It's Not a Nice Day in the Neighborhood

Today is gonna be interesting, weather-wise. And I use the word “interesting” in the way people often do when they don’t want to come right out and say “well, that sucks!” The Second Mrs. Pennington was renowned for her use of that word…which I not-too-quickly (but eventually) came to understand meant faint disapproval with distinct movement towards total dislike. But, I digress. It’s a gray, gray day…solid overcast, high relative humidity (read that: “sticky”) coupled with warmth that will ultimately turn into outright hot should we hit our forecasted high of 80 degrees. With thunderstorms. Oh, good. Just peachy.

So. The weather has affected my mood, obviously. I’m finding it difficult to write, beginning with subject matter (as in, what to write about) right down to basic word selection and sentence structure. I hate it when this happens! Some days the words just flow and these little missives seem to write themselves. Other days, such as today, can be complete struggles where nothing looks good once it hits the screen and everything seems lame.

Writer’s block used to be a catastrophic occurrence once upon a time, back in the day when I wrote proposals and other such stuff for a living. Deadlines are unforgiving and show no mercy. The Management is no less forgiving when a piece is due and you just can’t seem to get there, or worse, you get there but you know what you’ve written is Grade C or below. These days it’s “just the blog,” which is all well and good, unless you’re an anal-retentive, Type A personality that’s driven by deep, dark, recessive and mildly negative personality traits (or demons) unknown. Would that be anyone you know?

Brief hockey update. Last night’s Colorado-Dallas game was a real nail-biter, right down to the last minute of regulation time and into the overtime period. The game was well-played and the score was close right up to the end. Dallas had a chance to win it in regulation, taking a 3-2 lead into the final two minutes of the third period. But stupidity reared its ugly head in the form of a needless tripping penalty taken by Dallas’ Brendon Morrow.

''I take responsibility,'' said Brenden Morrow , who was in the penalty box for Dallas, serving a two-minute penalty for tripping. ''I saw how they were calling it tight the first two games. I should have known better by now. I let my teammates down.''

Sure enough, Colorado pulled goalie Theodore, put six offensive players on the ice, swarmed the Dallas net, and scored with 56 seconds left to tie the game and send it to overtime. And then Dallas suffered an ignominious defeat on a fluke Colorado goal just one minute and nine seconds into the overtime. Alex Tanguay attempted to center the puck from just behind the Dallas goal and accidentally hit Dallas defenseman Willie Mitchell’s skate. The puck caromed into the goal, giving Colorado the win. The Hand of Fate, and all that. I don’t think anyone (except Avs fans) could have watched that goal and not felt bad for Dallas. As one of the OLN commentators said: “Just how much bad luck can one team have?”

So long, Dallas. We hardly knew ye. There have been only two teams in the NHL’s 100+ year history that have come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series. I don’t think there will be a third anytime soon.