Staycation - June 2014

Go on... say it...
YO RYAN!  WHAT WENT ON DURING YOUR STAYCATION?

Well, let me tell you.  It was quite a fun week away from the ordinary.  I started my week off on a winning note, as my hockey team The Avengers shut out the purple team for another big victory.  Then, in true team fashion we piled into a pub and celebrated our victory.  After a mere three hours sleep later, I was volunteering my time at the Relay For Life event.  What's really awesome, aside from all the money that was raised for the Cancer Society, was how I got to host/judge the Annual Rooster Call at the crack of dawn.  There were some pretty cool roosters that day.  I originally had planned on a nap after that, but I got home at 7:30 in the morning and was fully awake.  So I grabbed Dana and Ryleigh and we had a mini-road trip to this place called Pirate Park.

I'm not gonna lie; Pirate Park was fucking awesome.  Sure, it's meant for kids, but get this - they have this giant play structure (slides, swings, pole, bridges, hiding spots) and it's designed to look like a giant pirate ship!  I felt like a kid again as Ryleigh had me trampling all over the thing with her.

No rest for the wicked (and I'm super wicked awesome crazy cool) meant that I was playing another game of hockey with the Avengers on Sunday.  We got spanked pretty hard in that one... lost by like eight goals or something really embarrassing.  On the plus side, I finally got my first penalty ever - for cross-checking a guy in the shoulders.  To be honest, I was aiming for his head but he's kind of a fat dude and my reach wasn't long enough to get around his girth.

Fun with Ryleigh continued during the whole week.  She painted my toenails black, took me shopping for her friend's birthday present, did crafts with me, and serenaded me with "Let It Go" from Frozen.  She must've sang that tune three hundred times over the span of the week.  And yet somehow I still don't know all the words.  Oh, and there was definitely ice cream trips in there too.

This past week was also bursting with creativity.  I'm giving credit to this to Ryleigh painting my toenails.  I used to do that myself back in 2003, and when she painted mine it's like I was instantly zapped back into a zany part of me I had forgotten about.  Not only did I make a new story time video for Ryan's Inappropriate Alphabet Book For Intermediate Readers, but I also did some blogging, some writing, some drawing, and fashioned my likeness into a paper bag puppet.  I'm both awesome AND ri-goddam-diculous! At the same time!

I had plenty of free time to do some soul searching this week too.  I thought a lot about happiness - what makes me happy, what keeps me from being happy, how I make other people happy... and then I settled those thoughts with a few pints of Banana Bread Beer.  I also tasted Trooper for the first time.  It's the Iron Maiden beer.  I was really looking forward to it, and it wasn't bad but it also wasn't great. 

Then something dreadful happened.  It rained for three days straight.  That's a great way to spend a vacation... in the rain.  But did that stop me?  No way, dude.  I convinced my dad to spend an afternoon in the gloomy greyness of summer, eating poutine in the park and visiting Adam at the comic book store.  As the rain was starting to clear up, I had to play more hockey with the Avengers.  We lost to the same team that spanked us earlier in this blog post, but we played much better. Not good enough to win though, and since my in-game performance was so poor Coach Senor Dilworth informed me that I would be relegated to defense for our next game.  Thems the breaks.  After the game meant more beer and a free munchies platter.  Apparently when you have a whole team go out for beer you're entitled to a free munchies platter!  Hot diggidy dog!  But it makes me wonder how you're supposed to ask for such a free platter when you arrive.  I mean, you don't want to seem like a total douche bag... "Where's that free munchies platter I'm totally entitled to that I'm not even paying for?"... "No, no, no, the paying customers can wait while you put together my munchies platter."  Truth be told, I do have a rude side - but not that kind of rude. I don't like feeling entitled.  My rude is the, "hey everyone, look at that doggy poo on the ground!"

As my time off came to a close, I took Ryleigh to Red Beard's Annual Day Before Father's Day Sale.  It's pretty much the coolest sports memorabilia shop in town, and the day before father's day, they put everything in the store on sale for half price.  Each year I treat myself to a new Bruins sweater (I have twelve now, and Ryleigh has three) and this year she got to take part in my self treatment.  The best part was when she saw a family of four perusing the Montreal Habs swag, and she pointed at them in disgust and said, "Look daddy, those people like the Bad Guys!"

She makes me so proud sometimes.

And that was my week away from the daily grind.

- ryan