Cold

When I went to see the nurse for my blood and urine test I was wearing a read shirt, she told me that it would be a great shirt to wear on Valentine’s day the week after, which immediately led her to ponder the great meaning of this day. I was dreading some love soaked Hallmark wisdom, but on the contrary, to her Valentine’s day meant the start of spring. Perhaps I just happen to have picked the wrong year to come to Cincinnati (because it could not have been the lack of life experience of the nurse), but Valentine’s day came and went, but no spring (at least according to my definition), one week passed – no spring, another… Yes, sure we have had some pretty good days, but spring? Untill, last Monday. Sunshine and temperatures in the 70ies (which would translate into ‘above 20 degrees’ on the Celsius scale). I was sure, spring was here. But then when I opened the curtains on Wednesday morning and looked at the skies, ‘tornado’ was the first thing that came to mind. No funnel or anything, but I recognized the greenish shade that suggest ideal circumstances for tornado’s, but by the time I had to go to work it looked better already. Since I have not any access to an outside view from my cubicle, I did not notice what was going on outside, but during lunch the weather was rainy, but nothing worse. We did get an e-mail though to check the weather before leaving, because there was a tornado warning depending on what direction you were going. Some hours later (tornado was not really on my mind anymore), my colleagues told me we had to go downstairs, but they could not tell me why. And of course, if I’m not convinced by good arguments or reasoning, I am just not very inclined to comply. Later I heard that it had indeed something to do with a tornado alarm (which was not audible where I was btw), but since I am not close to a window, I do not thing I have been in any great danger anyway. I have however been cold. That evening it was freezing, snowing and hailing. Winter all over again and it has been like that for days now. Unfortunately it was not only cold, but due to my principles that I do not go back to a winter coat once I have worn my summer coat I do not have the proper means to protect me from all this.
I do however think that all this is part of a bigger plan. Me and some colleagues had bought tickets for a hockey game this weekend (to clarify for my Dutch audience, here ‘hockey’ usually means ‘ice hockey’, and what we call ‘hockey’ they call ‘field hockey’ here), and temperatures in the 70ies would not really fit in this picture. The game started of pretty exciting. On the ice twelve REAL men ready to be body checked and a whole bunch more of them on the benches only 4 or 5 rows in front of us (yes we had great seats). I’ve already been to some games in Sweden and it was just like I remembered, it’s an amazingly quick game and masculine. And the Americans know how to build an atmosphere during sports events. Lots of loud music which is already enough to make me want to move. During the first break I was really getting into it and then when the camera men was right in front of us, my colleague said ‘let’s try to get in the picture’, she did not really want to play however, but I of course was willing to take that challenge. Basically I was already moving my feet, tapping my hands and shaking my hips, the only thing I needed to do was get up and continue doing what I did. And …. YES, I did get a solo shot on the center console!!! Of course I don’t have proof of it, since my enthusiastic picture-taking colleague that took at least 100 pictures that evening, only cheered and forgot to capture my 5 seconds of console fame. So you just have to take my word for it.
Towards the end of the second period ‘our’ Cincinnati Cyclones were down 0 to 6 and that is when all the testosterone turned ugly. Numerous fights on the ice, and the audience was only cheering when there was fighting. Third (and last) period all the atmosphere was gone, people were complaining and yelling at the teams. Unfortunately, the cyclones were not granted one single goal and the Tolledo Walleyes even scored the 7th. In the final seconds of the game one of ‘our’ players just launched the puck into the people (not wearing full protection) on the bench of the other team, which quite rightfully so, was not received well by the other team. And when the winning team left the ice, Cincinnati fans were standing behind the fence there yelling all kinds of profanities at them. I can see how people were let down by such bad results, but that does not call for people being such bad sports. Really disappointing at the end of a fun night.
Then when we walked back to the car, not only was there the icy, freezing wind we had before, snow had also been added to the equation. Lucky me, not only was I wearing my winter coat, I also still had my gloves in the pockets (I also had a scarf, but technically that is not part of the principle, it is allowed even with the summer coat). So final scores at the end of the night:
Cincinnati Cyclones vs Tolledo Walleyes : 0 – 7
Elke vs principles: 0 – 2 (for the not so loyal followers of my blog; I already asked the personal trainer in my gym how he was doing a couple of weeks ago, while I couldn’t care less about how he was doing)