I don’t think I’m going to miss 2013 very much but then I don’t actually remember very much of 2013. I pretty much slodged along. I made progress on a few fronts, largely de-hoarding activities. But there’s still so much more to do. I neeeeeeed more vacation. I took vacation time in little dribs and drabs. I am getting pretty good at living in the moment but somehow I never feel quite caught up.

If the last couple of days are in any way a harbinger of things to come in the new year, I am cautiously optimistic for 2014. I mean, back on New Year’s 1997, the GG set off a faaarrrwork of some sort outside the back door and it tipped over and exploded into the house. An inauspicious beginning to an inauspicious year complete with getting hit by a tornado on the I75 SUV Speedway. So *this* new year’s?

I am not a sports fan. I could not care less about football or basketball or hockey or whatever. I like to watch skiing events in the Olympics and that’s about where it ends. But you know, the last couple of days, our beautiful little planet has turned into a suburb of Toronto with the Winter Classic over at the Big House. And it’s been snowing to beat the band. I hate slodging around the Landfill on winter holidays and this event is actually pretty exciting. I mean, who the heck would want to hang out at an outdoor sports arena for four hours in 13 degree (F) temperatures and steadily falling snow to watch a hockey game? 107,000 people, it turns out. So what did we do? Of course we walked over to the Big House to see what was going on. It was sooooo much fun!

First, a [crappy] photoooo for Jay (and my other Regenfolk cuzzints) of kids sledding at Slauson.

We were pretty much the only folks out and then we rounded a corner and there was a queue of Maple Leaf fans tromping through the snow to the Big House! We joined their little parade for a couple blocks. Hi Ho!

There is no way on earth I can describe the humanity we encountered over by the Umich Stadium today. Oh, yeah, 107,000 people? This photooo captures a bit of the venue and the weather and about .00000001% of the humanity. (Please don’t check my math.)

I am not sure why we walked across Stadium to the PiHi parking lot. The GG wanted to see if there was “tailgating” going on. There was. For this event, it mostly involved beer beer and more beer. Not exactly the same crowd as the UMich alumni who hang out at football games with their grills and cute little hors d’oeuvres, etc.. And beer. Not that the hockey fans were obnoxious. My few encounters with them were friendly and polite. Well, there was the one guy right behind me saying something about F-ing Canucks through a megaphone. The Maple Leaf fans [apparently] ignored him and I refrained from hitting him with my accidental maple leaf backpack. (I was welcomed to Ann Arbor today via that backpack.) Here we are waiting to go BACK across the street from the PiHi parking lot, megaphone guy behind me.

Just after I took *that* photooo, the crowd surrounding us broke out in all kinds of cheers and the megaphone guy got going and there may have even been a vuvuzela somewhere in there. I fumbled my iPhone out of my pocket but by the time I got the camera opened and set on video, all of the noise had stopped. Oh well. We continued walking to downtown against a huge stream of hockey folks, got “a beer” at the Grizzly, then walked home and shoveled out before settling into the Landfill to watch the rest of the hockey game and then the Rose Bowl. I am not actually watching the Rose Bowl but I did watch the end of the hockey game and I understood enough of what was going on to get that the Maple Leafs won. I know that the Red Wings are my local team but for some odd reason, I was happy when the Maple Leafs won. Go figger.

The last photooo is the “money” photo. I don’t mean that I think I could sell it. Of course not!!! But I was up early walking around the neighborhood and snow was on the ground and I dunno, I just felt really optimistic, at least long enough to post the photo on facebook. And all that walking around town? In the snow? With all the Canadians? Can we do this every year for New Year’s? Oh, prob’ly not. But we had soooooo much fun. Even for me, a non sports fan.

Happy New Year and may yours be a good one without any tears,
Kayak Woman

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 1st, 2014 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.