Jenn Writes

Tag: Lions

  • Word Wednesday Holi-daze

    Word Wednesday Holi-daze

    As of today, there is one month left until Christmas, and only 12 days left until the beginning of Hanukkah. Tomorrow is US Thanksgiving and the traditional start to the holiday sales season happens Friday with the retail event known as Black Friday. Most of the people celebrate something in and around December / January so it’s a busy time of year. Between family events, social events, work related events, and school concerts my December calendar is looking very full indeed.

    I have to admit that the holidays are much harder now since the death of my mum. She loved Christmas and the house would be bursting at the seams with decorations, music, baking, and presents (one year we had 3 trees – big one in the living room, small one in the family room, and a child / pet proof one in the basement). Dad on the other hand, has leaned more towards the Grinch side of the spectrum. He never begrudged mum all her decorations but we both knew if left to his own devices, there would be a lot less Christmas in the house. I’m somewhere in the middle. I like Christmas and love finding the perfect gift for friends and family members, setting up my nativity scene, and enjoy putting up the tree, but aside from that? I’m not big on decking the halls. Last year it was about  10 days before Christmas when we finally got the tree up (and that was because we had company coming over). I’m not sure when it’s going up this year.

    A decorated Christmas tree with multi coloured lights and an angel on top
    The Christmas tree last year

     

    I have a tradition of getting all the kids in my life (and there are a lot of them) who I buy presents for, books for Christmas. It’s much easier to keep track of reading levels than it is to figure out who likes Littlest Pet Shop vs Barbie vs Transformers vs Hot Wheels. I do that for birthdays – they’re (thankfully) spread out though the year. I get some books used (but in great condition) and some new – helps the budget and the earth. I find 2-3 books per kid and double check with mom and  or dad to make sure they don’t already have it, then I put a post-it note with the kid’s name on it and wrap them in a marathon session. The bonus is that books are far easier to wrap than most toys – straight edges and they’re generally flat.  This is about 2/3 of the total books for this year:

    Around 30 picture books and early readers with a few young adult novels lie in a pile on the floor
    At least they’re small and stack nicely

    All of this has me thinking about holidays and when holidays aren’t actually holidays. We celebrate 2 Thanksgivings here, although I only cook turkey for one. The US Thanksgiving is a social event with 6 or 7 people dropping by all afternoon and evening to hang out and watch football (starting, of course, with my beloved Detroit Lions game at 12:30). So it’s a holiday here, even if its’ not an official holiday in Canada. Today’s Word Wednesday, in celebration of all of this, is holiday. Holiday is defined as a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done. So I guess neither Thanksgiving counts as a holiday in my house – we’re doing outside work on Canadian Thanksgiving and I work before and during the games on US Thanksgiving. The word holiday comes from the Old English halidaeg which translates to ‘holy day’, reflecting that early holidays were religious observances.

    Holiday (hol·i·day) noun

    1. A day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspendedin commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.
    2. Any day of exemption from work (distinguished from working day ).
    3. a religious feast day; holy day. 

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for tomorrow’s holiday. 

     

  • The Good, the Bad, and the Argos

    The Good, the Bad, and the Argos

    I’m not going to play armchair GM at 2 am the morning after a loss.  Especially after a home game where I didn’t see all of the game because I was playing in the band.  Yes the Argos played badly, no I don’t have a magic fix to make the season all better.  It wasn’t just one thing or one player that made the team lose, it was a number of factors working together.  It’s really easy to lay the blame at the feet of a single player but football is a team sport.  Part of the Argos’ trouble seems to be an inability to deal with unexpected changes such as a key player going down to injury.  If left to their own game plan, the Argos seem to be a decent (Not spectacular) team; but when a monkey wrench is thrown into the works, such as Rob Murphy’s injury this week or Kevin Eiben’s injury a few weeks ago, the team collapses in on itself.  I think it goes back to confidence and the Argos seem to be lacking in it.  When everything is carefully scripted, they’re fine but going off script is disastrous because the players are worried that in doing so they’ll make a mistake.  The most dangerous thing to be in football is cautious – it’s also the most boring!   There’s nothing worse than a team playing to not lose.  I can root for a losing team, but not a boring team.  Other than some spectacular special teams plays by Chad Owens. the Argos were boring tonight  There was a lot of potential to not be boring  – there was a great string of 1st downs in the first quarter but then the drive ended with a rather anti-climatic field goal.  Turnovers were not capitalized on, turning an exciting event into nothing.  Again I’m not sure how to fix it but I’m hoping one of the coaches on the Argos does.

    Even with the loss, the Argo game was fun tonight.  That’s the best thing about being in Argonotes – even when the team on the field is less than entertaining, the band is always awesome.  At halftime tonight, we did our usual show – 4 or 5 songs to a small but loyal crowd by gate 5.  As we were playing our first song, I noticed 2 little girls dancing along to the band.  I went over to our director Dictator’s big bag o’ musical toys and dug out a tambourine and gave it to the girls.  The look on their face was of pure delight.  They shook it together and were generally adorable.   Their dad took some pictures and the girls were having a great time.  For the next song, I asked the girls if they wanted to play WITH the band.  Our fantastic bass drummer Tyler came in front of the band and let the younger girl “help” play the bass drum and the older girl got to play the tambourine in front of the band, wearing the Dictators furry blue hat.  The looks of joy on their faces made my whole night.  To make things even better, when I was walking around the Dome after our half-time show, I saw the family.  The girls came up to me and thanked me and then the older one went to call her mum and was eagerly telling her about being IN the band.  The grandmother told me that we had made their night extra special and that they’d remember it for a long time.Thinking about that makes me put the loss in perspective.  The Argos may not have won, but this Argonote sure did.

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