Wegg double-dog dared her readers to put up a "Be My Valentine" post to see who would respond and admit to reading their blogs. Since this worked *so* well during de-lurker week (can you just feel all that sarcasm there?) I figured I'd try again.

Oh, and as I said to someone in IM earlier, an open note to my coworkers: I know I said I wouldn't get bitter on Valentine's Day this year, but sign for your own damn flowers.

So, it turns out I love hockey. I've always thought that I was not a spectator sport kind of girl, but it turns out I just hadn't found the right game. A lot of my friends like hockey, so I've watched/listened to several games on the TV and radio. And I liked it okay. It wasn't "hate hate hate you're forcing me to watch sports" but more "this is kind of interesting. what just happened there? what's a power play? I am interested in this sport but I don't understand it."

Charlotte, Nicky and Ray have season tickets to the Sharks, and on Friday, Nicky had the flu and offered me her ticket, so I got to go to my first game. It was the San Jose Sharks vs the Dallas Stars. It was perfect timing too, I've been wanting to see a game live, and I had spent a good part of Thursday chatting with both Brad and Charlotte about teams and players and some of the rules. So even though I had been planning to go to OA Friday night, I went to the game instead. And LOVED it.

Charlotte and I drove together and got there about 10 minutes into the first period. They make you wait until play stops before you can enter the arena and find your seats, which took a couple of minutes, and then we got in and Ray traded seats with Charlotte so she could sit with me. Right after we sat down, the Sharks scored their first goal and then there was a fight in the crease (see I'm learning my hockey lingo) that sent 1 Shark and 3 Stars to the penalty box, so I got to see a power play live.

I still spent most of the game saying "What just happened?" and "I have no idea why I'm clapping, but everyone else is clapping so I figured I should too" but I had so much fun. It was such a rush when they scored, and it was easier to figure out what was happening when I could see the whole rink and not just what they show you on the TV. The game ended 6-3 Sharks, so I picked a good game to start with- lots of action.

So I definitely like hockey. I was totally amped when we left the game, and am really looking forward to the next time I get to go. Ever since I saw The Cutting Edge, I have wanted Bobby Hulls's game sweater. But now I want a Sharks jersey. I can't believe how expensive they are. I have time to save up for one though, since I don't have a favorite player yet. I thought it was funny that the two goalies whose names I know- Marty Turco and John Hedberg- play for the same team, which I didn't know until I got there and Charlotte pointed out Moose (John Hedberg). I knew Turco played for the stars, but I didn't know Moose did too. Right now it's between Jonathan Cheechoo and Joe Thornton for my favorite Shark, but we'll see how I feel as time goes on.

Oh, and I just can't help but start giggling when the players crash into the walls.

I have never seen a 24 hour restaurant that packed at 3 am. So full that we had to park in a different parking lot and walk over. (I have also never seen a sausage patty the size of the one that came with my breakfast.) It was people-watching at its best, and then, at it's worst, which in a way was also the best. There were so many people there, and the atmosphere was so loud that Charlotte, Dee and I were yelling to each other, both to be heard, and because it was late and we were being a little silly.

I saw a cowboy who looked just like Patrick Dempsey, another guy who looked like "Sugardaddy" from the show Popular, several Backstreet Boy rejects, an asian biker with a long gray ponytail- but where the sides shaved so it was sort of a mohawk ponytail- and a "nipplestache" (Charlotte came up with that one. It was a mustache that only grew on the sides of his upper lip and went straight down both sides of his mouth and was so long it came down to about his nipples) who was sitting with this ultra-preppy guy, not good preppy, but like, 1986 Huey Lewis and the News preppy, and a a guy I described as "Dogbert, but human."

We realized that we were there right after the bars closed, and the restaurant had a bar attached to it, so we figured the restaurant may have been so full because the patrons had spilled over when the bar closed. I was sitting facing the back of the restaurant, which was cool from a people-watching perspective because most everyone had to walk by me to either sit down or pay their bills, and I was able to watch people while appearing to be looking at Charlotte and Dee, though a lot of people had gone by the time we got our food.

Behind me, voices were being raised above the level where they blended into the music and the drone of voices one expects in a restaurant, to where the words were becoming very clear. It was just an exchange of "Fuck you"s and general insults, and then things quieted back down. I figured one of the warring parties was someone who had been on their way out and that that was the end of it.

But about 10 minutes later, the arguing started again- the people who had been arguing were actually seated at neighboring tables. From the noises I could hear behind me, it was getting a little bit physical. Dee and Charlotte were facing the action, doing that whole "trying not to notice" thing, but apparently there was some food flying back and forth. I could hear the manager trying to get between them and kick them out of the place, so I figured things were under control. When the sounds indicated that there was actual fistfighting going on, I didn't turn around, but Dee and Charlotte started to take more obvious notice.

My hearing is bad enough and the music was loud enough that I didn't know how close the warring parties were until in the same second I saw feet flying through the air in the general direction of my head, and Dee's face changed from amusement to horror as she grabbed my hand and said urgently "Judy get up!!" They were at the table and booth right beind us.

I leapt to my feet and took refuge behind Dee's chair, which put Dee and our table between me and the two bodies crashing onto the tabletop directly behind my chair. The table went over, food and chairs flew everywhere...

One guy's friend was trying to pull him off without getting up from his booth, sort of leaning off the bench and holding the back of the guy's shirt as the guy scrabbled at his fighting partner. A patron seated at the counter jumped in and helped the manager pull the other guy off, and once they were apart it seemed like it was diffused. Two girls were like "Take it outside." I sat back down and the manager came over to make sure that I was all right. I had gotten out of the way, and they hadn't actually even touched my chair so I would have been fine anyway, so I was more amused than anything.

Seriously, it was like a scene you would see in a movie. When Hugh Grant and Colin Firth had the fight through the Greek restaurant in Bridget Jones' Diary, I remember thinking that it looked so fake, that people don't actually fight like that. But wow, apparently they do.

This was an eventful weekend. It wasn't the "fun" weekend I had planned, though the elements of fun I had expected *were* there. The Hockey game... the board game party yesterday that I had looked forward to for a month... those were the things I expected out of the weekend. The car and the fight... those are the unexpected moments that make life what it is.

I went to my first hockey game tonight. It was fabulous. I'll post about it later, because this post needs to get out first. It's 4:20 am and I can't sleep. My car got broken into tonight while I was at Charlotte's. Thing is, unlike when my car got vandalized at Dee and Chad's last year, she lives in a really good, really quiet neighborhood.

I was leaving her house at 1:30am, after my very first hockey game which I loved, and then some hanging out. I noticed that the light was on in my car, and I was like, "crap, I left the inside light on again," this coming after having to get my car jumped a couple of weeks ago. When I got to the car, I noticed that the back door wasn't closed all the way, and I thought that was probably the culprit to the light being on, and I didn't think anything of it because I had gotten something out of the back seat before I left the car. That's when I saw
the window. They smashed my small back window and rifled through the back seat, then the front seat and the trunk.

Hardly anything was taken, because there wasn't much in my car but empty water bottles and clothes. Same with the trunk. But they went through it all anyway. There are a few things missing, but thankfully tonight was not one of the times that I left my phone in my car.

The CDs that were in the center console and in the glove compartment are gone. Thing is, I haven't opened that center console in like, a year, so it's not like I'm going to miss those. Also, I'm pretty sure there were mosly empty cases in there, though they did get my O-Town CD. Which, shut up Charlotte, I refuse to be embarrassed that I owned. They also got a set of four two-way radios that were in the trunk that I bought for the theater and was planning to return to Radio Shack because they didn't suit our needs.

Charlotte pointed out that whomever broke in though was really stupid. they probably stole $100 worth of stuff. They missed all the CDs I have strapped to my visor. I know they saw my iTrip, because it was on my seat and not in the center console. They could probably have gotten $40 for that on EBay. They also left my suede coat that was in my back seat. I am so happy about that, because I LOVE that coat. But it's an expensive coat. Also, thankfully my Christmas present from Dee was still in my trunk (a box of stuffed doozers). The box was opened but they appeared untouched. They also opened the Pottery Barn box that was in the trunk. I can't imagine why they didn't want the Elmer Fudd Chia Head that was inside. It was a White elephant gift- don't ask.

We called the police, and they were really really nice to me about the whole thing. They fingerprinted my car which is kind of cool. At one point, they dusted a set, then the cop looked carefully at the print on the car, then shined his flashlight on my finger, and determined that these particular prints on the car were mine. They managed to lift a set of prints off the lid of the trunk that were too large to be mine. So we'll see if anything comes of it, but I doubt it.

So in the morning I get to take everything out of my car, vacuum the glass out of the back seat and figure out how to tape a window. I'm supposed to go to a party at Chad & Dee's today, but I really don't want to park my car there. Arrrrgh.

I lived in this small town right on the water. It was present day but felt a litte bit victorian and old fashioned. There was a war on, and I'd never seen so many planes in the sky. Some of it was due to the war, but there were also stunt planes practicing for a Fourth of July show. I didn't understand how we could be celebrating the Fourth of July and the freedom of our country when we were at war and life there felt anything but free.

My family lived in a house that was built in the center of a small pond. My dad had been renovating along the banks for a really long time, and none of us were allowed back there. But one day I went out the back of the house and asked if I could come see what he was doing, and he said "not until the spring." But it was already midsummer, so I stepped onto the floating walkway and walked up the bank.

My father had built a stone reflecting pool at my favorite part of the bank, where the treetops met and turned the place into a shady green tunnel, dim on even the brightest day. It was very beautiful, with lights shining under the water and flowers floating on top of it. I understood that someday my grave would be there. But he turned my attention from that fact and showed me the large building that loomed up at the end of the reflecting pool, where the trees opened into a glade.

It was the new house he had built for us. The front half of the building was his dream- a resaurant. It wasn't ready for opening yet, but there were tables covered in crisp white cloths and a long bar made of a wood that glowed in the afternoon sunlight. He asked if I wanted to see my new bedroom, and then took me by the hand and led me down a long hall into a room filled with golden light, and said to me, "think of the possibilities..." and then left me to go keep working.

The restaurant was scheduled to open in time for the town's Fourth of July celebration. Everything was ready. We had moved into the new house, and I discovered that from my bedroom windows I could hear our next-door neighbor playing the piano. He played beautifully, and he played many hours a day. I wished I had a window seat so I could just sit and listen all day, and forget about the war, and forget about the people doing terrible things to each other outside the safety of my walls.

It struck me that the children of our community were being taught terrible lessons by the way our society lived its life, and so I tried to gather them together and teach them that life could be different... But it was too late. They didn't want to hear me. They didn't want to learn what I had to teach them because it wasn't fun. It didn't allow them to steal the things they wanted, or to force things to be their way.

Finally I just shooed them all out of my house, resigned to life deteriorating around me, no one wanting to change from their selfish ways long enough to mke the world better. In my haste to get them all out, I shooed a very small girl a little too hard and she fell down. I was immediately mortified, and picked her up and brushed her off and said I was so sorry, that I had not meant to knock her down. She loooked me in the face, and she said "I know you didn't mean to. You're not like that," and in that moment I realized that she was my chance to make a difference.

For reasons I can't go into, this has been a hellacious week. I have worked an insane number of hours, I am utterly exhausted, and my back is a big mess of tension and it's really starting to hurt. I plan to sleep the sleep of the dead tonight, and anyone who wakes me out of the coma I plan to fall into when I get home tonight will be executed as a traitor to the name of friendship. You've been warned.