hockey mom...

alright so i'm not a hockey mom (by gawd i do not have children - that i know of) but i like to drop a bit of bragging rights like a hockey mom here...

last saturday there was a photographer at the rink in the penalty box, i think he does it for a hobby, i've seen him show up at various games before. he was shooting to his heart's delight... too bad i was so out of breath i only played the 1st game as a substitute player, and only 1st period of the 2nd game which was my own team's game.


I know i'm not bending my knees, and the puck should be more in front of me than on the side... but i think i was turning with that puck. yay me...















i think in this one i'm on the attack. i've been told i'm pretty ferocious when trying to poke-check. i think it's LIKE the little-dog-syndrome (loud bark for little dog). it's not bravery, it's that i forget i am not as big as others out there when i'm on the ice...













this is definitely NOT me, it's the ex SJ Shark Korky, who plays at the same rink (completely different league of course). but watch how he's using his skates' edge. man i can't even imagine being at that angle and not toppling over. he plays with a big grin when he's on the ice, making him a lot of fun to watch, cuz you know he loves being there...





For more pictures, click on Saturday afternoon hockey at Ice Oasis, first game and second game

13...

13 is my lucky number. i've always had an affinity for it, that and the number 7. i figured it's such an unlucky number for many, it's got to be lucky for a few. perhaps i am one of that few.

coincidentally it's my 13th day with this severe cough/cold/sinus infection/allergy/bronchitus/pnemonia. the cough has migrated from the chest to the base of my neck. i went back to the clinic and luck of the draw i got a younger doctor Dr. Wang (no jokes pls) who took a bit more time with me and listened to what i told him (coughing and swallowing hurts, a bit of blood when i cough, phelgm is a bit yellowish, possible sinus infection - feels heated in my ear-drums). he believes it might be sinus infection/bronchitis and prescribed me cough syrup with codeine (always a good choice, now that NyQuil has no effect on me) as well as penicilline. (amoxicilline) - now i'm OFF of Alavert (allergy med) and should use the Albuterol as needed. they did make me blow on this meter thing, then base on my age & height, calculate what my 'norm' should be and told me i was at 50% of my usual breathing capactity due to the congestion. (same as i was last week when i saw the other doctor)

i need to get to the bottom of this vicious cycle of sinus/coughs; part of me thinks that it's stress related since i push everything stressful under the rug instead of dealing with it. ick. i sure hope this isn't cuz i reached a big birthday so now the expiration date is holding my body accountable....!!!

last minute on friday i bought a plane ticket to join my coworker Winnie and her 2 friends to fly to Seattle and drive to Vancouver - leaving tomorrow and coming back monday morning. at that point i was already sick a week, and figured i should be over the cough by the time we leave. i feel better, but we'll see how tonight goes (although with codeine, i believe the sleep should be smooth... like buttah!) it was a last minute thing, i've never just decided to go somewhere so last minute, but it felt like what i wanted (a temporary change of location and events, people and place). I feel 90% up for the trip right now, unless tonight gets very bad, i shall be offline for a few days. feel free to text my phone or whatever though, i should call a few friends from san jose to let them know i arrived safe. however the predicted weather for vancouver for all the next days is rain, rain and more rain.

random: last night i coughed so hard and so loud i wonder if my upstairs neighbours hear me. this morning i faintly hear their alarm clocks go off.

random: i had my first "real" solid food in like 4 days. bought some pre-made mac & cheese, they slide down my throat so it didn't require much work. would suck if on the vancouver trip i can't eat anything... must... recover... for... food.

coughing up my lungs

it's been over a week since i got sick, but the cough makes me thinks i'm coughing up my lungs and whatever internal organs attached to it... i tried to play hockey yesterday - i have never been too sick to not play. i sub for the first game and while i was on the ice, i felt ok - i even played well. but my lungs made me have less endurance so my shifts were extra short (shortness of breaths)... and when i was on the bench i coughed so much my teammates thought i was going to pass out.

so i sat out on my own game... i have a bad habit of wanting to be always on the go. i don't want to sit home and BE sick and WALLOW and "rest", i want to get over it and continue to do stuff. but last night made me realize that i just need to be at home and rest and sleep and hug my NyQuil and blankets and fall asleep to my Gilmore Girls season series on dvd.

my living room is a battle zone - used kleenex, un-folded laundry, unwashed dishes in the sink... i've sweat through half a dozen pj's with my cycle of slight fever and breaking the sligh fever and doubling over in cough to wake myself awake...

i'm feeling slightly better this morning although i still have the desire to go to my hockey game but i might DoTheRightThing and stay home. i just hate being 'sick' or wallowing at home :)

keep me company! entertain & amuse me!!!! ;)

be forewarned, after 2 full seasons of Gilmore Girls i have inadverdently increased the number of words in my usual speech...

doctor... doctor...

i believe my doctor thinks i'm stupid...

to be fair, he's not really "my doctor". I had a doctor i liked who was my RegularDoctor for 2+ years before the selfish bitch decided to pursue her husband's dream job on the EastCoast and abandon me here without a doctor. Since then i've gone to the Medical Clinics where you didn't require an appointment, and they round robin a doctor who's available to see you from a handful of them staffed at the clinic - after a 10 minute wait in the waiting room but a total combined 3 hours in the inside waiting room.

i walked in, after my coworkers decided my coughing is annoying them enough to tell me i need to please go see a doctor to fix me. the doctor asked a few questions, listened to my breathing, asked my thoughts on the subject, and then guesstimated that since i *may* have allergies to something not-yet-identified. he put me on a 15 minute treatment breathing through an apparatus where they put medicine in the filter.
when the doctor came back to check on me 20 minutes later my arm to fingers were numb - he tells me i didn't need to in/exhale with so much effort that i almost hyperventilated myself.

in the end he prescribed Albuterol inhaler for the *possible allergy* i *may* have but also an inhaler tube - what is typically prescibed to children. i guess he figured that i needed extra help in case i didn't know how to work the inhaler or that i may hyperventilate myself with the inhaler at home.

Katamari

the popular Things Stick To the Big Rolling Ball game on PS :)

alcohol

my birthday weekend came and went without much bang, which is good, because getting to your 'milestone' birthday seems hard enough to conceptialize as is without embarassing restaurant-employees emptily cheerful birthday songs to make it 'memorable'.

a work friend organized a group lunch with all my favorite work friends at maggianos - family style dining. you are who your friends are - and they were loud rembunctious group (even before we got wine) and indeed, feels like your stereotyped 'italian' big family brickering over what to eat (for those new to Maggianos, family style means the whole entire table chooses 2 salads, 2 appertizers, 2 main courses, 2 pastas and 2 desserts together - and they bring out as much of those items as you can eat) i like birthdays mainly because people make a bit of an effort to drop their everyday responsibilities to come meet for a meal and spend time with you :)

of course the rest of the birthday weekend went by like a blur - sure alcohol was involved - but it was the nightly shooters of NyQuil that ruled the weekend. my sore throat started thursday, lasted till friday, gave me 100F slight fever most days, i resorted to Theraflu, Sudafed and Tylenol Severe Cold; mixing with a cocktail of NyQuil at night. Went through headache, weakened body, cough like my lungs would explode, runny nose, stuffy nose, watery eyes.

people have suggested i go to a doctor and investigate, i seem to fall into a cold or a near cold (sore throat) every 3 weeks or so. even when i'm in bootcamp trying to build my body's immune system stronger, it doesn't seem to help. maybe but i feel silly going to the doctor for a 'common cold' and i don't really know if there's much they can do to help identify a 'string of colds' in a pattern.

i watched Over the Hedge over the weekend - a very PG movie, so lots of kids in the theatre. besides that the movie was pretty cute. i didn't quite understand why the turtle moved at the same speed as all the other characters. i love Hamy (hamilton) the squirrel, he's awesome & cute & funny. i recommend it to watch as a good wholesome summer flick.

had banana leaf for dinner, one of my favorite foods is malaysian cuisine... i love curry laksa noodles. yum yum. and the roti prata with curry sauce is awesome...

on top of that i didn't make it to Bay to Breakers walk this year; it threatened to rain and my buddies all pulled out last minute due to the threat. plus when i played my hockey games my lungs wanted to burst - i normally already get what i call the Hockey Cough when i skate hard - my lungs want to cough as if i gather extra extra air into the lungs. With my cold, when i cough i felt like i was going to explode and die on the ice... not fun.

Also not a good weekend healthwise besides the cold i had. I dropped my hockey bag on my right food (the bag has a track and wheels on the bottom, ensuring a bruised layer on top of my foot) then in one of my games apparently i clotheslined myself into a guy's elbow, i twisted and fell hard on my stick and knee, so my paw (palm) hurts and is bruised as well.

the CCA

on saturday i went with my friends to the CCA; my 3Com buddy is searching for potential new career moves now that the company is pulling out the office here in san jose in september. Plus we've all been addicted to Top Chef show; i find it fabulously facinating... oh the drama. the food.

so the CCA stands for California Culinary Academy. I didn't know this, but since '93 when you graduate from the CCA you get a certificate from them AND a certificate from Cordon Bleu. (yes, when i was there i caressed the Cordon Bleu sign on the wall... it *IS* the definitive seal of haute cuisine reknown around the world!)

for some reason i was surprised that the CCA was a *real school* - 4 levels, lots of classrooms, lockers. i don't know what i was expecting... perhaps just rows of test kitchens on 1 floor or something. we got a tour of the grounds, from the huge baking kitchens, to the demonstration classrooms, to the hospitality/gambling room... there's 3 distinct study paths at the CCA: cooking, baking or hospitality (hotel management/restaurant management, etc)
the most interesting is that CCA actually hosts a lot of student contests and challenges - we saw in progress an iron-chef like challenge and an almond-baking challenge.

then we got the talk about the fine school and excellent program, and a paella cooking demo. The demo chef teacher was excellent and very funny; the students in the meantime were downstairs cooking a 3.5 foot-radius tub of paella to feed us.
truthfully the paella was "ok" at best. but when you bulk cook that much of food i don't really expect too much.

visiting the CCA inspired me to cook sunday morning when i woke up, i made fried rice noodles with asparagus, zucchini, chinese meatballs and steak. (i cook fusion, when ppl ask - neither here or there, but you can appreciate it if you had an artistic taste *wink*)
i realize i love to cook, but only when it's on MY turf, on MY timeline, making what I like.

so yeah, i can never do it for a living. and you'd have to be super passionate since as a cook you don't make that much money until later; if you make it big, or open your own fancy restaurant.

i did have to highlight the excellent chocolatine i had when we got in the morning; it's the only chocolatine i've had on american soil that comes remotely close to the good quality of pastries we're spoiled with in Montreal. i miss the great pastries.

glutton for punishment

call me a sadist. i signed up for bootcamp again, 4 more weeks of 4 times a week 6:30am workout...
this sunday is the annual 'bay to breakers' charity run /walk (7 miles end to end san francisco). I plan to run-walk with 2 buddies from work; each year this is the other time to break out your halloween costume - some people (ALL of whom SHOULDN'T) run/walk naked. it's rather disgusting. *imagery: old, saggy, skin, splotchy, discolored...*

so i plan to play my 2 hockey games saturday, run/walk the 7 miles, go to my hockey game sunday afternoon, wake up for 6:30am bootcamp on monday. i think i fell and hit my head somewhere...

on a side note i've never been in better shape (even better than my best shape after bootcamp last year, because i've dropped 2% body fat. i'm on the VERGE of being in the 'in shape' % body fat chunk... so close) at the end of bootcamp we had to do the same test of running 1.5 miles and i managed to pull 9min/mile which is spectacular for me, considering most of my life i don't run due to flat feet. now i've outworn a pair of fabulous cross-trainers and i'm too cheap to buy another pair!

but i wanted to be in GOOD SHAPE for my big 3-0. i know now-a-days it's not supposed to be a big deal, but it's still a milestone in life. man i feel old. ;) however i still get carded for 21 & over and ppl don't believe i'm more than 25.

quad-shot latte

ok i'm not crazy, i might be a caffeine junkie (fond recollections of when Deviline visited and tried to make a cup of coffee out of the instant junk i have...) i had 2 lattes with double shots today - that's 4 shots total. now i'm both yawning and bouncing

Star Wars on Robot Chicken

:)

amy's wrath

yesterday was not a good day for me at work. ppl were being passive aggressive towards me, which gets me really angry; i had a temporary moment of what karen used to call 'white rage' where everything else goes blurry except the color white right in front of my eyes and i almost turn to my boss (one of the ppl who was being passive aggressive) and say ' fine, you do this' and wanted to walk right out of work.
luckily a coworker was t here to break the ice when she noticed how white and silent i had become and the moment passed. it really got to me, i went to my heated-room yoga class last night hoping to find inner peace. it worked but i was still frustrated inside. if you have something, say it. don't bully me into making the statements you want to hear by passive-aggressive.

i had a good crying session to get it all out yesterday and ranted to a friend. at least i was able to see that a) i was bullied because i was an easy target and b) it wasn't personal, i happened to be scapegoat at the right place and the right time. doesn't make it ok, doesn't make it acceptable, but at least i understand.

still trying to figure out whether i should be passive-aggressive back to the ppl (and beat them at their game) or i should just call them out and if they have the nerve, force them to come out of passive-aggressive nature and say what they will.

runner's high...

talking to someone at work, who ran 2 marathons before he tore his calf, says 'runner's high' hits at about the 5 mile mark - after that nothing else matters, it's just you and nirvana : my question to the runners out there, is this true?

seems running is addictive, because once i hear someone pick up running, they run x many marathons/year. i run because it's part of bootcamp and we need to, and i have proper shoes so my flat feet doesn't hurt anymore. but i don't really like it, my knees are starting to feel it... when i'm on the treadmill i love watching tv, i tell myself i can make it until the next commercial break. same thing when i'm on the trail, i tell myself i can make it until the end of the song on my nano... so i run because i *have* to for conditioning, but i don't love it - i don't even like it; hence i need distractions to fool myself into putting in just a bit more into the running....

gas prices, misc

is at like 3.50$/gallon! to fill my lil 13 gallon takes 45$ !!!! craziness!
time to buy a bike. or a segway. funny story thought, costly price mistake

for those of you following i've done 2 'bootcamp' workout sessions last year around summertime. basically it's a course given by the fitness center (extra fees required) last year it was 6 weeks of 2 times a week sessions 1 hour long each where we go outdoors and do circuit training or running on the trail...
i'm in week 4 of a new bootcamp (last week) 4 times a week at 6:30 to 7:30am !!!! it's great until about 2pm when i start to doze off, then i go get my starbucks fix and it allows me to go through the motion for the remainder of the day.... understand that this is an ungodly hour considering i STILL get off work 7pm or so, extends my day by a few hours more.

goooooooooooo Sharks!!!

i know i know, since more than half of you reading this blog are canadians, you will wonder, Amy why are you rooting for the Sharks over the Edmonton Oilers!? it's cuz i've been following the Sharks play for a few years, i know the team, especially can appreciate the team better now that i've been playing hockey!!!!!!

Joe and Cheechoo are good, but Marleau's really come into his own especially post season. Add to it fiesty Neminen, Scotty Throton and Bernier, Ekman, Priessing, Erhoff and McLaren, you've got a pretty strong line up even without Joe and Cheechoo. both games in round 2 so far were really close.... nail biters. The Shark tank just explodes with excitement, cheer, loud fans and crazy crazy spirited chants!
Love hockey.....

Cinco de Mayo!

cinco de mayo (may 5th) is always crazy here, i'm sure due to the huge population of mexicans here... it's always partying, drinking and more partying!!

been getting up at 6am to get to my bootcamp workouts on time 6:30-7:30am - next week is the last week. I feel great for the most part - very energized for the first part of the day. but come 3pm i start to crash...... but maybe that has to do with that i still don't leave work before at least 7pm so my work hours have just extended due to coming in earlier. then i get home i still want to cook...
i found out my bootcamp instructor used to play semi-pro football quarterback in Italy before he injured his shoulder - he's on his year off to recovery. tres cool cuz he's a Sharks fan too and we chitchat about the game and the difficulties of getting playoff tickets for less than the price of our kidneys on the black market.

i'm so addicted to Starbucks (SB) it's not even funny. most of my barristas know my name there. if i don't keep switching my orders on them they would totally have my drink made ready before i even walk inside... i usually have 1, somedays 2 SB a day. I know i can save lots of money by making it at home or going without, or having the crap that they make in the kitchen. but i'm spoiled, and a few bucks for an hour or two of my happiness seems definitely worth the while.

i'm excited about the Sharks round 2 games, however it's a bit crazy that they play back to back Sunday-Monday. with the rough physical play, back to back games take a lot of out of a player. Still, i'll get to hear the Canadian anthem in the Shark tank for the playoffs. Apparently the Shark tank is known to be one of the loudest tanks for NHL - meaning very cheering fans. Last round it was almost surreal when you look around and everyone is taunting "Ma-----------son" in unison (to taunt the other goalie). I want a teal feather boa cuz it's the Sharks color (and no, thank you, i've never thought i would voluntarily want to wear the color TEAL). Hurc, you'd be glad to know i finally have a more appropriate-fit SJ Sharks jersey (a gift for a friend for taking him to a round 1 playoff game). the one i had before was a jersey-style shirt. i have a real jersey now (not the player authentic one with the fighting strap, although i don't anticipate having to THROW IT DOWN at the Shark Tank anytime soon...)

haven't had GOOD sushi in a long time, last was when i went with Mary. i love Michi Sushi cuz they sprinkle roasted macademia nuts on top of all their rolls (sorry hurc, know you're allergic) but they've got like 100+ different types of rolls. yum yum


someone sent me a link to furry hockey gloves. i know, no decent player would have this while playing, unless they're at the olympic women's team level. still, the combination is can't-look-away-from-accident-scene intriguing.







my thoughts are random :)

riot time

So... think the habs can come back after losing 3 in a row? I'm kinda hoping for some good 'ol riots.