Your Name Becomes You

aw, jeez

Family legend has it that my parents took days to decide what to call me. Finally, they settled on “Ruth”, but what made up their minds? Did I tell them myself? Did something in my eyes speak of my nature and they took the cue? I do know that my mother’s cousin had a daughter some weeks after I was born and also called her Ruth. Mum was peeved at that. I guess she’d hoped that my name would make me unique among my peers, and as it happened, she wasn’t far off the mark.

My fifth grade teacher once took me into the hall and had me wait there while he returned to the classroom. “This room,” I heard him say, “is now Ruth-less.”

I remember rolling my eyes while my classmates groaned. Even ten-year-old kids know a lame joke when they hear it..

After I started writing in earnest, I got a baby name book to help me with a story set in France. I found a ton of names with French comparatives, not to mention German, Norse, Italian, Spanish, Old English, Celtic, Hebrew, etc. Naturally, I looked up my own name to see what it meant.

(Insert laugh here.)

Ironically, the few Ruths whom I encountered growing up were not particularly pleasant individuals. The one in ninth grade was a nasty acquaintance, the complete antithesis of what the name actually means (she might have been a better friend but I can’t say because she definitely wasn’t a friend of mine). Through work recently, I had a conversation with another Ruth who asked me if I liked my name. “I must do,” I replied. “since I haven’t changed it.”

We agreed that now it’s cool to have a name that missed the top ten of our generation, though at the time it was awkward to stick out so formally among all the Debbies and Lindas and Karens and Pattys in school. (No one called me Ruthie until I reached my thirties, when it burst on scene alongside other nicknames such as “Ruthless”, “Rufus”, “Rufie”, and my personal favourite, “Ru”.)

Then there’s the Biblical connection—despite having her own book in the Old Testament, Ruth was hardly a superhero. “Whither thou goest, I will go,” she said to her mother-in-law after she was widowed—and off the two went like Thelma and Louise without the guns or a bare-chested Brad Pitt. I was, however, a third of the holy trinity at one office, working for years alongside an Esther and an Eve. Now I’m paired with a Naomi who is not my mother-in-law but is most certainly my mentor at work. and as for my role at home … whither Ter goes, I also goest—and I’m totally good with it.

A few years into our friendship, Nicole sent me the card pictured at the top of this post with the explanation that “Ruth” was the name of the heroine in a novel she was writing and the definition had helped her to find the character’s voice. She sent the card to me in propinquity, with the reminder that I was often in her thoughts (who’s the beautiful friend here, eh?), and it sat on my desk for months before I thought to tuck it into one of my journals.

I might have laughed when I first learned that “Ruth” means “friend”, but it may actually mean more than that. Check this out:

So now, my name is subjective depending on my relationship with the individual. Choose your definition, but don’t tell me what you’ve picked!

With love,

“Diva IV”

Alfred always surprised her. She seldom thought of him anymore, yet just as she realized it, he invariably came to mind, usually to tell her that it was over. That she deserved better. That the man she was with was not the man for her.

He was always right.

Sometimes she wondered if Alfred himself would have remained the man for her, then she banished the thought and scolded herself for doubting the dead. She had known at first sight that he was meant to be hers. She knew it still, though perhaps she had not been intended for him. The Japs might have bombed Pearl Harbor anyway, but Alfred would have survived. Instead, he had perished and her relief at a domestic posting had run the gamut from shock to denial to rage to grief to something that defied naming but felt uncomfortably like resentment.

“Ellie?”

She sipped her scotch and lit another cigarette.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Her lover spied the script lying open in front of her and made a disgruntled sound. “Oh.”

“The table read is tomorrow,” she told him.

“Haven’t you read it yourself yet?”

She blew a smoke ring before she answered in a dispassionate voice. “Funny.”

He circled to face her, tousled and handsome in his old man pajama bottoms. “Do you want me to read it through with you?”

“No,” she said, “I want you to get dressed and go home.”

He stared as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Ellie sat and smoked until he finally broke the silence with an astonished, “What?”

“I’ll have your things packed up and sent along later.”

“What? Ellie—ˮ

She met his baffled eyes with nothing in her own. “It’s over.”

He argued—they all did—but she stood firm until acceptance, however temporary, won out and he stormed from the room like a petulant child, swearing vengeful profanities as he went.

Ellie took a long, slow drag on her cigarette and waited for the door to slam. A few seconds later, the sportscar revved and roared into affronted obscurity. Ellie finished her scotch, stubbed out her smoke, and settled in with her script.

Right again, Alfred.

Season Finale

’Tis nobler to lose by a single goal than be blown out of the arena halfway through the game. To wit, the end of the Flyers’ post-season was less painful to endure because they stood their ground and held the Capitals to one goal. But for a nifty hiccup that fooled first the defenceman and then the goalie … well, “what if” doesn’t matter. “What was” is what counts, and “what was” is a final score of 1 – 0 for the wrong team. The Flyers are on the golf course tomorrow morning.

At least the pressure is gone for the rest of the playoffs. Now Washington squares off against Philadelphia’s arch-nemesis, the evil Pittsburgh Penguins (my second-string team; what is it with me and Pennsylvania?) in round two, and you better believe I’m rooting for the Pens. They have a better chance than the Flyers ever had, but we’ll see. The stars rarely come out in the post-season. The playoffs are more often the domain of the unsung hero, the third or fourth line guy in nobody’s office pool who bursts into the spotlight and wins the day against insurmountable odds while the Ovechkins and Girouxes and Kanes disappear from the stats.

I just lost three players in my pool. In the regular season (and for other poolies who nabbed them in the draft), they racked up double digit points. In the first round, they gave me nuttin’.

I still love them, though. Always have, always will.

Now I can reclaim my higher self. The disparity between gladiatorial game mentality and a Zen state of mind does not elude me; I am well aware of my mental paradox at this time of year. Bless Ter for giving it a name. When I remarked on the mystery of how I can get so mean and nasty during a hockey game yet strive to be more kind and peaceful in my real life, she responded simply, “It’s just contrast.”

True enough. In keeping with the reclamation of honour, dignity and sportsmanlike conduct, I refrained from allowing Basher his frowny face in the blog photo. As fans, we recognize the effort our guys put into clawing out a spot in the first round and pushing the series to six games. They could have lost in four straight. They could have missed the playoffs completely. They did neither. And while it would have been skookum to knock the Capitals through the boards and onto the links, Washington deserved to win. So, handshakes all ’round.

We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.

With love,

Not Without a Fight

Oh, they’ve had their share of fisticuffs, but the Flyers are not going away. Last night, they shut out the Capitals in Washington. I repeat, shut out. In Washington. Michal Neuvirth is a goalie on a mission from God. The shots at game’s end were 44 to 11 for the Caps, yet Neuvirth refused to let one by him.

So it’s back to Philly for game six tomorrow. I did not see it coming. Oh ye of little faith.

I missed the first half, last night. I had an acupuncture appointment and you just can’t rush a treatment. The third period is what counts anyway, but imagine my astonishment when I got home, flipped on the TV, and saw the Flyers with a one goal lead and eight minutes remaining in the second. Best of all—and no real surprise considering they logged the most ice time—the fourth line guys were the ones who scored because most of the game was played in the Flyer zone. Shot after shot was aimed right at Neuvirth and each time he said, “No.” I had the sense that he’d told his teammates before the game, “I’ve got this one, guys.”

An axe to grind isn’t always a bad thing. The way I heard it, when he was with Washington, he lost the top goalie spot to Semyon Varlamov and then to Braydon Holtby, so when he left the team, he might have been a little bitter.

Bitter is good. Bitter makes you strong. Bitter makes you a tower of strength when facing the team who bailed on you. (See what I mean about that carbon-based competitive streak messing with my higher self?)

Alex Ovechkin is so frustrated that he glared murder as he left the ice. Frustrated is good. Frustrated leads to mistakes. Stupid penalties. Giveaways and muffed shots and loss of focus. I’ve seen it in the Flyers, and now I see it in the Caps. Philly must generate some offense if they hope to win this series, or indeed tomorrow’s game, but in the meantime, I’m happily contemplating a name change in Washington from the Capitals to the Lower Cases.

Go, Flyers!

Die Another Day

Wednesday's Final Score

The governor called on Wednesday and gave the Flyers a stay of execution. They won game 4 at home against Washington (they pretty much had to, or the fans would have lynched them in the parking lot afterward). The series moves to Washington for Game 5 – gulp – tonight.

I called it. Shayne Gostisbehere darned near did score the winning goal on his birthday. He got the first one, which would have stood as the winner except that the Caps refused to give their former netminder a shutout on their watch. Steve Mason sat the game out as Michal Neuvirth took over – I did not know this, but he’d apparently been stellar throughout the regular season while Mason recovered from injury, and while I understand loyalty to your go-to guy, I also agree with Don Cherry when he says, “Don’t mess with a winning formula!” So often a second string group will fight and win while a star is sidelined, but when the star is okayed to return, the coach will bugger up the chemistry by playing said star.

It likely has something to do with the stupid salary cap. Geez, keep the high priced help on the injured reserve list and let the grinders roll.

Yesterday, I was asked if I was enjoying the Flyers in the playoffs. “No,” I replied before I corrected myself. “I mean, I’m enjoying the space between the notes, but the games themselves are agony.”

I should probably adjust my attitude, but there is something in my carbon-based unit that has great difficulty rising above the mob mentality at sporting events. Heck, at any competitive event. A few years ago, I was on the office trivia team for the Branch Brainiac Championship and we would have won if they hadn’t changed the rules during the final. I’m still choked about it, too. It’s against my higher-self principles, but even as I go fetal in my chair, I will scream for blood where I am emotionally invested … and I am all in with Philadelphia.

Go, Flyers!

One To Go

Washington had five power play goals last night. Five. Look at the score and I’ll tell you where the problem lies. Okay, one of the problems. One of the many problems. Can you say, “Penalty kill”? Better yet, can you see penalty kill?? On the rare occasions when they are short-handed (the refs are blind), Washington’s PK is fully present. Philadelphia’s is non-existent.

My nephew remarked on the weekend that he’s only watched about ten minutes of playoff hockey this year. I almost replied, “So have I, and I’ve watched two games in their entirety!”

Make that three. As of last night, the Flyers are poised for the golf course. All that stands between them and a first round departure is Wednesday’s game.

My older sister and I had a conversation at coffee a couple of week ago. At that point, the Flyers were fighting to nab a wild card spot and the Canucks were long gone. Big Sis said something about not watching the playoffs due to lack of interest. I responded with something like, “I’ll stick with it for as long as the Flyers do.” She said, “Four straight and you’re done, eh?”

She’s a riot.

But seriously, folks, last night’s loss was painful. The lads gave up in the third. After the Caps’ fourth goal, they got hit with a five minute major and left their hearts on the bench for the rest of the game. The fans were booing and earned the team another minor penalty for tossing stuff on the ice – regrettably, the bracelets that were handed out in memory of Mr. Snider, to whom they had paid respects in a pregame ceremony. Philly fans have a worse reputation for bad behaviour than the team they support. Mind you, they were given nothing to cheer about last night. Sure, the Flyers scored in the first minute … and then the Capitals took over. Penalties got us in the end, but I also believe that the officials have not helped. Philly can’t buy a break in that regard – which is why developing a watertight penalty kill should be a top priority. Clearly, it isn’t. I watched four guys standing in a cluster, screening their own goalie, while the Washington power play went all Harlem Globetrotters with the puck for more than five frigging minutes. No challenge, no pursuit of the puck, no nothing. I was practically screaming, “Are you a hockey team or an oil painting?!”

Augh!

So now I’m stuck between cockeyed optimism (of course they can come back; nothing is impossible!) and the cold reality that this Washington team is too big, too talented, and has too good a goalie. Despite anything being possible, my guys may not be able to beat them.

I guess we’ll find out for sure tomorrow.

Back to Philadelphia

Well, that one reeeeeeeally sucked. For much of the first period, it looked like a carbon copy of game one. The Flyers held their own – they got nineteen shots on goal – but when the horn blew after twenty, they hadn’t beaten the Caps’ goalie and Washington was already on the board. We blew a five-on-three power play. We lost no further players, though the talking heads suspect that Claude Giroux is playing hurt as a result of a hit he took from, you guessed it, Alex Ovechkin on Thursday. At the end of the game, Philly had lobbed 41 shots at Brayden Holtby and only beaten him once. Thank you, Jakub Voracek (who is not on my pool team).

I had told Basher they’d win this one. He kept looking at me. “Mum, you said …”

“I know,” I replied. At the end of the game, I explained that I’m a seer and was referring to game three. I’m unsure that he believes me.

So, back to Philadelphia we go. We were going there anyway; it’s a best of seven series and the Capitals have to win twice more to move on. This means we have to win four of the next five. Three at home and one – just one; one measly minuscule sixty minute game – in Washington. Of course we can do it. Anything is possible. I have seen teams claw their way back from the imminent grave – the Rockets are doing it in their WHL series against Victoria right now (game six today in Kelowna, gods help the Royals), and Philadelphia has done it before. They did it against Boston in 2010 … but they did it with Mike Richards as their captain, and guess where he ended up? Squaring off in a Caps jersey against his old team in this year’s playoffs. Regrettably, his style has not changed. It’s not nearly as much fun when he’s on the other side.

However, I am fairly confident that the Flyers will win tomorrow. Home ice, fans on their side, Lauren Hart singing God Bless America with Kate Smith and the ghost of Ed Snider present in the room. Hard to lose with that kind of energy unless it overstimulates you … which I admit it could, but doubt it will. The first period will be crucial. All they have to do is keep Washington off the board for the first ten minutes; take the game to them and make them play it our way, then we can build our momentum and win one for Mr. Snider.

Piece o’ cake.

Game One

Well, that one suuuuuuuucked. The first twenty minutes was promising, a good road period despite the visiting Flyers being unable to score on three power plays. Then Washington took over and we never recovered.

I haven’t watched the Caps much. I don’t like their “loud and proud stars and stripes” jerseys and I’ve decided that I really don’t like Alex Ovechkin. He tends to enjoy slamming guys in the numbers as much as he enjoys potting goals, and while I can admire the latter, admiring the first is not in my nature. I don’t like my guys slamming other guys through the boards, either – it’s a game and no one needs to end up on a stretcher to get the win.

That said, we lost our minds a bit after continual bruising through two periods. The Caps are bigger and uglier and way meaner than Philly, and there is bad blood between the teams. Tom Wilson checked Brayden Schenn off planet a couple of years ago, and guess who was in the thick of a scrum last night? Wayne Simmonds totally lost it at the end of the game and went right for Wilson’s throat after Wilson gave Schenn a friendly nudge into the boards. Not terribly smart, as Simmonds is the best Flyer on special teams (power play and penalty kill), and we were left without him during the most critical time of the game. Players on both sides were behaving like heat seeking missiles toward the end, so while we took the worst of it and won’t have a chance if we continue to take a physical hammering, I’d say that the stage has been set for a dandy series rife with drama, dislike and more elbows in the corner.

It’s only game one, after all. Lots of time to recover. Philly gets stronger as they go and the Caps are historically unable to win a seventh game in any series. Assuming that they don’t kill off our best players as we go (we lost Sean Couturier to an upper body injury – thanks, Ovie), we could conceivably beat them in seven.

In other playoff news – this time in the Western Hockey League – the Kelowna Rockets have evened their series against the Royals after Victoria got a two-game lead in their series. This serves as a reminder to Basher and me that falling behind is not the end of the world. Ground can be gained with patience, perseverance … and knowing thine enemy’s weakness. I just hope the Flyers can stay alive long enough to figure out what Washington’s weakness is!

Round One

Our downstairs neigbours brought their baby home on the same day as the Flyers made the playoffs. Basher and I have had a couple of days to enjoy our team’s successful entry into the post-season, and the little guy below us is causing no ruckus at all. In fact, we only knew he had come home because I ran into another neighbour who had run into the new mum’s mother (with five suites in the house, you’d think the communication flow would be more direct) and got a heads up from her.

After Ter dropped me at work the following Monday, she sent me a text:

“First baby crying noises when I got home!”

“And I missed them!” I wrote back. “How good are his lungs?”

“Oh, just the usual tiny gasping cries when they are first out of the shell.”

The same sounds I’ll be making tonight, when the playoffs start for Philly.

“Diva III”

“They’ve cast Dane Seward in place of Jim Carmichael.”

Ellie cocked a brow. “What happened to Carmichael?”

Her agent looked deliberately vague. “Some sort of medical emergency.”

“The cold sore popped up again, huh? Well, it would only have made the love scene slightly more disgusting.” She eyed the manila folder lying on the desk blotter. “So, who is Dane Seward and why did he get the call instead of anyone else?”

“He’s just been signed to the studio. Louis wants to pair him with an actress whose star power won’t crush him before he gets off the ground.”

“If that’s meant to be a compliment, Bernie, it’s way off the mark.” She made no effort to hide her disappointment. She had played against a few lightweight leading men with some success, but Jim Carmichael was meant to be her chance at the big time. A predatory sleaze within the biz, he was also a huge draw and Ellie had been hopeful that enduring his whiskey-soaked kisses over six weeks of filming would raise her own box office profile.

“You know what I think?” Bernie inquired, sitting back in his chair. “I think you’re strong enough on your own. I think you can carry this film and make this kid a star alongside you.”

“What do you mean, ‘alongside’? I don’t want to be half a studio act.”

“You’re not listening to me, are you?”

“I’m listening,” she snapped.

“Forget about your ears for a second,” Bernie suggested. He used his fingertips to push the manila folder toward her. Ellie picked it up, flipped it open, met startlingly smoky eyes in a glossy eight-by-ten.

“Whoa,” she said, reverting to her rural childhood accent.

“I figured you’d say that,” Bernie remarked with a smirk.

Ellie made herself look past the photograph to the resume behind it. Bit parts, walk-ons mostly, a few supporting roles in minor theatre productions, none on Broadway. Why the hell did the studio boss think he could act?  And that he could act with her? “This isn’t his real name, is it?”

“Of course not.”

She couldn’t carp. Her own surname had been tailored to give it a Hollywood snap. She’d been lucky to keep “Eleanor”, else Auntie wouldn’t have believed she had made it to the movies. She was tempted to ask, but on second thought decided against it. Better to know him only by his stage name in case his mother hadn’t wanted him.

“Shouldn’t a fellow named ‘Dane’ be blond?”

Bernie growled. “Ellie …”

She tossed the folder back onto the desk and stood up to leave. “Relax, Gramma, I’ll be a good girl. He’d better be able to act, though. A new name did nothing for Finn Harker.”

“Who?” Bernie asked.

“Exactly,” Ellie said on her way out the door.

Out of Order

draft mode

I usually write from start to finish. In sequential order. From front to back. Page one to page whatever. It’s unusual for me to write a story out of sequence, but that is what appears to be happening with “Diva”, the Hollywood story that began as an exercise some weeks ago.

It seems fitting to write a story about a movie star the same way a movie about her would be shot—out of order. The scenes are coming the same way, so I’m going with it. I’m also keeping to the writing exercise format, scribbling an initial burst onto paper and polishing it later for posting. The scenes are short and relatively simple, like pieces of a puzzle that will eventually create a picture, and are easily drafted over a lunch break at work. Spontaneity is key. When an idea comes, get it out fast and worry about placement later. Curiously, one scene is sparking another, igniting questions that I want answered, hence … more exercise!

I thought about waiting until it’s a finished story before I post it, but to be honest, I don’t know when or if it will ever be finished. It’s really a bunch of writing exercises. Assuming that the characters are exhausted at some point down the road, the scenes might be arranged into a story called “Diva”, with a definite start and a definite end.

In the meantime, another scene goes up tomorrow. I have two more cooking, to be drafted, polished and posted in due course. After that, who knows? Call the series “ ‘The Development of Diva’ ” and see where it takes us.

Enjoy.

Playoffs Bound

They’ve done it to me again. Are they in, are they out? Every day, the answer was different. After floating around the lower third of the league for pretty much the entire regular season, the Flyers pushed it to the 81^st game before making the playoffs.

They didn’t make it easy on themselves, or on me. Game 81 was against their inter-state arch rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. They didn’t have to win it; they had the luxury of a rescheduled match today against the hellspawn Islanders, but they eked out a 3-1 win at home and sent the fans away with a collective smile.

We missed the playoffs last year.

This year, we’re in!

For now.

Round one starts Wednesday and my guys have drawn the President’s Trophy team—the Washington Capitals. If they can drag out the series to Game Seven, they have a better chance at moving to the next round. The Caps suck at Game Sevens.

Basher and I are prepping for the stress, but we’re also enjoying the next couple of days. At the moment, all that counts is that we’re in the playoffs … and nobody else in my realm is!

So you gotta wonder how many wire-and-fake-fur Flyer fans will emerge in the playoff pool. Our administrator canvassed the gang last week to see who wants to go post-season. With Ruthie’s Renegades sitting comfortably at fourteenth of fifteen teams in the regular season, I wired back: “Sure, I’ll set fire to another $20.”

Here we go …

The Best Medicine

“I can’t stop laughing.”

Nicole often says this when she’s posted a funny on her F***book page. Whether or not I get the joke, her statement always cheers me. The mental image of my dear poet friend doubled over and howling is a guaranteed smile. And if I happen to get the joke, I do the same thing.

I knew someone who once observed that crazy people don’t smile. If that’s true, then few truly crazy folks have crossed my path. Borderline is another story.

I’ve just survived another fiscal year end at work. It happens every year, and every year I warn my colleagues to beware, for I will lose my sense of humour in the crunch of balancing my budget to my forecast. In fact, it’s practically a given that anyone forced to manage financials on March 31 will do the same thing. I got through it okay this time (I think), but others lost their warmth and charm while struggling to get last-minute payments into a balky system before the books closed at midnight. We will recover. We always do. But man, it’s rough because it permeates life outside the office as well, and when that happens … grim barely begins to describe it.

I’m pretty sure that laughter is a gift that comes with us from before. I sincerely hope that we take it with us when we leave. I can’t imagine any sort of existence without it. I can’t imagine this existence without it, and I am extremely grateful for people who can make me smile or, better yet, laugh until my ribs ache. I appreciate a TV series that inspires one good belly laugh per episode (and it needn’t be a “comedy” series, either). A TV series that does it more than once per episode is gold. When a comic dies, like David Brenner, Robin Williams, and more recently, Garry Shandling, I sense the dimming of the world as a whole, because funny people make it a brighter place.

Laughs in literature are even more precious. Writing comedy is difficult. A lot of humour is in the delivery, so how do you make someone laugh at words on a page? It’s a gift, I tell you!

I was born into a group of very funny people. My sibs are each hilarious in his/her own fashion—even on a red-faced rant, my wee sister will crack me up with an unexpected turn of phrase. My brothers are wry and dry, and my older sister can tell a story with such wit that you remember it years later. And I’m pretty droll, myself. Even when a situation is impossibly contrary, I am able to inject some humour into it.

Except at fiscal year end.