It's Sunday, but not a message...

...just to let you know if I was thin or absent on comments Saturday, it was because the "weekend flu" raised its hoary head again.  I took a pair of Wal-Acts (which may have been worse than the disease ) at 7 AM and headed back to bed.  And the rest of the day was much like those next couple of hours, chunks of eating and reading in between half-consciously trying to fathom what was happening on TV (which included such deep topics as the NASCAR Xfinity race and a couple of hockey games).

Today I seem to be a bit better, as may be evidenced by the fact I took Scrappy on a frosty morning walk.

This is the frozen curve onto the back trail in the woods, which I usually try to avoid this time of year.  We tread the inside (left on your screen) side to avoid breaking through and getting wet- a feat nearly futile.  At top left, you can see where the icy water (or watery ice) breaches the side?  Well, only careful adjustment of path to "where ever you see a fallen branch" avoided my plunging into 3-5 inch deep water.  Scrappy didn't care, he don't wear shoes.



That brings up a walk story I didn't tell you about from Wednesday.  We ventured into the open field, and at one point were pinned between the tree line and a big puddle of slush.  We tried to escape by following the rim of the Green Hole, but alas, a tree stands athwart the path.  And so, I fell- as I believe I have now the last three years- in the steeply sloping slop charitably called "mud"- right on my wallet.  About ten minutes later, Mr. Beagle forced me through a section of "snow" that was about 2 inches of water underneath.  And to wrap things up, we found Mr. Fox's current favorite spot to eat.  It consisted of the bloody and pulverized down of a recently consumed bird, and a far-from-consumed (and far-from-recent) deceased muskrat.  Let's just say he wasn't THAT fat when he died.


Which also brings up a week-and-a-half old story I forgot to tell.  The last night we had actual snow on the ground, I was looking out the bedroom window (with Scrappy amazingly passed out).  Suddenly, some small animal- I thought a small cat at the time, but might have been a small 'coon) dashed for the trees, followed closely by the aforementioned Mr. Fox.  They disappeared into the bramble on the right side of the path, followed by a loud, "Row.. ROW..."; and then, the triumphant fox emerged from the bramble and disappeared down the path.  None of with made my "sharp-sensed companion" so much as snore louder.


I did managed to update the hockey list Saturday, and a handful more of our teams bit the dust for the year.  Chief among them my beloved Lokomotiv Yaroslavl from the KHL, who fell in their series with Dynamo Moscow and end their year at 25-23-18.  Also dropping out this weekend:  KCs teams from France (Grenoble, 25-9-11), Sweden (Lillehammer, 18-24-7), and  Finland (Turku, 21-35-13), along with my teams from Sweden (Farjestads, 23-22-19) and Slovakia (Martin 18-26-16).  We still have playoff teams going in Italy, Poland (just me), Latvia, Hungary (just KC), the Czech Republic, Asia (just me), Denmark, Switzerland, while the UK and the North American leagues are still in the regular season.


A special shout out here for a guy named Jesse Dudas.

Jesse is a Canadian who, after several attempts to make it in North America and getting the short end, went to Europe- to Miskolci, KCs team in the Hungarian MOL Liga.  Last night, they played a game that, if they won, would put them into the championship finals.  Jesse, a defenseman who never recorded more than 14 goals in a season over here, and his team quickly fell behind 4-0.  But Jesse put his team on the board with 4 minutes left in the second period.  Two teammates (one with an assist from Jesse) pulled the score to 4-3 early in the third, and at 12:38, Jesse got his second to tie the game at 4.   They went to OT, and 6 minutes into OT, Jesse got his hat trick, winning the game 5-4, and the series 4-0.  Good luck to Jesse (and congrats for the best game of his career) and Miskolci in the MOL finals this week!



Finally, one of the things I use twitter for (obviously not for commenting, lol!) is an app I heard about where some astronomical outfit did a huge, detailed mapping of the Andromeda Galaxy.  They release snaps from that undertaking several times a day, so I've been following, hoping to catch a neat one... like this one: