rewatched Stand Tall and got to thinking about how when Luke shows up on stage and starts singing with Julie the camera cuts sharply to Trevor and Carrie in the audience, who are both looking at former best friends, and one of them is freaking out and one of them is realizing she's been wrong about her former friend, and both of them are sitting there stunned and where is this thought going I don't know but boy is it interesting-
i was thinking about why i'm so sad about the oilers when i really didn't have any expectations for them this season. oiltober turned into oilvember and oilcember and oiluary and then even with the new guys we could barely string together 3 wins. i didn't think we were going to make it to the post-season at all for a while there, even with how bad the pacific was.
but i think i'm just disappointed about the whole season. it felt like 2024 was our year. we were the better team and we should have figured out how to win. things have been going downhill since then and what if it doesn't stop? we weren't the better team in 2025, and we weren't the better team in round 1 this year. i worry that 23-24 was the best they'll ever be and it wasn't good enough.
WHICH IS CRAZY BY THE WAY. THAT IS DEFEATIST AND NOT TRUE AND I KNOW IT. but that's how it feels to watch them get worse 2 seasons in a row.
but. BUT.
the team is already better with our chicago guys
god willing stan bowman will be ritually executed at center ice and we will be free from an evil (and incompetent!!!!!!! choose a fucking struggle dude) gm
the team will get the longest off-season they've had in... 5 years? 6 years
our rookies have already taken a step forward and gotten so much experience this season, and they'll keep going
something good could happen in free agency? especially if bowman isn't involved. you never know!
so. here's hoping all their fractures heal up beautifully, and they show up to camp fat and happy and healthy and full of energy. and maybe slightly less haunted (staring meaningfully at davo) than usual
marty has the third most shots out of all canada forwards but he has the second least amount of shifts and toi bc he's rotating in with the extra forward mercer </3
She lived outside more than in, but she knew where home was. It was common to see her lying in the garden or on the front porch. She would stare inside the house, but if you opened the door, she wouldn’t come inside. She looked grumpy, and terrorized the neighborhood dogs. More than one person was wary to pet or pick her up. Not me. I would go to pick her up and she would put her paws on my shoulder, as if to say “Yes, I want to be picked up.” I would scratch her and she loved it, and when she was ready to get down, she would get down. An older couple lived across the street from us, and they didn’t have any of their own cats, but they bought treats just for her anyway. She would hang out on their porch, too. She was a neighborhood cat, in many ways, and despite her dangerous reputation and ornery expression, everybody loved her.
In her final month, she was diagnosed with heart disease. At 15, it wasn’t surprising. Early last week, she stopped eating. A few days later, she disappeared. I searched for her. I called her name and shook the box of cat treats—a ritual with her. She never came. We all knew she was probably gone; she’d had disappearing spells in the past, but never preceded by a lack of appetite. Never under these circumstances. I still hoped she would come back.
In a way, she did. We arrived home from Church on Sunday, talking about searching for her again, and we found her. Lying on our front porch for the last time, wrapped in a plastic trash bag. We suspected the people who had come to take away the trees—fallen during Hurricane Milton and currently lying at the side of the road, to be taken away—had found her in one of the many piles, and somehow knew where to take her home. Her eyes were open, unseeing. I have read about the coldness of death, but not the hurt of really feeling it beneath fingers, tangled in fur that is still soft.
I have never lost a pet before. We rehomed our old dog when I was little, but he was happy and loved in his new home. My last moments with him were not a kiss transferred to an unfeeling forehead by my fingers. It hurts horribly. I slept so badly last night, my eyes ache from crying. At 15, Mittens was in my life for as long as I can remember.
I miss her.
Goodbye, Mittens. Dad says that animals go to Heaven, too, so I have asked the good Lord again and again to pet you for me, to give you a kiss and tell you that I love you. I will keep asking, until I can do it myself again.