Why have a birthDAY when you can have...

(for my hockey team, the inspirational reminder...)

My Fellow Dragons:

In honour of Birthday Week, my kind, lovely wife allowed me to have a three and a half hour nap this afternoon.

(Okay, it may also have been due to me getting up with her yesterday at six a.m. to drive her into Toronto (in the rain) so she could be at work for 8:30 when I didn't have to be in until 9:30.  And it may have been because she then got to sleep on the drive home as I drove in DVP/404 Friday traffic, in the foggy rain, with the sense that a sinister succubus was tailgating my soul the entire way.  So -- nap on the way into work + sleep on the way home = nap for Kevin on Saturday afternoon.  Or it might have been the fact that she has final accepted the celebration known as Birthday Week.)

For those uninitiated and unaware of the wonders of Birthday Week, it is the natural and at times necessary extension of the birthDAY celebration into a week-long bonanza of birthday goodness.

As an illustration, last week my lovely wife and I were at a store and she made a joke at my expense, to which I exclaimed, "Whoa!  Hold it!  Birthday week!  You can't say that!"

My patient, lovely wife then explained to the cashier that it was my birthday on Sunday and somehow I felt entitled to a week-long celebration.  I then explained to the cashier that when one's birthday is so close to Christmas and New Year's that people tend to lose sight of it, Birthday Week is a natural response.

My wife looked at the cashier for support.  The cashier responded quite calmly, "I celebrate Birthday Month."  My wife was speechless and looked aghast at the thought.  

The truth of the matter is this: I believe if you meet the right person at the right time, that stranger's birthday gluttony can make my mere birthday indulgence look reasonable in comparison.  I believe that the notion of Birthday MONTH has cemented the significantly more manageable Birthday WEEK into an annual January event.
Thank you greedy cashier lady for my making my tiny and yet petulant pouts of self-centred egotism look acceptable.  Without people like you, my birthday would only last for a day.

GENTLEMEN...

Alas, today is in fact the last day of Birthday Week.  So on Sunday there will be no reason to service me with the tremendous hockey pleasure I was given last week.

Last week was a birthday hockey present unlike any I have received before: a 11-6 shellacking delivered to our opponents -- a game where almost every player on the ice managed to get a point on the game sheet (sorry Sean), a game where Brent scored six goals and then offered to donate three of them to me so I could have a birthday hat trick, a game where the third period saw dogs sleep with cats, Charlie Brown finally kick the football, defensemen play forward and forwards drop back to defence -- all without causing any kind of birthday, Epiphany-iotic apocalypse.  Well done, gentlemen; well done.

This week we leave the beauty of the MC Centre behind us as we head to the much-much smaller, much-much dingier Rinx 1.

There, on the infamous 'girl rink' we will battle the Jets -- a team that we beat after coming back from a 1-4 deficit to win 7-5.  

Is anyone expecting a victory like last week's? -- oh gawd, I hope not.  I am hard-pressed to remember a previous Dragons victory like last Sunday's game.  I think it's been done *to* us, but I don't recall us delivering such a spanking to another team.  And a six game unbeaten streak? I can't remember that, either.  But as the Cajun French say, "Laissez les bons temps rouler."

Sunday early evening in Rinx 1.  

Mark is out for a bit (appendectomy and then the flu will do that to a guy -- heal up, dude!) but I hope everyone else is in non-surgical, non-vomitous good health.

Let us know if you cannot attend.  

Otherwise, let the non-Birthday Week year continue with Dragons joy!

All the best,

Kevin.