Feeling Blue

There are a lot of things going on in the world, in our country, and in my life that absolutely suck. 

My mom was scheduled for major surgery in August but it was delayed due to the first of two hurricanes to hit the northeast in the past 16 days or so. The one that hit us Wednesday dumped enough rain to flood our basement and our front window. It just so happens that I work for a mitigation company - but I knew firsthand that our crew would be booked for days. Luckily we were able to dry it out ourselves.

The day before, I went to the dentist for the first time in.. I dunno, ten years? We've been barely scraping by until this year. Stimulus checks + selling sports cards + brother-in-law making bank after his company went public and sharing the profits = finally enough money to see a damn dentist. And I'll need all of it if I want to avoid looking like a pro hockey player.

Home life isn't great. I won't get too personal but I'm definitely going through a mid-life crisis, feeling lonely and already pre-grieving my mother - who isn't in any immediate danger of dying, she's just in a lot of pain. 

My marriage isn't what it should be. It's not bad, it's just.. well, my wife has described us as "friends who had kids" and sometimes I don't even feel like she likes me all that much. All of this makes it much harder to go to work and make small talk with OG. I like my job, I love my manager, and most of my co-workers are awesome. But I often come home feeling forlorn.

Anyway.. you might read all of this and assume I am depressed. Not exactly. It comes and goes, but at the moment I feel good. I'm going to see my family tomorrow and some of my favorite seasons are about to start - fall and football.

My manager G and the aforementioned young lady I work with have been busting tail all week in and out of the office. They're both in the office longer than I am, they both have kids, and they're both on call after hours. That can be very exhausting, especially during a disaster.

Anyway, those bearded QBs you see above are among the handful of blue parallels I acquired in my latest (and last?) COMC order. Color-matching parallels have always appealed to me - but blue cards in particular really make me smile.

I prefer Panini Prizm parallels and both Fitz and Fouts were cheaper than these Press Proof parallels of Houston legends. But I must have been in a blue mood when I added these to the COMC cart.

Have you ever noticed how many songs have the word "Blue" in the title? There are at least three that I have on my playlist - and none of them make me sad. In fact they make me want to dance. My all-time favorite is New Order's "Blue Monday"

 

I still have this cassingle in my closet.

My high school best friend used to sing(or shout) "I see a shit in the harbor" whenever this song came on. That always made me laugh.

Here's another "blue" song that cheers me up whenever I hear it:

My current favorite is the song that converted me from a skeptic to a follower of Chvrches:

That beat drop is strikingly similar to Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" And I just can't get enough blue parallels. Terrible segue, I know. I'm really bad at this. I should just stop.

I've tried to acquire a Steven Stamkos Blue Prizm parallel but they're always just out of reach. I settled for a Phil Kessel instead. The Credential card you see here isn't a blue parallel, it's something called a "Mandelbrot Fractal" - whatever that is. These Dazzlers aren't exactly blue, either:

But thanks to ePack they were cheap. These two Avalanche stars plus the Stamkos above totaled 91 cents (Stammer's jersey number) Here are some other cheap hockey cards I picked up at COMC:

Wait a second... these are all red. Blue might be my favorite color but a lot of my favorite teams wear red.

One more...

Thanks for reading!

~