I was in a bonspiel

My last post was two months ago - oops! I was on here the other day for the first time and had well over 100 page views for the month of March without even writing anything... I figure that should be enough motivation to keep writing consistently, not to mention how much I do love it. I've just been a little busy and short on ideas. So today, I'm treating you all to a little experience I had in Neepawa the second last weekend of March: I was in a mixed bonspiel.

For those of you who don't know, a bonspiel is basically a curling tournament. Mixed, means men and women.. pretty self explanatory. For those of you who know me.... you know I'm not exactly all for curling. I mean, to me it's kind of like golf: it takes forever and it's slow and I'm not that good at it so why would I do it when I could just whack balls at the driving range or play mini putt. But there isn't a mini putt version of curling. So to the point here... Ian's birthday is March 22, and it so happened that this year, the Neepawa mixed bonspiel was going to be on Ian's birthday weekend and I feel like all he probably wanted in life was for me to curl in it with him and his friend Drew and his girlfriend, Nikki. So I agreed. Now, last time I was in a bonspiel (the ONLY one), I was terrible and did not enjoy any of it except the drinking part once the curling was done. So I told Ian that if I was going to curl in the bonspiel, we had to practice throwing some rocks before I went. We rented a sheet of ice one Saturday afternoon and somewhere between this particular Saturday and my horrendous showing at the Cypress River mixed bonspiel in my second year, I pretty much became a professional. Ian said I did really well. Obviously I am not modest and didn't think he would say that just to give me confidence, so now I felt like a pro.

We got to Neepawa the next Friday night and lost our first game.. but I curled pretty well. I threw my rocks first, cause the person who goes first, well - their rocks don't matter. And that was totally fine by me cause I figured they wouldn't make it past the hog line anyways. Then we got banged up in Drew and Nikki's shed and I won TWO games of Trouble or Pop 'n Hop or whatever version of the board game that was in there. I was better at that than curling, at least. Day two and the hangovers have settled in with our McDonald's breakfast but luckily Drew and Nikki live right across the street from the rink so we didn't have far to crawl. I don't really remember how the rest of the day went so I will tell you the important parts: no one thought this was my first time curling. Yeah, I guess it was my second time but Cypress really doesn't count cause I didn't try... at all. And when my exercise science class went in grade 12, let's face it all we really did was skate around the ice and eat Chinese food. OH! Here's a side track.... In Thunder Bay, the curling rinks have Chinese restaurants. So I was APPALLED that this wasn't just the way every single curling rink in the entire world was. I literally was lied to my entire life: I grew up with the understanding that curling rinks and Chinese restaurants went hand in hand. I'm still shocked and I've been in Manitoba for like seven years and oh my gosh that sounds so weird when I type it out I'm getting so old!!! So the point of me explaining about the like two times I had ever curled before: I was an all-star curler.

Saturday night we did NOT party because on Friday night we basically gave our livers away to the devil. Sunday morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed we won a game that we didn't even wanna win cause Nikki couldn't even curl if we made it to the final... so then Ian made a pretty difficult shot by accident (or was it?) and we won and then we had to curl again... with three of us... and I had to be the third. In layman's terms.... this is the third person to throw the rocks and their rocks actually matter. So my rocks had to actually be thrown well. And let me tell ya, I kicked butt. I mean, as a team - which we never actually figured out a name for cause we tried to think of lots of funny ones... - we kicked butt! We won beer mugs and money and I even signed an autograph which was incredibly embarrassing. Ian says if I kept it up and actually practiced often, I would be pretty good at curling. But I'm not going to go out and buy myself a broom anytime soon. As much fun as I had, one bonspiel a year is enough for me, thank you very much. Guys, we even had our picture in the Neepawa paper, so I'm pretty famous.

This blog was pretty boring and uneventful but I guess I just needed to get something out there to all of you who have been waiting so patiently to let you know that I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. Plus, I am going to Las Vegas on Thursday and will likely have a  billion hilarious things to write about when I get back. Plus it's the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this weekend so I'm gonna be on a FULL on celebrity stalking mission. This is my life's goal, pretty much. Right beside baking cookies, writing blogs, being a stand up comedian (Ian fell asleep on the couch and there's a comedian on the TV now and I feel like that would just be really fun) and kicking ass at curling once a year, is celebrity stalker. But not in the creepy way that will get me arrested, just in a way that I'm so fascinated by them that I probably would just stare with my mouth open.

So I'm sorry I just wasted five minutes of your life, bragging about how naturally good I was at curling once (see, I'm modest). I mostly don't blog cause I don't have ideas, so feel free to leave a comment with an idea and I'll see what I can do! Bonus points if your idea is one of the many blogs I have already written but don't like so I haven't pressed Publish yet (I honestly have like six posts just sitting there cause I don't like them).

Before I go, I'm gonna redeem myself with this list of Things I thought of while curling in a mixed bonspiel:

1. Why can't I wear a helmet?
2. How do they honestly let people drink booze out here?
3. Why is that young child screaming like that?
4. Oh, that's a full grown man.
5. I don't think my sweeping is even affecting the temperature of the ice like it is supposed to.
6. Maybe if I just grunt really loudly and pretend to sweep hard people will think I'm trying
7. At least I can wear sweatpants
8. I do love activities where it is acceptable to have breakfast cesars or paralyzers
9. I just wanna yell HURRYYYY to see what it feels like but it's not even our turn
10. If I yell at the rock will it go further?

See ya when I get back from Vegas! (Although, if I win enough money, I'll just pay someone to blog for me)