Almost two years ago, my mother passed away very suddenly. I will never forget the moment I found out, the pain in my father’s voice, or the task of calling my grandmother to inform her. I had some amazing friends who stepped in to help, but that didn’t stop grief from enveloping me. The program I was in at the time was not what you would call supportive of the grieving process. They grudgingly gave me a week off but after that it was full steam ahead, and keeping busy is one thing but trying to juggle a tough academic curriculum while your brain is hazy from grief is almost impossible. I was made to feel abnormal for taking “too long” to mourn, which helped send me down the rabbit hole of depression (again). Post-secondary institutions talk a good game but when it comes down to it, their mental health programs aren’t exactly stellar and even in a program that talks a LOT about mental health there were faculty members who openly suggested that maybe it wasn’t grief or depression, maybe I just couldn’t hack it.
How my Playbook saved the evening.
I was visiting my parents last weekend and one evening, we were bored. There was nothing on TV and we were all talked out. Yes we have tons of DVDs but there wasn’t one that we could all agree on. That’s when my inspiration struck. I got out my Playbook, connected it to the wireless network, and grabbed my HDMI cable. Luckily, my parents have a new TV with a very conveniently placed HDMI port on one side. I plugged in the playbook, switched the source feed on the TV to the HDMI port, and all of YouTube was at our disposal. We spent a very enjoyable evening watching music videos ranging from Great Big Sea to Gordon Lightfoot with some Simon and Garfunkel and The Guess Who sprinkled in.
I also showed my parents, who don’t use YouTube unless I send them a link to something, some of my favourite videos. Then I played a slideshow of the pictures I had on my playbook. Not every video looked good on the big screen but we could all watch them and it was a really enjoyable evening. Although I don’t have any kids, if I did, this would be an awesome way to show videos of the kids taken on the Playbook to friends, relatives, living further away who happened to visit. It’s a good thing that Dad has a playbook because I think the evening of YouTube might just become a family tradition. The next time I’m home, I’m going to set up the Remote control on the Playbook and sit on the couch to direct the action.
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.