. Where there should have been cheering, there was this awful, AUUUUUUGGGHHH sound.
The second goal was where the goalie went behind the net to play the puck off the boards. Instead, the puck bounced over his stick and onto mine - where I flipped it into an empty net. Again, no cheering - just this awful AUUUUUUUGGGGH sound.
Then the fun started.
Third period, I grab a lose puck and a teammate is rushing to the front, as a defenseman comes barreling down on me. Instead of protecting myself, I sacrifice my body and flip the puck to my teammate... just as the defenseman flies into me. We collide, he falls down, I go airborne backwards. For a split second, I'm completely horizontal.
And then my head starts to fall back.
Now my feet are completely off the ice, my body is horizontal, and I'm falling backwards into the ice. There's no time to protect myself - there's only a split millisecond where my mind takes the time to note,
"Gee, I'm going to die." Anyways, the back of my head got crushed into the ice. Thankfully, my helmet absorbed the whole thing - I didn't even feel any pain. Just a whole lot of noise. One of these days, I should write a thank you letter to the good engineers at CCM for making a good helmet.
But alas, the helmet only protects your head. Later in the third period, I'm going after a puck against the wall - in a race with a defenseman. I lunge with my left arm, trying to poke the puck away, as we both collide into the wall.
Now I'm no doctor. But elbows? They're supposed to bend in - not out. WHAM! My elbow got hyper-extended against the wall. I got up - my whole left arm from the shoulder to the hand completely numb - and immediately skated back to my bench. I don't know what I was saying, but I'm sure my mind was shouting, "MEDIC! MEDIC! MAN DOWN!"
I got to the bench and tried to make a fist in my hand, trying to get feeling back in the arm, when the whistle blew. The referee skated over to the bench and pointed at me. Apparently, when I went in, the ref thought I'd used my free right hand to punch or push the opposing guy.
Yup. I got a roughing penalty. I have no usable left arm, but somehow I got a penalty on the play. Now THAT takes talent.
Anyways, the arm is fine now - still sore, but nothing to worry about. We ended up losing the game - then after the game, one of my teammates' sister brought everyone fruit snacks and Capri-Suns. No better way to rehabilitate a sore arm than Capri-Suns.
That was my weekend. I so can't wait for this work week to start. Because I can't survive too many more weekends like this.
