Sometimes I get inspired early in the week and latch on, knowing *this* – whatever it is – is going to be my post here in fivenineteen.  Or I might get a couple flashes or two and jot them down for later.  And sometimes the well in the head is empty and dry…and I wonder – what in the world am I going to blog about THIS week?  Sure, I don’t NEED to write in here weekly – it’s just a rhythm I’ve developed over the past few months and I like it.  And I hope whoever is out there reading this either by accident or on purpose likes it too.  Got something you want me to blog about?  Please let me know.   

Well…today, totally out of the blue, my friend C uttered that quip in today’s title and I knew instantly that was it.

Downtime on Saturday. Let’s give the ol’ brain here a rest.  Hoo doggy it was a busy work week.  Stressed and rushed for sure – lots of virtual lint flying around with our team as we blast full speed ahead to an upcoming technology launch.  It’s 11:30pm on New Years Eve, people, are we READY???  Are we SURE??  Exhilarating but also mentally draining.  I feel like a happy yet deflated balloon when I get home from work sometimes.

I slept hard until 9:30am this morning.  I do love to sleep in but when it gets that late I feel I’m wasting the day.  But I knew my body and mind needed it.  AND I knew I had to get my ass out of bed and off to the salon for a hair color appointment.  The Starbucks drive-thru near my house was backed up with cars overflowing onto the main road (kinda sad isn’t it?) so I stopped at a grocery store’s Starbucks counter to grab my signature coffee drink – a double tall nonfat latte.  Ahhh.  You know, I am not a “gotta have my Starbucks fix” person, but I do enjoy making coffee at home on the weekends (although, not Starbucks – I prefer Forza actually).  And now that I’ve kicked Diet Coke cold turkey going on over 10 months now, thankyouverymuch, I’ve switched to unsweetened iced tea on weekday mornings for a caffeine boost while I’m getting ready for work.  Lipton has cold-brew tea bags I just love.  I just plop one into a large Pyrex measuring cup with water, put it in the fridge for a bit and voila.  I swear I used to have a decent glass pitcher but it might be buried in a cupboard somewhere.

So I felt tired and looked suburban today heading off to the salon.  I decided to wear some black corduroy leggings I found online on a total whim earlier this year and paired them with black, zippered midcalf boots. A 3 Dots long sleeved white tee, my khaki with black sequins J. Crew tank top over that and a jean jacket.  I also rocked my Prada Gauffre hobo I haven’t carried in quite awhile.  Oh boy, that bag is wonderful.  Ruched, delicious chocolate brown leather.  I wear so much black but realized this brown is dark so it can go with black just fine kindasorta.  For what I paid for it 3 years ago I really should be taking it out more often, ha ha.

After getting my hair color touched up (overall darkening of my signature blonde plus filling in the ashy brown roots that are ever increasly shot through with greys, yuck), I headed down to Orting.  Orting, Washington.  This is a small town of about 8000 or so and growing rapidly.  And right in the shadow of our famous Mt. Rainier.  What a beautiful drive to a beautiful town where a 14,400 foot mountain dominates the skyline on a clear day.  Fabulous.

I stopped by (well ‘stopped by’ after an hour drive, ha) to see my friends C and S for a quick chat and to pick up a PartyLite candle order from a few weeks ago.  Gotta restock on those wonderful votives!  C and S are so welcoming, warm and friendly.  I worked with C for several years and through him know his wife and family.  We’ve kept in touch since leaving the company we worked for and have helped eachother through the bumps of job changes with referrals and moral support. 

Their 6 year old daughter came by the kitchen several times to share things with me – her dolls, her soccer trophies, her super sparkly Halloween witch costume and on and on. Aww…I remember the buzz at work from C when he and S were pregnant with her and the joy when she was born.  And how wonderful to meet this charming girl in person!  What a sweetheart.  She also whipped up a purple paper snowflake for me with fringe trim and a purple “D” sticker on it in the middle (my first name initial).  Love it! 

Meanwhile, the 3 of us continued talking.  Sometimes I go off on verbal tangents, not knowing exactly what I’m going to say or what my point is.  Might be considered a quirk or flaw, but those that ‘get’ me can follow and respond…I think – ?  How refreshing is it to open up with those you trust about your doubts and insecurities.  How wonderful to just bounce half-baked ideas outloud in a trusted audience without feeling the risk of being skewered.  THIS I love.

So I started rambling about mental capacity and if it slows down into your 40s.  Does it?  Isn’t this supposed to be a prime decade?  Why do I sometimes feel clueless after several work conversations where everyone else seems to get what’s being discussed and I’m thinking huh??  No, that doesn’t happen all the time but sometimes I cringe or giggle on the inside and wonder.  Do I jump in and say hey what do you mean by ‘x’, get fired up to go figure it out myself or just file it away for later?  Yes, yes and yes.  Gotta make split second decisions depending.

Is this a downside of the journey into middle age?  I might be wayyy off base but the way C and S nodded their heads (and we’re all about the same age) I felt validated and a little relieved. 

Along with my eyesight and hearing not as sharp as they used to be, some weight gain and my ass dropping a few inches I feel like I’ve been dealt a sneaky hand since turning 40. 

Mental capacity?  I work amongst geniuses and powerful thinkers.  Do I/can I keep up?  Do I give off the perception that I do and contribute value to the team?  I sure hope so.  On days I have insecurity leaks I don’t feel like it, but when that happens I remember how much I HAVE learned over the years and relish the fact that everyone else is probably feeling the same way too.  I am by default a supreme self-critic, so I try to give myself a break even though the corporate work culture does not – and I don’t expect it to either.

I kept rambling outloud to C and S…is my brain frying – can I follow and keep up?  Am I losing it?  Am I feeling changes in my mental agility?

And then C piped in…”I think it’s just full.”  Meaning, the brain has no more room in the inn right now.  I died laughing.

That would have been perfect for our famous work Quote Sheet he and I used to keep on our office walls – capturing funny things people say.  Things that maybe weren’t meant to be funny but sure came out funny. 

I think it’s time to start up a new one.

Do I exaggerate just a tad here?  Perhaps.  But I like the title so it stays.

I work in a technology field where we’re diving head first and full-speed into something new.  This is exhilarating one minute and panicky the next – and everywhere in between on the spectrum. There are moments I feel like doing happy backflips out of my desk chair and times I feel like punting people to the Moon.  And it’s all good; it’s just the ‘normal’ most all of us are used to, as crazy as it sounds.  Maybe it’s like living somewhere with rapidly-changing weather.  Storms are guaranteed, but so is sunshine.

My prior job a couple gigs back needs a nod and thanks.  It lasted just 11 months (by design) but it probably was one of the best, more recent ones which continued thickening up that professional skin of mine to weather my new flavor of storms. 

And it also helps I used to work on this current company’s campus from 1999 to 2006, so I have a ton of backstory and understanding of the overall culture, which really hasn’t changed much even though the technology products certainly have.  Yes, I worked at this company starting right on the brink of Y2K.  And all those unknowns which now seem laughable and quaint – munching on Olive Garden lasagne late into the evening with a chaser of sparkling cider…with everyone waiting for the big 999 to 000 calendar rollover.

Where I’m based now is thick and bloated with memories.  It’s the original group of buildings dating back to the early 1980s – a time when their location was considered The Sticks and these buildings were probably in the sticks of those sticks.  Heavy, solid hardwood office and conference room doors.  Worn, dated, threadbare carpet.  Walls banged up from countless furniture moves. Old school architecture.  How many now-billionaires used to walk these older buildings’ halls or strolled the asphalt paths and sky bridges between them?

I walked a few of those hallowed outdoor paths with a peer of my manager yesterday afternoon during a break.  More of a not-quite-locking-horns discussion with intent to get things back on track.  Did we argue?  Yes, perhaps.  With a beautiful large fountain as background noise.  And I was so focused on our conversation I barely noticed if others were passing by and honestly didn’t really care.

I have to stop myself here too.  Wasn’t it me just a few months ago so hungry to get back to work?  And now that it’s been about five months I’m back to venting about my job?  I have to laugh at myself.  I suppose we’re only human.

Gotta love entanglement.  That’s the gem of a term a sales VP I worked with would use to demonstrate how various engagements can ‘entangle’ one or many to where they are seemingly indispensable resources (which, in turn, means repeat business).  But that’s a slippery, double-edged sword. 

My workload is now split three ways – each ‘way’ reports up to 3 different people in my immediate organization…my official manager, a peer of my manager, and their manager (my skip-level).  How do these tangled webs get woven so quickly?  And is this normal or is it just my possibly weird work style which brings this on?  I’ve been scratching my head about this for years for it seems to be a pattern.  Whether it’s a strength or not I don’t know.

As you might expect, this is a recipe prone for collisions.  Collisions I am used to navigating through with level-headed charm and hopefully a touch of grace and tact.  But be warned – the occasional F bomb creeps in.  Most people I work with know this.  More often than not, my style is ‘court jester’.  Keep focused and work hard but take a moment for a laugh or a friendly rib-jabbing. 

It all boiled over recently about bunch of fucking balloons.  Part of our organization had an all-day event planned and somehow balloons seemed to creep themselves in as must-have decorations for the large campus conference room we had booked.  Nothing wrong with that, but in the end decor was not a priority.  This was an internal event – no outside press invited. 

I’d been head down getting an overdue report scrubbed and delivered on Thursday – a new report of which the overall strategy is still fuzzy to me but it was repeatedly explained to me it was urgent so I forged ahead.  The peer of my manager  stopped by and asked me to call a party shop to confirm if they took a certain credit card for the balloon order.  I’m sure the look on my face said it all.  Are you freaking kidding me?? I was head-down finishing another past-due deliverable, far more important than balloons, and now I’m being asked to drop everything and order balloons?  I’m glad a co-worker of mine was witness to this whole conversation (I share an office with two other women), for I pretty much recoiled and said um NO.  Find our team’s administrative assistant for help with crap like that.  Come ON. I was tired of getting randomized about things that were far less urgent than past due reports.

I don’t like playing the tattletale role but I had to share what was going on with my immediate manager.  So, we had an impromptu, private chitchat.  The look on his face was priceless.  He in turn went to speak with his manager about it and I can only imagine what happened from there.

I was tired.  I’m a terrible morning person and had an early meeting that morning and knew the morning of the all-day event would be an even earlier start. 

So that Friday morning I arrived at the large conference room – more for moral support than actual contributions.  I arrived a good hour before I usually come to work so I was still in a fog. The presentation team was putting the final touches on the PowerPoint deck and I could see it all on the large projection screen.  These are people I work with on a daily basis and I have huge respect for their knowledge.  And great personalities too.

Now. I simply cannot STAND making final teensy tweaks right before a presentation.  Everything should be scrubbed, proofread, previewed and rehearsed far prior, but obviously that’s an ideal, not always reality.  But I won’t kid you – that final tweaky behavior drives me absolutely batshit crazy.  I’ve seen it happen too many times – people freaking out over minutiae that in the end will be a split second blip viewing of a slide never to be seen again.  I’ve been on other project teams where laptops are mingling at the hotel restaurant tables with breakfast before we whiz off to a client presentation – in a town we’re not familiar with and we’re still figuring out where we’re supposed to go and how bad the traffic will be.  Or where a fellow team member is sitting on the floor of a crowded airport terminal with his laptop, trying to finish up something over the phone while the rest of the plane is boarding.  I love an occasional adrenaline rush, but that is WAY too over the edge on a regular basis.

So when I saw the final tweaking going on yesterday morning and sensed the frustration in the room I said – in a rather loud voice – something like:

“Sometimes it’s best to just STOP and LEAVE THINGS ALONE.”  And then there was silence.  I hope it helped.  I know I felt better getting that off my chest.

The event went very well.  I was impressed with everyone’s presentations and how we got started on time – and finished up early.  That is the perfect gift to your guests in my opinion…especially on a Friday afternoon.

Now, about that conversation in front of the campus fountain.  I’m still confused but I’m OK where things left off.  This won’t be the end of head butting, but I guess in the bigger picture it’s just a part of being, well, a part of this team.  I suppose I could have said earlier on I was getting frustrated and overwhelmed, but when we were past due on things that needed to happen quickly I chose to just suck it up and DO rather than bitch.  The bitching came later – and the random balloon request was the straw on the camel’s back.  

It’s confusing when someone tells me it’s OK to say no to them occasionally…but then in the same breath tells me how upset they were when I said NO to balloon research.  Only certain no’s are OK to push back on then?  HUH?  I chalk it up to people being tired and overworked.  And human.  So, I try to inject a little of my trademark grace and forgive.  But I’m not ready to forget.  We’ll get to the bottom of all of this and come to a new agreement and understanding.

Oh, and yes there were balloons in the conference room.  And they looked great.

A few of you out there have actually read a few or *gasp* many or most of my posts since I launched fivenineteen in September 2009.

Somehow, my weekends end up just as quiet – or just as busy – as they are supposed to be.  It fascinates me how sometimes a jam-packed weekend is as relaxing as one with close to zero plans and a veg-fest on the couch or here with the laptop.

Those of you – all two or three of you – who read this Blog regularly – may remember over Labor Day weekend, for example, how I had zero plans.  This weekend was a whole different story.

And yes, it’s a fivenineteen double-shot bonus weekend, for here’s yet another post.

Majorly awesome school classmates reunion (girls night potluck)
I started posting awhile back about “the ones who really know you.”  And we’ve expanded this 3 or 4 times a year potluck gathering outward – this past Friday we had 10.  10 of us who know eachother back to elementary school and junior high years, so ready to burst with conversation and laughter we never made it to the dining room table nor the wonderfully remodeled living room our hostess C has in her gorgeous home.  Nope – it was all about hanging out in the kitchen and the kitchen island with munchies and wine.  One of those amazing nights where “all of a sudden” it’s midnight.

This, my friends, is food for my soul.  I come away from these gatherings so energized and refreshed!

Gym workout
I probably didn’t get to sleep until 2am early Saturday following that potluck. I was so awake and happy it was hard to get to sleep.  I shamelessly love to sleep in on weekend mornings – but hopefully not past 9:30am or so otherwise I feel I’m wasting the day away.  I lounged around in the PJs and made some coffee – oh the delicious luxury of lingering.  I made a pot of Seattle’s Best Coffee Henry’s blend as it was on special at the grocery store.  Forza coffee is still my hands down favorite brand but I’m trying to be a tad bit frugal (despite the fridge and phone both putting my debit card into overdrive last month) by finding other brands which don’t have that overly roasted bitterness Starbucks is known for.  And how awesome to pull those coffee beans from MY NEW FRIDGE/FREEZER.  Halle-freakin-lullejah! 

After a few cups of coffee and a light breakfast I hauled my ass down to the gym for 45 minutes on the treadmill (walk-run intervals) plus some free weights and side crunches with the fitness ball.  It’s just a 5 minute drive from my house, and I have not been going as regularly as I was a few months ago.  Every time I get my bill I think, sheesh, just go!  The recent remodel/upgrade is amazing.  So I brought my iPod and just hit the treadmill for awhile, like I was doing when I was training for my first 5Ks last year.  It felt good to get back on the treadmill, watch some hockey on the CBC channel on the treadmill TV and rock out to my iPod. Too bad there weren’t any hot guys – or any guys – playing squash on the courts in straight shot view from the treadmills.  I figured more people would be in the gym on a Saturday afternoon given the weather was yucky.

Lo and behold who should flag me down from the upper interior balcony but my past trainer, Bruce, who worked my butt off last year for a few months.  He’s a great trainer and had the most creative, weird-ass but effective ways to change around the weight machines to isolate areas like triceps, hamstrings or pecs. And he introduced me to the medicine balls as well as planking.  I was so sore at work those next mornings I was probably walking around like I had ridden a horse all day.  Good stuff.  Hopefully I’ll be able to carve out more time/dollars to have him train me a couple of nights a week like last year.  Middle age is a reality blast in both the face and body and I need to rebuild lost muscle tone in a huge way.  And -ahem- where are those Jillian Michaels DVDs?

Karaoke…and Country Music on a night out – combined
Collective gasp/faint anyone?  Here’s the deal.  I love music – anything but country.  And karaoke?  Fugeddaboudit. Seriously.  I had a shitty experience at a work related function with alcohol-soaked karoake at a restaurant (as an observer, not participant) at an impressionble time just out of college and it really soured me.  I have a lot of great friends who enjoy doing karaoke but they know it’s just not my deal.  And I love music but country is probably way down on my list of loves.

So how was this night different?  I changed my tune – no pun intended. This night was karaoke but backed by an aweome live band with a huge audience of 800 or so.  Not the pre-recorded karaoke with porn star rejects in the cheesy videos.  Yes, I have no opinions.

This was the final round of a country music karaoke competition at the Snoqualmie Casino, about 30 miles east or so of my suburb.  What a superb facility – and huge!  My friend T’s boyfriend D was a finalist (wow!!) in this contest and it was absolutely amazing to be there.  It was my first time meeting him and he did a great cover of Guitars, Cadillacs (Dwight Yoakam as I learned).  It was fun being there even if I wasn’t totally familiar with everyone’s songs other than a John Mellencamp, Shania Twain or Carrie Underwood song that’s more mainstream pop/rock.  And D took 7th out of 17 and got an awesome cash prize!  He has a CD and a music video out so he’s no stranger to the industry.  It was wonderful to meet him in person and  cheer him on!

It felt great to brush off two things I don’t normally care for – country music and karaoke – to support a friend and her boyfriend plus have a fun night out.  And a couple Tanqueray and tonics helped too.

Silpada jewelry
Can I do this – take this on as a side business?  How much freaking spare time do I have?  Am I crazy?

I love all the party-based home shopping lines – Tupperware, PartyLite, Pampered Chef, the list goes on.  I’ve probably hosted a few parties over the years and attended many more as a guest. And loved it.  The jewelry is fantastic.  Most of it is sterling silver based which is perfect for my skin tone. 

I met up with a consultant over coffee this afternoon and have a lot of reading to do.  We’ll see how this pans out.

HOCKEY
So when I mentioned I have a hockey game tonight to the Silpada friend I met with for coffee this afternoon she asked how old my hockey kids were.  How HILARIOUS to clarify that…it’s actually ME that plays!  Not kids! Holy crap, how funny!  I haven’t had to clarify this since I marched into a proshop 7 years ago with a list of equipment to buy – convincing the shop associate it was for ME, and not kids. Don’t all middle-aged suburban blonde women around here play hockey?  

I love my new team.  We’ve got a ton of potential and played 1000% better than our inaugural game last week.  Nowhere to go but up! 

I had THE funniest Fail tonight in warm up. We were doing the typical “corners” drill, where you split into two groups in the corners and take turns skating out, catching passes and taking shots on our goalie to warm him up. Been doing this for years.

Well, I missed catching one of my passes but the puck was somehow at my feet and I thought I’d do a cool quick turnaround and continue toward the net. The turnaround was cool but as I started forward again I must have caught an edge because I went SPLAT belly flop on the ice and landed spread eagle . Dang, the poor girls took the brunt of the impact. Could be some bruises tomorrow.

And I broke a nail too later on.

That’s a good game in my book…along with a few cool bruises.

I’m fascinated with corporate work cultures as a lot of you may know.  As a corporate worker myself, I dive in deep and do whatever I can to get acclimated, develop rapport and relationships and be productive/add value from day one wherever possible, but still in parallel try to hover above it all as an outside observer.  My work life has consisted of shorter-term consulting and contracting engagements since pulling the plug on a 7-year stint in 2006, so there’s been a lot of opportunity to zoom in and out.

And, it’s fueled my closet sociologist curiosity big time too.  Sigh…me and my virtual clipboard.

Over the last four years I’ve had the privilege of peeking under the hood into quite a few different companies…7 if you include both the companies themselves (plus their external clients if that was the focus.)  8 if you include the pro bono work I did earlier this year while I was job hunting – our team was working hard to get that fire lit – gathering kindling, gently shielding any possible sparks from rain or high winds to get a steady flame going.  Could it really turn into a paid work engagement?

In fact, the picture in today’s post is a shot of one of the work spaces our team camped in earlier this year.  Our CEO had a really cool part-time office suite arrangement.  Rather than sign a full-time monthly lease he used a management company that sets up temporary, as-needed office space for small businesses worldwide, so we’d be stationed either at this location or more downtown depending. I see my purse on the chair at far left – we’d just come back from a quick lunch.  Yes, the never-fails-me Louis Vuitton Saleya with the Damier brown check exterior and amazing red lining.  One of my favorite interviewing and work travel handbags.  Perhaps I carried it that day to bring a bit more ‘luck’ to our mix. 

I did a lot of interviewing over the past year and while it’s hard to describe – this is my first attempt ‘saying’ it in words – it utterly fascinates me how the same – THE SAME – place I stepped into as an interview candidate can flip from seeming so calm to an utter hair-on-fire 27-ring circus of madness after being there actually working and getting acclimated.

And I think back on the other places I’ve worked…some are super fast-paced while some – at least from my viewpoint – THINK they’re fast-paced but really aren’t.  Some places probably had happy dust flying around in the air ducts – people were so cheery and positive even when things were going to shit.  And other places with relative calm, steady-state operations, well, people found more time to bitch.  It’s hard to express all of this in words, but the contrasts just fascinate me.  Maybe I’ll keep working on this in future posts.

So, just how big is this new job “onion” anyway?  Right now the layers seem endless.

The same halls I walked as an interview candidate not knowing a soul save for the hiring manager I’d just shaken hands with are now full of people I engage with daily on TONS of open tasks, issues and challenges. And, hopefully time out for a good laugh to blow off steam.  Sense of urgency and sense of humor…those two rhythms burn deep in my being and I try to live them out to my best every day.

The same meetings I used to attend as a fly on the wall as a newbie are now chock full of things for me to do, develop, report on and present.  Long gone are those days of bliss when I was simply trying to follow discussions and understand the massive MASSIVE amounts of lingo and acronyms.  Oh, and learning the names and voices of those on the conference calls. The issues discussed used to mean nothing as I had zero context.  Now, casual comments or questions/concerns from the teams…now they are borderline keeping me up at night – or, more often than not – keeping me very busy during the day. 

I feel like I’m on a teeter totter that could start tipping either way…I remember the stress of not working for months and the unknowns waking up every day wondering if THIS would be the day that email or phone call would come through – The Next Gig.  And, fast forward nearly five months, I’m starting to feel the pressure.  We’ve got some major things launching in the near future.  Being comfortable being uncomfortable.

And so much has changed – my work tasks, my office location and a few faces have come and gone on the team too.  At this company, none of this is unusual in a relatively short timeframe.  In fact, if it wasn’t happening I’d be concerned.  So when the stress starts to boil upward in me during the workday, I take a moment to close my eyes and remember, “you’re getting PAID for this stress.”  When I get frustrated with someone’s behavior I take a moment to remember the same.

I rarely lay awake at night now mulling over open tasks or upcoming meetings.  That used to be a big part of my Sunday night routine in my mid/late 20s, especially when I was supervising teams.  Fast forward a few years and thanks to a little more wisdom plus taking up hockey, Sunday nights don’t stress me out so much anymore.  Plus, being a little older and having been through – and survived – many varieties of stressful situations, I can take things in stride.  And as my Dad so wisely told me many years ago, “you’ll feel better when you’re there working the problem.”  Meaning, don’t worry about it off the clock.  He’s right.

After all, we’re doing great things on this team, but we’re not curing cancer or ending world hunger.

Now it’s time for another cup of coffee and time to plunge into the weekend.  Oh Monday, I see you in the distance – your time will come soon enough. 

For now, it’s all about you, Saturday.

Perhaps it was my Mom’s innocent, last-minute slick of red lipstick on me at age 4 or so before a dance recital.  Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with makeup.

And I guess I’ve come a long way from secretly applying makeup in the bathroom in junior high when Mom wouldn’t let me wear it on a daily basis, haha. Sometimes she’d give me some huge bonus makeup collection that Estee Lauder or whomever was offering around the holidays and would let me wear makeup for special occasions like a party or night out.  By around 9th grade or so, I was wearing it daily and have pretty much done so ever since!

I’m just going with this fascination, addiction, obsession – whatever you want to call it.  I have no reason for where it comes from but it’s been a lifelong joy.  Maybe it’s partly because my eyes are fairly deepset and round, so I have a lot of ‘room’ so to speak of to experiment with eye makeup.

The pic here is my latest eyeshadow collection – believe me it’s come and gone over the years but I’m very proud of it. I know, I know…it’s a lot.  Well, actually this is pretty small potatoes to some of the other collections I’ve seen online and elsewhere.

So what do we have here?

On the far right are the 3 Urban Decay Books of Shadows.  Yes, I am proud to say I have acquired all 3!  The most recent NYC themed one just recently launched and after much debate I caved and purchased it.  For those who have not seen these books, they not only have a pull-out drawer of 16 shadows with samples of their 24/7 liners and Primer Potion, but also a decorative popup with a mirror.  Great fun – what’s not to love about pop-up?  Didn’t we all love pop-up books as a kid?  Not to mention the shadows are incredibly pigmented and gorgeous.  There are a few with a lot of shimmer and glitter and that can be a problem with ‘fallout’ onto your cheeks as it’s called, but if you use a good primer such as Urban Decay Primer Potion or MAC’s paint pots it really makes a difference.  Remember to pat on the shadow on the lid at first with your brush…don’t rub or sweep it on the lid.

Urban Decay is “beauty with an edge,” as their tagline says.  And, it’s true.  Look at those shadow colors.  They aren’t for the faint of heart.  BUT the great thing is that while many of them look very bright or intense, they’re very layerable.  And I love to pair up a bright shade on the lid with a more neutral color for the crease or outer v of my eye.

Now, the Urban Decay Naked palette is at bottom center of the picture.  This one has been flying off the shelves and has been all a-twitter out there on the blogs and chitchat I’ve seen/heard.  And, without question, it ROCKS.  These shadows are some of Urban Decay’s more neutral shades, and the case is a gorgeous brown velvet with a magnetic closure – perfect for travel or in your purse for touchups.  It also comes with a sample of their Primer Potion and a dual-ended 24/7 liner…one side is Zero (jet black) and the other is Whiskey (a rich brown).  The 24/7 liners are super creamy and perfect for lining the waterline (the area between your lashes and your eye itself), as they go on wonderfully without any pulling or tugging necessary.

The large, black, rectangular palettes at top and center are from MAC. I was a huge fan of MAC (and still am), long before Urban Decay started sneaking onto my radar, and, ultimately, into my wallet.  Hey, a little competition never hurt anyone. 

MAC also is known for dramatic and theatrical makeup, but if you scratch below the surface they are wonderful with great, basic neutrals too.  Again, I enjoy pairing up something more dark or dramatic with a neutral to temper it down.  I work in a corporate – and very casual – environment and my style is not what I’d call super trendy but a teensy bit of edge is fun.  MAC shadows come in individual black plastic pots with clear, plastic lids.  Awesomely bullet-proof for travel or just throwing in your purse.  The problem is, when you’ve got about – ahem – 50 or 55 of them, they take up a lot of real estate on your dresser. 

So, I purchased the black empty palettes you see in the picture and started de-potting.  Yes, this is an actual term…do an online search for “depotting MAC eye shadows” and you’ll likely see quite a few results. It involves knives, a flat iron and purchasing some flat magnets to stick on the back of the shadow pans once they’re depotted. Long story short it was a project, but I am very glad to have de-potted all of mine now into sleek, black palettes.  Going forward I will only purchase their pan eyeshadows – already depotted and magnetized – to just plop into that one palette that only has two lighter shades in it.  And, I have to say it, I only purchase MAC online or at my favorite MAC counter at the Bellevue Square Nordstrom, because those girls are fabulous.  The MAC store near me in Seattle…wayyyy too much attitude. I have no time for that shizz.

Oops, wait, I see there are a few MAC quads in there too.  One was custom (the palette came empty, the one that has the brighter blue/green/yellow shades in them…part of my de-potting project) and the other two were special edition collections…Spiced Chocolate (the browns/berries) from the Cult of Cherry collection, and Photo Realism (the soft greens).  The danger with pre-made eyeshadow quads is that there is at least one of the shades that is a total bust that you never use.  So, a waste of money.  However, these pre-made palettes are the exception so we’re good there.

The 4-shadow MAC quad directly above the Naked palette is from MAC’s Hello Kitty collection, which was another major hit in early 2009.  My quad is the Too Dolly quad and I really only use the light creamy shade right now (Yogurt, which is also in MAC’s permanent eyeshadow collection).  Yeah, I fell for the cute packaging and all – rare for me but I admit it.  C’mon, it’s Hello Kitty, people. What’s not to love?

Let’s see, what else do we have here…oh, just to the left of the Naked palette is LORAC’s Color Me Couture.  It was a special offering from Sephora awhile back and I jumped all over it.  Never mind the gorgeous velvet and sequin packaging (which you can’t see in this picture)…LORAC shadows are amazing.  In fact, I was seriously into LORAC well before MAC come to think of it.  As you can see, these shadows are rich, smokey neutrals and are just amazing to play with.  The dual-ended brush that comes with it is a little dorky (most are dorky with palettes like these – invest in your own wonderful brushes and skip the chintz) but the shadow quality is excellent and the shades are wonderful.

Above the LORAC palette are two Stila quads…one pre-made and one I built custom.  The Stila Original Smokey Eye Talking Palette is a novelty out there, as you press a button inside the palette and a pre-recorded voice tells you how to use the shades!  Love this!

I guess the smokey eye trend is still alive and well even after a couple or three years.  It’s a very fun look, but it takes a lot of practice, good brushes, technique and blending.  I used this “original” palette tons of times when I was job interviewing over the last year or so…doing my signature “corporate smokey” look…meaning, a little makeup for punch/panache but not too dramatic.  And it was always a hit for work travel too.

The custom Stila palette (built from me choosing the shadows I wanted to plop into the magnetized palette) are more metallic neutrals and a wonderful shimmery plum shade that is great with my hazel colored eyes. I got inspired watching a YouTube tutorial by someone who has similar coloring!

And continuing upward in the picture are the two small Chanel quads, both from special collections.  I hate to admit I spent nearly $60 on these – apiece – which is less than I spent on the Urban Decay Naked palette or any of the Books of Shadows. 

Chanel, I expected more.  Your products rock – love the makeup primer, mascaras and perfume.  The eyeshadows, notsomuch.  These have been far too powdery and flyaway on me – disappointing for sure.

And beyond this there are many more eyeshadow brands I’m intrigued with…Kat von D, Smashbox and Makeup For Ever for starters.  I am a fan of their other products but haven’t ventured into the eyeshadows just yet.

On the other hand, I’ve got enough to keep me busy for awhile.

My debit card went whooooooosh as I swiped it to purchase a new refrigerator earlier this week!  I did not expect to need a new fridge right now as my current one is barely 8 years old.  Aren’t major appliances supposed to last longer than that? 

A couple weeks ago I noticed something seemed a little off or weird when I opened my fridge but I didn’t think anything of it.  Then, the next day it was obvious.  Everything was starting to smell ripe and all the ice in the freezer had melted.  The fans sounded normal and the lights were on but no more cooling or freezing was going on.

I tried the trick I did when I thought my dryer had stopped producing heat – a quick off and on flip of the circuit breaker switch was the secret – for now.  Presto – the dryer dries with heat again!

Not so much for the fridge/freezer.

Ugh.  I did some research online and talked to a few people who said yeah, it’s likely the compressor that has failed.  And replacing it is about half the cost of just getting a new fridge.  So after mentally grumbling about this I made a note to cancel the repair appointment I’d scheduled.  I decided I was just going to bite the bullet and get a new fridge.  No need to pay someone $100ish to tell me I need a new fridge, right?

I tried to reason with myself and think things like hey, it’s not the holidays, you’re not entertaining 20 people for dinner any time soon, so being sans fridge is OK, although a huge temporary pain in the ass. And it’s the equinox/start of fall this week, which is is a wonderful time for changes and new beginnings.

I did more looking around online and had a few models picked out, plus I knew what my must-haves would be: white on white and a bottom freezer drawer. 

And, I waited a bit before making my purchase.  I’ve been working hard to rebuild savings since getting back to work and really didn’t want to shuffle too much around, nor did I want to use credit cards.  So, I made it a good week plus with no fridge and just used a small, portable cooler with ice for perishables.  I researched online to get an idea of prices and all, and…more grumbling…started throwing away food that had gone bad.  Thankfully I had not had to do this since our big storm and blackout of 2006.  Many homes around here were without power for over a week that winter, and it was likely warmer by that time in my fridge than in the rest of my townhouse.  I hate throwing away food but there was no choice then or now.

So yes, admittedly, part of my reason for waiting to purchase was for another paycheck to hit my bank account.  Once that happened I set off ready to make a deal. I knew what I wanted and how much I wanted to spend.

I was surprised at how many discounts I got at the store.  They were already offering 15% off all major appliances and would have even deeper discounts soon after, which they promised to credit back to me.  Free delivery!  Free removal of my old fridge!  A $75 credit from the state of Washington as part of an incentive to get older, less energy-efficient appliances off the grid permanently.  AND a $100 gift card from the store itself!  I will likely use it toward a smaller, backup fridge which will go down in my garage.

And what a segue…my garage.  We’ll get back to that in a second.

Keep in mind that after a week or more with a no-good fridge it becomes prime for science experiments.  As in MAJOR MOLD.  When the sales associate told me I would need to write down the model and serial number of the fridge I was getting rid of for the state of Washington credit program paperwork, I about died knowing I’d have to open that fridge yet again.  So when I did that later in the evening I first opened the back slider door off my kitchen to get some fresh air, tied a bandanna I wear for hockey around my nose and mouth, held my breath, opened the fridge which now REEKS to high heaven, and jotted down the numbers.

I sure hope I won’t have a toxic mold situation in the house here.  I don’t plan to open that fridge ever again.

Fast forward to today and woo hoo!  The new fridge was on its way for delivery.  The two guys showed up, very nice and friendly, and I showed them where the old fridge was.  They had a plastic floor mat ready to slide the old one out and get it ready to haul away.

But then one of them asked a seemingly innocent question: is there a shut-off valve for your waterline?  [I have an icemaker in the freezer, so the unit is hooked with a copper waterline off of the water heater down in the garage – pretty typical stuff].   He pulled my old fridge away from the wall and his face fell – there was no waterline shutoff valve on the back of the fridge.

What does this mean???  His delivery partner came into my house and the two of them explained that they could not remove my old fridge because there was no water shutoff t-valve on the back of the unit.  And correcting that was something they are not authorized to do.

I stood there in my kitchen, looked at the two guys, looked at my fridge and just said FUCK.

What did it all come down to?  A fucking t-valve. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.

And how fucking ironic that it was this SAME company’s delivery people who installed this very water line those 8 years ago!  Now, due to liability they can’t do that any longer, and due to code changes that work isn’t even acceptable any longer!  Can you believe this, people?  I explained this to them and who knows if they understood or cared.  I know it’s not their fault.  Times change and I’m pretty much a ditz with how things are supposed to be installed and set up.  They’re just supposed to WORK, dammit!

And how ironic a 22 cubic foot machine that was once a fabulous refrigerator has now been reduced to a disgustingly huge mold-hosting box, all for the sake of a missing t-valve water shut-off switch.  Which is likely going to be $100+ for me to have a plumber come out and install on an already now worthless old fridge.  I’ve got a voicemail into the guy who’s done a lot of small repair projects for me over the years so hopefully he is around and can help.

So…in the meantime we put the new fridge down in my garage, one floor down from my kitchen.  It’s plugged in and nice and cool inside, but I am reluctant to re-stock it with food.  Because once I get the t-valve on the old fridge installed I will then have to have the delivery guys come back, remove my old fridge and move the new one from the garage up to the kitchen where it belongs.  So I’ll have to empty out the new fridge beforehand.  Believe me, they are coming back to fix this problem for free – no question there.

OK, through all of this I do try to keep a sense of humor, but believe me, I’m frustrated.  I expected this fridge/freezer to last longer than 8 years. I take a teensy amount of comfort knowing this situation with an old-school-not-up-to-code-waterline-hookup is not unique; the guys told me they run into this very same problem every couple of weeks or so.  I also just recently had to replace my cell phone as it also died after just two years (battery wouldn’t hold a charge).  I’m thankful I can afford to make these changes but am frustrated that things are not lasting as long as I thought they would.

And now I have a perfectly beautiful new fridge down in the midst of my junky garage I’ve procrastinated cleaning out for over a year.

Guess this is another reminder to pay attention to my garage, just like the garage door karma issue earlier this year!

Ummm, OK.  So I wrote earlier (see “Extremely North”) about my bewildering love of the Arctic and my crazy-ass dream to someday take a guided tour through Spitsbergen.

And it’s been a good but tiring workweek so I am at home, relaxing and felt like having popcorn for dinner.  So, I did.  Geez, normally September here in the Seattle area is a summer-like “Indian Summer” (is that even politically correct as a term nowadays??) even if our normal summer is crappy.  But nope, the fog in the morning and clouds/drizzle during the day are here in full force.  Call this summer a bust save for a few days in late July or so.  I lit my giant 3-wick candle on the hearth, I hear the rain glistening and tickling outside and look forward to a glorious, relaxing evening in.  Yep, time to recharge.  Tomorrow night it’s out for dinner downtown and dressed up for a show at the Paramount Theatre, so I’m OK with slouching around tonight.

My DVD collection is rather sparse…I have 5 to be exact. Yeah, movie buffs out there you are likely shocked, but I’m really not into movies.  When I do go to one, I’ll see it in the theatre and really don’t feel a need to “own” it in a personal library.  I do enjoy On Demand and the occasional rental but for the most part I am an eat/drink/conversation girl when I go out (or stay in) and watching a movie isn’t my top choice.

OK back on track here…my DVDs consist of:  the Jillian Michaels 30-day Shred workout, a documentary by Spike Lee called When the Levees Broke, which is an OUTSTANDING collection of film footage, interviews, heroes and blunders from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a (Brazilian) Portuguese series of language lessons, the Cosmos TV series (from PBS, narrated by the late, great genius Carl Sagan c. 1980) and, now, my Norwegian lessons.  Although let me back up – whoops – for these Norwegian lessons are just on audio CD as supplements to my textbook, not DVDs.  So, wow…I guess I only have 4 DVDs actually!  What else would I add to my sparse collection?  Hmmm, probably the Sex and the City complete TV series.  Never get tired of watching those shows…and I was late to the party as I didn’t have HBO until well after the series wrapped.

So…back to the Norwegian.  I know that most Scandinavian nations have a good grasp of English as a 2nd or perhaps 3rd/4th language but I am determined, if I’m going to do this Spitsbergen trip one of these years, to learn a fair amount of Norwegian so I can hear/read what’s around me and, hopefully, carry on some decent conversations.  Plus I have a pretty good ear for languages, despite not a drop of Nordic blood in me that I’m aware of.

Snakker du norsk?  (Do you speak Norwegian?)  Right now, “…jeg kan snakke litt norsk.” (I can speak a little norwegian).  Maybe “miniscule” is better than a little for now.

I sit on my couch, book in hand, CD playing and repeat along with dialogues.  I always wonder how “real” a lot of these foreign language lessons really are with street cred.  Meaning, do the words/phrases sound super dippy or formal in real life?  Still, I find it valuable, along with understanding the pronounciations of consonants, vowels and letter combinations. 

My next lesson is dialogue about making breakfast together.  Og vi skal lage norsk frokost.  “We will make a Norwegian breakfast.”

Anyway, I’m having fun dabbling and speaking along with the dialogues.  And breakfast sounds good – why am I so hungry after a big lunch today and popcorn for dinner?

Until next time…vi sees!

September 14th marks my 1 year anniversary of this Blog launch!  Woweee!!  Weeeeeeeeee!!

And how fitting – and how completely, deliciously by accident – that my Blog is a Virgo.  You see, I’m a Taurus, a fellow earth sign, AND my rising (secondary) sign is Virgo.  Guess there really are no coincidences eh?  That was totally NOT part of the reason – to launch sometime in Virgo land.  It just WAS and IS and happened that way.

Yep, I love me some Virgos.  I have a lot of great friends who are Virgos and come to think of it the last guy I dated for more than 6 months or so was a Virgo…hmmm…anyway lots of good chemistry for me no matter how you slice it.

So.  I think back to mid September 2009 and how I was out of work (and had been since end of that July).  The “vacation” after wrapping up a busy work assignment was nice, for awhile, but at this point it was starting to get boring.  And annoying.

And I remember taking the plunge in here, so excited and yet so not knowing what to write.  I wrote something like…I have NO idea what’s going to happen in here.  And I like that.  Yep, that’s pretty much me whenever I plunge into something new.  Especially something like this Blog, where I do it for sheer joy and relaxation.  And not with any intent to reach a certain audience nor to necessarily please anyone.  I’ve developed a small handful of Followers along the way, and for that I am most excited and grateful!  And a few of you out there have randomly stumbled in here…if you have for the first or umpteenth time, welcome!

For what it’s worth, I just go with what’s on my mind and write in here.  I try to show some decency with grammar and punctuation but on the other hand there are no rules in here.  So I probably have a gaffe or two out there but I don’t give a fuck really.  I do sometimes go back and tweak/edit but for the most part it’s not necessary.  The words and thoughts just roll out of my brain on the first try into my fingers and here I am.

I’m just happy to still be doing this after a year of pretty consistent posting.  And I definitely plan to continue.  And continue the randomness.  I think I’ve got stuff in here from job searching woes to travel lust to men lust to makeup reviews, 5Ks…yeah the idea to name this blog “random crap” was out there but I’m glad I stuck with fivenineteen as that’s more my personal Brand overall. 

Who knows where this will evolve, but again that’s not the point of this Blog.  Whatever happens, happens.

Meanwhile, join me in a happy First Birthday Toast!  My best to all of you out there for your attention, support and good wishes.

I pressed my face against the airplane window in complete awe of what was below me.  And I thought, “Can’t we just stop here for a bit?”

It was the summer of 1985 and I was fresh out of high school and on a plane from Seattle to Amsterdam with a group of 40 headed for a 6-week tour of eastern Europe and what is now the former Soviet Union.

We were probably 30,000+ feet above northern Canada or Greenland, for the polar flight route saves a little time (but it’s still a 9-hour flight or so).  And the view below of ice, snow and pristine waters just hypnotized me.  I’ve always had a passion for maps, geography and looking at pictures of places around the world, but here it was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!  OK, well, from high up in a plane but still it wasn’t a photo this time!  Real life!

Was anyone living down there?  What’s it like? 

Fast forward 24 years or so and I stumbled upon an article on cnn.com about Shishmaref, Alaska…a small town on a barrier island in remote Alaska – kind of near Nome – that is slowly washing away into the sea due to climate change.  The permanent sea ice is now starting to melt, so the strong storms they are used to having are now tearing away at their land. The town is at risk of losing their unique way of life, culture and language dialect should they eventually have to leave and completely relocate elsewhere.  Can you imagine? And the sheer expense of relocating a town…yikes.

So whether you believe that global climate change is something of a natural cycle in the universe (the Ice Ages are thought to be a phenomenon of our solar system passing in and out of an arm of our galaxy every 40,000 years or so – no joke), or something caused by humans – or perhaps both?  Well, SOMETHING is happening in Shishmaref.  Something severe enough to threaten hundreds of years of generations and history to just wash away into the sea. And that Something is happening in several other parts of the world.

I’m not one to get into the politics or debate over climate change.  Let’s deal with the facts and DO something – if we can.  I guess stumbling upon that article last fall reawakened some interest I’d likely shelved since that flight to Amsterdam over Greenland so many years ago.

Guess I’m a budding Arctic scholar here!

I’ve dived (dove?) in head first, doing a ton of reading and research online and with books, learning all I can about the Arctic and the uniqueness of it.  There are so many things to learn about…the geography, the issues with climate change, issues with the indigenous peoples, languages, flora and fauna, the courage and drama to find and sail the Northwest Passage, the long-elusive sea trading route…simply endless! Even a land dispute or two [look up “Hans Island” and you’ll see what I mean]!  Simply fascinating!  Who knew an uninhabited rock in a far-northern strait would be the cause of such controversy between Canada and Greenland (Denmark).

This is one of those things where I don’t question WHY I have this interest.  I don’t have any northern/Nordic family ancestry to my knowledge.  But this interest burns strong enough in me to where I just GO and DO. 

So my latest wild-hair trip I’m dreaming of is a trip to…Spitsbergen! Or Svaalbard, rather.  I hear the sea kayaking is incredible.  Now, now…I’ve learned a thing or two in all this reading I’ve been doing.  First of all, you need to find this place on a map. Hint:  it’s the archipelago north of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

The Arctic is not just snow, ice, igloos and polar bears.  Surprisingly, as far north as Spitsbergen is, there is enough Gulf Stream activity in the ocean nearby so it is somewhat “warm” in the summer…meaning in the low 40s F (6-7c) for high temperatures.  Remember, we’re talking 78 degrees north latitude, so those temps in the summer are downright balmy by comparison.  See the picture in this post?  That’s the town of Longyearbyen, with a population of over 2000!

I don’t know what in hell has possessed me to think about a trip like this, but at the earliest it would be in summer 2011.  Lord knows it would be an expensive, 5-figure and once in a lifetime, unforgettable trip.  My house will likely need a new roof next year and of all things my refrigerator and freezer have decided to stop working in the past couple of days.  Hmmm, how ironic, for here I’m dreaming about a COLD adventure and yet right here at home my chief source of COLD has apparently crapped out.

I’ll likely have more to blog about in this quest/dream for a high Arctic excursion one of these summers.  Until then, I was supposed to go to a big party tonight but have some mild stomach problems so I’m going to take a pass.

Instead I will crack open a new book I just ordered about how to speak Norwegian.  If I’m going to do this trip some day, might as well be prepared.

This is one of those extremely rare weekends where I have absolutely nothing planned.  And you know, that’s actually pretty refreshing.  I pride myself on keeping busy both at work and with weekend activities, but ya gotta take time to recharge the batteries too.

So, it’s Saturday and a long weekend with the Labor Day holiday upcoming on Monday.  I just got back from getting a little, ahem, personal maintenance done at my favorite spa.  A little waxing upstairs and downstairs does wonders, believe me.  I also get the (colorless but aging) peach fuzz waxed off above my eyebrows a few times a year and the skin stays very red and swollen for a couple days, enough to where I wear sunglasses inside in a store if I’m running errands.  Acting very chic and mysterious, like a celebrity who just had plastic surgery, ha ha. Other than that, I’m a blank slate the next few days.  I also have four new books about the Arctic (issues with the peoples, changing climate, tourism in Spitsbergen/Svalbard – which sounds incredibly appealing actually), but that’s another post for another time.

What were we talking about here?  Oh yeah, hockey.  Hockey memories.  This is the inbetween season time both for the NHL and for us adult beer league players alike.  Is it October yet?  Lots of time to reflect meanwhile.

Some of you may know the story already on how taking up (ice) hockey was probably THE most random, spontaneous thing I’ve ever started doing in my adult life.  This is a girl who never did team sports in school, save for some attempts at track & field in junior high.  I was into music.  Big time.  Singing in choirs, piano, performing, touring – that was my schtick all through high school and college. 

It was 2003 and I was 36 and a svelte size 6 after peeling off about 35 lbs by walking a few miles a day, every day for a few months.  I could not believe how I’d transformed myself and felt this inner urge to DO something more to keep pushing myself physically and mentally.  A new group moved into the building I was working in at the time – a group not connected with mine but we got acquainted just being right next to eachother in the hallway.  It was through that I became friends with D and she asked me if I wanted to start an adult beginner hockey class with her and I said YES!  She’d moved here from out of state and really wanted to get into it again.

In fact, I think I was considering taking up belly dancing at about this same time, thanks to my good friend J who’d been doing it for years and just loving it.  Yep, belly dancing was actually high on the list.  But hockey swooped in and trumped it.

We had an orientation session a couple weeks before the classes started to get paperwork done, pay our fees and learn about the equipment we’d need to buy.  I remember heading to that session at one of the rinks here in the area, opening the door to the rink itself (which was solid, no windows) and getting a WHOOOSH rush of cold air and noise smack in the face!  Wow!  There was a big drills session going on and I watched in awe.  Was *I* going to be doing this eventually someday?  I couldn’t believe it was even possible!  I hadn’t set foot in a rink in years and the last time I was on ice skates was probably over 10 years ago with my boyfriend at the time at one of the small outdoor rinks they have for public skating during the holidays.  Come to think of it, I tripped and fell pretty hard on my front too, enough to where I swear I bounced.  Ouch.

A few days after the orientation session I came back to that rink’s pro shop, equipment list in hand and credit card ready.  The girl in the shop asked me “how tall” and motioned with her palm face down, moving it up and down.  Oh my God!  She thought I needed to buy equipment for a child!  I laughed and said, no, actually this stuff is for me.  After she gave me a split second funny look (hey, don’t all suburban 30-something blonde chicks randomly take up hockey? Come on!) we got down to business.

I practiced suiting up at home (sans skates) and couldn’t get over how big and bulky I felt! 

For those who may not be familiar with all the padding that goes on under your hockey jersey, take a gander:
– “Jill” jock short.  Yes, guys, us ladies need protection down there too.  This is a mesh short with a hard, curved cup to cover the cooch sewn in.  There are velcro strips at the leg openings front and back where you attach your socks but we’ll get to that.
– Shin pads (which also cover the knees)
– Elbow pads
– Shoulder/chest pads
– Hockey pants (these resemble bulky shorts, for the legs and butt area are heavily padded.  The pants are also very high waisted with extra padding for the kidneys in back and the abdominal area up front.  “Do these pants make my butt look huge?”  Why, yes they sure do.  This ain’t about glamour, people.
– Socks.  Hockey socks are pretty much long, knit tubes.  You put them over your shin pads and attach them either to the velcro on your jock/jill short like I do, or some people use a sport garter belt with clips.  Either works.
– Gloves.  Hockey gloves are like scaled-down boxing gloves but with individual fingers.  The thumb pocket is extremely stiff to prevent your thumb from hyper-extending.  And the gloves pretty much keep your hands rigid since you are holding your stick 99.9% of the time.
– Helmet
– And of course, skates.
– A stick, a spare stick and stick tape.
– Sock tape. You put a few rings of this over your socks to keep your shin pads tight and flush against your legs.
– Gear bag to tote it all!
– Long sleeved, synthetic knit t-shirts and running tights.  Totally personal preference but for me this is essential.  I refuse to put on gear and pads over bare skin.  Plus it helps in a co-ed locker room situation…I can suit up but stay covered up.

I got good advice early on…spend money on your skates and your helmet.  Because if your skates don’t fit correctly your feet will be miserable, which makes YOU miserable.  And the helmet?  Enough said. Everything else can be bought second hand or fairly cheap.

Jerseys…or “sweaters” if you use the old school term.  Because hockey was played outside wearing actual, yes, sweaters.  And the name stuck.

Over the years I’ve acquired quite an impressive collection of jerseys (and socks).  I can brush my fingers over them as they hang in my closet and feel the memories tingling into my fingers.

There’s the red, white and black ‘house’ jerseys we got after finishing the beginner hockey clinic.  The league split our class into two equally-matched teams and we were on our way, joining the most novice team division about halfway through the season.  I’ll NEVER forget the adrenaline rushes…hitting the ice for the first time, struggling to learn to skate, pass, shoot, stop…and I was probably walking on air the whole day before our very first “official” league game.

Now, it’s all still a joy, but in a habit and lifestyle way. Seven years later, I’m still smiling.

And our first “real” team jerseys, complete with our names on the back, a team logo, numbers, the whole works.  A few tournament jerseys, including a couple from a womens tournament a few of us take part in in Vegas every January!  Charity team jerseys for the Hockey Challenge, a benefit for the local Ronald McDonald House here in Seattle.

You know, one thing that I didn’t expect about taking up hockey was the time committment.  And the cuh-razy game start times we can have.  Sunday night game, face-off at 9:30 or 10pm?  At a rink a 40 minute drive away?  Yep, it’s possible alright.  Games last about 90 minutes and if you include the time to drive, suit up, warm up with your team, play, change and drive home that’s a few hours.  Hours well spent!

I used to get really stressed out on Sunday nights.  I’d go over work issues in my head and dread the thought of getting up in the morning and going to work.  But once hockey entered my life it punctured all of that stress right out.  Because most of our beginner clinic practices (and later my division’s games) were on Sunday nights.  So my typical pre-hockey Sunday night routine totally got turned upside down and I couldn’t be happier.  I’m single with no kids and I could sit on the couch by myself, watching TV or just veging out…OR I could be out on the ice with super fun people, playing a super fun game…and getting some exercise too! 

When I am out on the ice, nothing else matters.  For you really, really need to focus on the game.  Especially for someone like me where this does not come naturally.  And I get a lot of funny looks when I talk about our late start times on Sundays or even during the week, depending.  Thankfully over the years I’ve worked in places where you can start a tad later in the morning than is traditional.  And lots of people at this company play hockey (or other team sports) and understand the lifestyle.

This season there are changes coming up, for I’ve hooked up with a brand new team.  After 7 years I absolutely adore my original team, and quite a few of us have stayed on since we got started way back when.  People come and go over time but we’ve stayed pretty consistent.  Only now we’ve advanced to a level in the league where I can’t really participate effectively.  Gosh, I remember how I used to skate (practices, scrimmages, league games) a good 3 or 4 nights a week.   I just don’t do that anymore, and as a result my skills have plateau’d.

I was a little worried about cutting ties and moving on, as much as it was very necessary.  Could I get on board with a new team before fall season?  I know a ton of people in the league…can I just pimp myself out shamelessly and avoid having to go to a new player draft?

Lo and behold, the Hockey Gods listened.  And delivered.  There is a hockey player email distribution list at work – for purely social purposes of course.  And an email came out asking for people who would be interested in joining a brand new team…at a skill level right in my sweet spot!  SCORE!! 

We had a meet and greet skate earlier this week at one of the rinks in the area, and about 6 of us showed up.  Super fun and nice people, and I can’t wait for the season to start!  And to see what our new team logo will look like.  We do know our sweaters and socks will be the blue, green and white of the Vancouver Canucks (which happens to be my favorite NHL team as apparently it is of our founder and Captain!).  Nice.

I chuckle at how awkward I felt the first few times I suited up in all that gear.  And how now it’s kinetic habit to suit up and I’m fully used to how it feels and how sweaty I get as a result after a hard fought game on the ice.  Our meet and greet skate (which was during a public skate so we wore street clothes)?  Oh man…I hadn’t skated sans gear in years and it felt so strange!

And boy I am glad I have a garage.  Because there’s nothing worse than Hockey Funk…the inevitable stink that permeates your gear over time, no matter how much you air it out afterwards.  I’ve washed my gear and pads in a bathtub with liquid dishwasher soap a few times over the years.

Hmmm…maybe I DO have something planned this weekend after all.  Hockey gear suds fest!