Schedule

The LA Kings schedule is up.

(I am so excited that just typing that sentence took 4 tries because I kept spelling things wrong in my haste. Deep breath. Ok.)

This is GREAT because now I can start planning things!

I am very strange about planning things. As in...I have every single second of every day planned. It's not always written down, but it's there in my head. If I wake up with a free day (or even part of a day), I'll have it mentally organized in time blocks and tasks before I even eat breakfast. I've done this since I was a kid. At any given time, I'll have the next 6 weekends planned. A friend once told me that the difference between him and his wife was something like "To my wife, 'free time' is what's left over after you're done with everything you have to do. To me, 'free time' is what you have up until you're forced to start doing stuff." I'm most definitely in the first category- every minute is a minute that I could be doing something productive. Relaxing is what happens at the end of the day after I'm done with everything else. And if I sense that I'm not being as completely productive as possible, this will generate a range of negative feelings, from annoyance to frustration to terror to sheer panic. As you can imagine, this mindset serves me well at work, but not so well at home- I'll set time aside to relax, but I'll just end up doing shit around the house. That's not to say that I won't have entire evenings where I blow off my to do list and play video games- that's just always accompanied by a little thrill from feeling deviant.

So to me, the lockout was actually a pretty bad psychological blow, because it means I lost the 3 hour chunks of time that I used to set aside for watching games. Thank God the season is starting up, because I really need this. I just went through and blocked off every single possible time to watch or attend a game through April. It pains me to discover that I do have some conflicts, but I'm trying to move things around because god dammit, I've waited months for this. The season is too short to not watch every possible second.

One of the most exciting things about this season's schedule is that my sister and her husband, who live in Vancouver, are coming to visit in March on the weekend that the Kings host the Canucks. They've never really been into hockey, but I know they watched part of the playoffs last year, so earlier tonight I sent a family-wide email asking if they wanted to come to the game when they are in town. AND THEY SAID YES! In fact, apparently they are at the Vancouver Giants game right now. Has the world gone mad??? When did my sister start liking hockey? Is tonight their first live game? I don't even know what to do with myself. I will need to talk to her about this.

Anyway, back to the Canucks.

I can't tell if my favorite part of this is Stoll's jubilation or Luongo's sadness.

I just hope we get through the game without killing each other.  We grew up with a pretty good relationship until I turned 15 and became a bitch on wheels, at which point we fought for like a decade before I (hopefully) grew up a little. It doesn't help that she is the cutest, prettiest, fittest, tiniest, smartest, most amazing person ever.

I'm really excited about this season, and especially about making the Kings/Canucks game a family event. I'm also SUPER excited to see my Kings family again- I've missed you guys. (I hope all those links work!)

Ah, that's enough heartwarming stuff for one night- I hear a stack of dishes calling my name and I'm off to be productive. :)