I know I owe a couple of people messages, among other things, but please be patient with me. I've just suddenly moved house, taken on another job and stepped back into the land of no internet. Unless you count a slower dial up than even I could ever imagine.

I shall resume normal programming in a week or two.

So much to tell....

Step 1. Get a big hat. Wait. No, start again.

Step 1. Start scoring for the local hockey league.

Step 2. Find a player that sets your hormones pumping and doesn't smell like old socks when he gets slammed into the boards right in front of you. In this case we'll call him Number 2, since I have no imagination.

Step 3. Wait until he sets a very specific other player up for a goal and...

Step 4. When the ref skates off after saying "69 from 2" accidentally say out loud. "That would be a very fine thing."

Step 5. Duck.

Or you could just wait until she's criticising the goalie and says, "He goes down every time he even thinks somethings going to happen." and tell her, "Great boyfriend, bad goalie."

Do both in one night and she may just end up catatonic.

You all know how much I love Marc-Andre Fleury, right?

Even so, I'm aware of his... consistency issues. He's either brilliant or he sucks and not in the good way. (That I know of for sure, although I have my suspicions.)

He sucked at the beginning of last season and just when he started not sucking as loudly, he got hurt. Dany Sabourin decided someone had to suck in goal, so took on that role.

Ty Conklin to the rescue!!!!

Then Flower came back and maybe he was too busy sucking Max after all the injury/bonding time, but he didn't suck at hockey at all and Ty Conklin was a big part of that.

Best back up to the back up EVER!

Now he's gone. To the enemy, no less. I haven't forgotten that I had some love for the Red Wings once, but because of that, I'm even angrier at them for killing my Penguins. Now they've twisted the knife and rubbed salt into the wound.

Ryan Malone. The Penguin of my dreams. Literally. I don't know how many times I've been dreaming of odd things and Ryan Malone has turned up in the most ridiculous way to make sense of it all. Except for the time I had to bail him out for pot possession...

He's now a Tampa Bay Lightning player. What do you even call them? He used to be a Penguin, now he's what? A Lightning? Pffft. Total loss of coolness. I just hope he lives up to his last season. The guy has balls and I will miss them.

Georges Laraque is probably a goner, too. I'll miss his personality more than his skill, but still...

The jury's still out on many more. I'll either squee or mourn for them as the news breaks.

Here's hoping Ray Shero can make the right decisions. I'll forgive him for breaking my heart only if the Pens go one better next season.

I've been having a run of bad luck that has me wondering what I did that was nasty. I know I'm behind on some stuff I was meaning to send off, but I don't think I've tortured or maimed anyone lately...( Shit that happened. )

So whoever or whatever I've been horrible to, I'm sorry. I'm starting to get really bored with drama now and I fail to be surprised by anything that goes wrong. Isn't that enough?

Yes, I've been absent for an age. I've been busy fighting suckiness and working and skating and following Penguins. There's not much time left in a day after all that stuff.
( So. Penguins. With pictures. )

First of all, thanks so much for the comments on my last post. I just haven't felt like going back to that headspace to reply to them all individually.

Second of all... wait for it...



I have tickets to see Duran Duran live!!!

They are finally coming to my part of the universe and I will get to stare adoringly at Nick Rhodes on April 6th! Like, the really, truly, in the flesh Nick Rhodes!

Oh, and three other guys who help him make beautiful music. Can't forget them. :)

I'm kinda excited. Can you tell?

I've just hopped off an emotional roller coaster. The ground is still a bit wobbly under my feet, but it's getting better. ( Long winded and miserable in places. )

Last week my beautiful Riff Raff was diagnosed with cancer.

He lost a little weight a few weeks back, but seemed well in himself. Then, last Tuesday he didn't want his dinner. He was breathing a little hard, but it was so hot here that I hoped it was just a case of not handling the weather in his old age.

Wednesday morning he had a swollen back leg and didn't want to get out of bed.

A trip to the vet gave us all a huge shock. Riffy is so riddled with cancer that treatment would be pointless. We don't know where it started and we won't find out. Biopsies would be painful and I'm sure he doesn't care where it all began.

So, while he's being spoiled rotten and eating things that he's not usually allowed, I've been reflecting on our time together. ( The Life and Times of Riff Raff. )

A fear thing I pinched from heartofdavid

If you get more than 30 I strongly recommend some counseling!
If you get more than 20 you’re paranoid.
If you get 10-20 then you are normal.
If you get 10 or less you’re fearless (but odd)

I Fear…( This stuff )
A grand total of 7. I'm apparently fearless, which is so very wrong, since I'm crippled by a couple of those.

Something that doesn't scare me, but makes me feel quite disappointed in myself is that I have a very real urge to buy a Nickelback CD. I mocked Nickelback mercilessly a while back. I have issues with any band that releases singles where the lyrics are interchangeable. You should not be able to sing one while the other is playing and have it fit perfectly.

And yet? Chad Kroeger's voice is doing things to me that is usually reserved for Mounties, French Canadian Goalies In Penguins Jerseys and Nick Rhodes. I'm ashamed, but I don't want to stop.

( Speaking of Penguins. )

This one's kind of fascinating to take. I horkeded it from j_s_cavalcante.



Not a very well rounded human, me. It's a good thing I like myself this way. :)

For some reason, my boss has decided he needs to get in a pissing contest with me.

You've got to love governments and their lovely little initiatives. They're designed to drive people insane in order to get us to vote them in again. The latest fun and games involves broadband.

Everyone in Australia is entitled to broadband, according to our leaders. If we can't get it through our telephone lines, we can have a rebate to set up for wireless. If we can't get wireless, we get free set up for satellite. Pretty simple.

My phone lines are so archaic that they only need a touch of rain to go on the fritz. This happened at least once a month over winter. Sometimes once a week. Each time it happens, my dial up gets slower. It's currently 24.4kbps on a good day. 

Telstra keep ringing me to make sure I'm not ready to blow them up. Still, they aren't scheduled for replacement until the end of 2011. The last time I had no phone, they asked me if anyone in my house had a life threatening illness. I told them no, but considering I live on a farm surrounded by bushland and within walking distance of a low security prison, I thought a phone was a pretty necessary item. They told me to use a mobile. When I told them it would be hard to drive the 3kms to get signal if I'd been bitten by a snake, or an escaped prisoner had stolen my car they conceded that a satellite phone would be my only option if I was without my regular connection for longer than a week.

That pissed me off, but it's not the point. I'm getting to that.

I applied for satellite broadband, only to be told that my area is covered by wireless. The prerequisite is that I have to be able to get mobile reception on the next g network. Telstra is owned by the government, yet their assessment of the situation is not good enough. I have to get a technician from some two bit internet provider to come out and measure the signal so that he can write to the powers that be and tell them what they should already know. 

Naturally, said two bit provider is taking it's sweet time to even call me back to discuss the matter.

This is me being angry.   TURTLES!!!!!

I somehow ended up with two stories written for me this year, only I didn't realise until today when I went to see who wrote the first one I found. I didn't look any further on Christmas day, because I wrote one, I found one. I thought that was the deal. I have no idea how it happened, but I do feel very lucky.

I got:
The Chance of Life by ainslee.
This is a sweet, wistful sort of story about Fraser courting Ray and Ray not really knowing what's going on. I can't help but think ainslee read my journal prior to writing, because they have issues with hire skates and Ray getting figure skates. A subject dear to my heart. :)

Power Play by hyperfocused.
This one has Mark Smithbauer coming to town for a charity game and Ray is jealous. I love a jealous Ray and I love Hockey Ben. Her Ray voice is great and the way Fraser plays is exactly how I imagine he would.

Read them both. Really.

Then there's the one I wrote. I gave j_s_cavalcante That's What Friends Are For.


Anyway, so there you have it.

It's 2am and I've just finished deciding what to wear to the Perth Cup tomorrow. I had been too busy drinking mojitos at my Grandmother's house with my my Mum, Aunty and The Frog, among others.

So, here I am to say Happy New Year to everyone. I wish I had something really clever to add, but I don't. Just, I hope 2008 is better than 2007 for you all.

Especially heartofdavid, because apart from all her wonderful advice and the deliciously slashy images she feeds me, I collected my mail today. There were Penguins! 12 of them and one of them was Marc-Andre Fleury!!!! And Mark Recchi (who will always be a Penguin in my heart, even if he's now wearing a Thrashers jersey) and...and...a hockey book (with more Flower) and incredible chocolate. Best. Present. Ever. Hands down.

Seriously, you are one of the world's most amazing people, Naked Squirrel. If everyone had a friend like you, the world would be a much better place.

ETA: The Frog, in her infinite wisdom, outed me as a fanfic writer to my Mum. Then, when Mum asked me about it, made it much worse by giggling and blushing and apologising in such a manner that Mum figured out the smut factor on her own. Go Frog!

Mum's reaction? "I don't care what you write, as long as you're writing. You shouldn't waste a talent like that."

She obviously hasn't been reading my fics. But then, she is my mother, so she's biased.

Here is a hockey fic that I wrote for a challenge ages ago and haven't had time to post here.

Title: A Head Start.
Pairing: Crosby/Fleury
Rating: Hard R… not as smutty as I hoped.
Word Count: 809
Disclaimers: This is fiction. It’s not even real in my brain, so don’t believe a word of it.
Author Notes: Thanks to captainlogic for overcoming her prejudice against Penguins long enough to beta for me.
( Right here. )

In case those of you who are into hockey didn't know, the Winter Classic is coming. Now I may have been a little optimistic, but I thought I'd get it here. I thought it was enough of a big deal, but apparently not.

I'm also still months away from getting broadband, so I can't watch online and I really, really want to see this game. Even though Flower won't be playing.

So, I'm hoping that if I beg and offer to pay and write fic and do anything and everything, that someone might be kind enough to tape it to dvd and sell a copy to me? I'm not kidding about the anything. I'm a complete hussy for Penguins.

I'l write Pens fic, dS fic, Duran fic, hell, I'll even have a crack at any other kind of fic you might want.

Do I sound desperate? Because I am. :)

Yes, it's quite late, but I was busy doing family stuff and fighting overheating cars. It's seriously hot here today.

Anyway, to all my wonderful friends....  Merry Christmas!!!!

I hope you all got everything you wanted and that you all ate far too much and laughed far too loudly.

I hope you made someone really smile and that someone made you really smile, too.

I hope you all got the coolest pyjamas in the whole wide world, just like The Frog gave to me. They're so cool I wanted to wear them out to dinner tonight. But the car, and the heat and....we had avocado and cheese on toast instead. Hey, I sweated like I was doing the whole three courses of baked dinner with the pudding and everything. Plus, that's our favourite food right now.

So. Much love to everyone and I'll do a big catch up post when I get a couple of days off.

*hugs everybody*

I've been so very busy lately that the only time I sit in front of my computer is to get hockey scores. Work has been mad, but now we only have two mares to foal down and 40 on the ground, so I had tonight off. It feels odd to know that I'll get a little sleep in on my day off.

I've also been told by my GP that I am a "Nomlie." (I used to love Dark Angel.)

( This might go on a bit. )

Today I got my first hockey injury!!!!

Okay, it's nothing more serious than a bruised shin and it's the muscle at the top of my shin, right below my knee, but it hurt like a bitch when it happened.

I was standing between the cones that we put up to mark the goal, but wasn't paying attention, due to the fact that everyone was doing their own thing and not shooting. At least I thought they weren't. Frog called me and I turned and skated toward her just as my pseudo son, Mark, fired one at the goal. It was a beautiful shot and I stopped it. With my leg. Not on purpose.

Now, Mark is a very cheeky brat who likes to snow me and shows off at every oportunity, but he's actually a nice kid under all the teenage hormones. He was horrified at what he'd done and came over right away asking if I was alright. I told him I was fine but that I was cursing him in three languages anyway. In typical form, he asked me to do it out loud, so I did. I called him names in English, French and Italian. He was duly impressed and we kept playing.

I have to get me some shin pads. Although I'm kind of proud of the big purple spot on my leg.

I learned how to pick the puck up with my stick today. I also learned that I cannot chasse and crossovers are scary when you think about them. The skating kind, not the fic ones. :P

Mark gave me a few pointers on how to skate hockey style and I find that a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, I have to pass the next level doing figure skatey things to qualify for hockey school. Something about being able to stop...

I bought a stick and a nerf puck, too. Now Frog can fire pucks at me in the laundry and I can stop them without pain. Mark even taped the stick for us.

And if life wasn't perfect enough? Tomorrow I get to see a Penguins game!!!! They play the Rangers and Jordan Staal's little brother is in there. Maybe he'll be abe to beat this one....

Also, Fleury has had a hissy fit and seems to have turned a corner, so maybe he won't break my heart by playing like a blind muppet. I just want to see him win.