Jane Refuses

The Old Man. This is not visible distress. This is a cat being a cat, even though he almost never sacks out on the floor. This could almost be called malingering.


Yes, it got a little steamy on Sunday. Okay, it got more than a little steamy on Sunday. It was freakin' AUGUST on the second day of May. It was unnatural.

But I have my rules. You don't look Colton Orr in the eye. You don't pull on Superman's cape. And you sure as hell don't turn on air conditioning in MAY.

I don't actually like air conditioning all that much, anyway. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I ran the AC last year. I'd rather powder myself up like a chicken cutlet and sleep on top of the covers.

So until the old man is demonstrating visible distress, the AC stays OFF.

The Playoff Beard

I know it sounds like the latest misanthropic Neil LaBute title, but it's a real thing, the playoff beard. And every year, at the end of regulation play, the beard watchers come out.

Greg Wyshynski over at Puck Daddy breaks down our point-in-time beards here.

I'm very pleased that Pittsburgh's own Max "Superstar" Talbot is the Beard by Which All Other Beards are Measured, and that both Pascal Dupuis AND Sidney Crosby made the list. Wysh makes completely appropriate fun of Sid's "beard." Sid's sad little wisps make me want to buy him a confirmation suit and show him how to tie his first grown-up tie.

My favorite has to be Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks, proudly growing out a playoff mullet to go with his beard. I'd love to see mullets come back to the NHL in a big way, and I do mean epic, genre-defining mullets.

Jaromir Jagr, we miss you, come home!

What I Didn't Do Today

As on most Sundays, I awoke today with a fairly ambitious to-do list. As usual, most of it got shitcanned along the way.
It is so great that I am not married, because frankly, I'm the laziest motherfucker in the world, and being married to me would just piss off some motivated guy. If someone presented me with a "Honey-Do" list (don't people who say that as if they are the first person, ever, in the entire world, to have ever said it, make you want to poke out their eyes with a lobster fork?) I would probably wrap my gum in it and leave it in the bottom of my purse for a month or more.

Herewith, Jane's list of things I didn't do today:

1) I didn't mop my floors. Or even take a broom to them. And trust me, if walking barefoot from the living room to the kitchen feels like walking across a gravel driveway, there's a serious floor issue. (Same goes if you have to brush shit off the bottom of your feet before putting on your shoes)

2) I did not shred my pile of junk mail.

3) I did not change my duvet.

4) I did not sort my laundry.

5) I did not go for a mani-pedi.

6) I did not switch out my winter and summer clothes, which I am sure to regret. My cutest platform sandals are on a shelf seven feet up. Dammit.

Now, here's what I DID accomplish:

1) I bought a new coffee maker.

2) I bought ingredients for pesto, which I am planning to make in about 5 minutes.

3) I watched the Pens lose Game 2 of their round 2 series.

4) I started the Sunday Times crossword puzzle.

5) I had a lengthy, rangy, EXcellently time-wasting phone conversation with a friend.

All in all, I have had a really unproductive and most excellent day.

Game Day: Round 2, Game 2, Habs at Pittsburgh

So the geniuses at NBC scheduled a hockey game for 2 o'clock in the afternoon, causing me to cancel plans I had with my friend Nancy, and my apartment looks like a shithole anyway, so I can watch hockey while I clean my house. This really means that I will sit on my ass watching the game with the vacuum cleaner and Murphy's Oil Soap somewhere in my general vicinity.

After the spanking the Pens administered on Montreal on Friday night, complete with Bill Guerin's unnecessary and almost-but-not-really cruel empty-netter in the dwindling seconds of the game (hey, we're going to win this game anyway, let me skate slowly the length of the ice and give you this final kick in the ribs), I would bet that Halak will dress but not play today.

The Pens, having shut down the Habs penalty-kill machine that defeated Ovechkin and company, appear to have found their playoff gear, and though they're only 1 game into the series, they have all the tools for a sweep.

Hockey fact to make you feel smart: The "H" in the Canadiens' logo does not stand for "Habs." The official name of this Original Six team is "Le Club du Hockey de Canada," or something Quebecoise-Froggy like that. The "H" stands for "Hockey."

2nd Hockey fact to make you feel smart: "Habs" is short for "Les Habitants."

Don't know if Jordan Staal will play today after the Subban thing on Friday, so I'm off to Pensburgh, with trepidation, to get the practice report and find out who will make up our 3rd line.

UPDATE: 10 minutes later. The news is NOT GOOD about Jordan Staal. He had surgery to repair a tendon in his foot, but Dan Bylsma would not say that this will end his season. As Pensburgh points out, if it was a season-ending injury, there would be no reason not to say so, so we can only keep our fingers crossed. Frankly, I'm not optimistic.

Coney Hampton, Here We Come!

The conversation went like this, in the encrypted shorthand of best friends:

"Good morning! What are you doing today?"

"I dunno." (Insinuating tone) "What are YOU doing?"

"Have you seen this day? Wanna go to Coney?"

"Okay!"

"I'll be at your house by noon."

"'Kay. Bye."

There ensues much tearing around in your apartment, trying to find such things as would be needed at the beach.

Bathing suit? Digging through drawers and opening the first Rubbermaid tote full of stored summer clothes, to find your swimsuit slung across the top, as if it was the last vestige of last summer that you could relinquish (it probably was). Fuck the gust of naphthalene that greets you, you will WEAR that shit anyway. Who cares if you get cancer from it or have to sit on the subway smelling like grandma's attic?

Oh, crap. Oh, shit. Bikini line issues. Into the shower to deal with that, clumsily.

And further oh crap, oh shit, all of your shorts are in another storage bin UNDER the first one, and, no, wait, here's a pair of ratty old cutoffs that you have for knocking around the house, let's put these on. Hm, they appear to be split just under the pocket, practically from seam to seam. Oh. Fuckitall again, you're wearing a bathing suit underneath, so it's TOTALLY okay for your right asscheek to be hanging out like that. Everyone knows that if you're wearing a bathing suit under your shorts, it's OKAY for your ass to hang out. If you've got on a shredded pair of Daisy Dukes and you're wearing regular underwear and your ass is hanging out, well that would just be gross, right? And while you're on the subway, just think about everything else except how your right asscheek is in direct contact with the subway seat. You'll break out the alcohol wipes later.

So then you and your best friend are planted on the beach. There is much laughing, especially when you spot Boner Guy from last year. You are just happy to be at the beach, with your best friend.

After you both start to feel chock full of Vitamin D, but shockingly beer-deficient, it's time for a stop at Ruby's where the bartender is in love with Roni (everywhere you go, someone is in love with Roni), but not so in love with her that he doesn't take her money for beer. He has the eager, hopeful look of a guy who knows he doesn't really have a shot, but he'll keep hoping anyway.

Realizing that your Nathan's level is also dangerously low, you bow out of Ruby's and the very amusing game of "There's Your Boyfriend" you have been playing, to head away from the boardwalk.

In front of you in line at Nathan's is a family whose child is so stunning that you tap the mom on the shoulder, hand her your business card and say, "Please email me, because I want to send you our children's casting form."

After eating a hot dog and bacon-cheese fries, you both realize that for the first time ever, neither of you is able to finish those beers as big as your heads. You are almost shamefaced as you throw away perfectly good beer.

On the subway, away from the carny-vacation atmosphere of the beach, you take a good look at each other and think, wow, sunscreen would have been a really good idea.

Now you are home and hydrating like mad, knowing that tomorrow you may feel like a crispy chicken skin, but goddamn, did you have a fun day.