Done did a football

 While my love of Canadian football and, in particular, the Saskatchewan Roughriders is well documented in this blog, I haven't written about ball in any real depth here since restarting a couple of years ago. At least not Roughrider football. So it might come as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated that my beloved Riders brought home the Grey Cup for the first time in 13 years on Sunday. (Well, technically, they brought it home yesterday, but they WON the Cup on Sunday)

It was a very good season for the Green and White. With a teenage son who's obsessed with football in the house, getting out to games has been something we put some work into, and it was early in the season that we were discussing how good the team worked and how maybe-just maybe- this was the year. 

Well, we led the league in wins coming out of the regular season, and we got a chance not only to attend the West Final to see them beat BC, but the winning touchdown happened in the end zone right in front of us. 

And so we reached last night - and a 25-17 win against the Montreal Allouettes in Winnipeg. We walked down to the Green Mile (Albert St. and Victoria Ave in Regina, and Albert St north/south of there) to join the celebrations. We'd gone down in 2007 and 2013, so it felt like a "must do" this time as well. 

We got there relatively early in the night; there was a group enough to fill the intersection, but it hadn't filled the streets yet. But there were fireworks being fired off and plenty of folks celebrating the win. It was a bit wet and cold, but nothing like the deep snow from 2013 or the bitter cold the night we won in 2007. 

I said it on the walk home - I've become so conditioned to being disappointed by the Riders, it felt weird to be celebrating the win. And it's gonna feel good for a few weeks, love being in this city when we're champions. 

Quotable Quotes

When I think back to some of the things that I miss from before the internet, magazines come to mind as something I'd love to have back in my life. Yes, I can still subscribe to Rolling Stone or Wired if I want, but it feels like that era has passed. 

One of the pivotal publications of my early years was a stocky little magazine called Reader's Digest. Now, I'm sure my only reader is aware that Reader's Digest was less about putting together a collection of new articles than it was more of a soup of articles from other magazines all over the world. It made the Reader's Digest a delightful view into a million subjects. Perfect for a polymath like me.  

One of the recurring features in the Reader's Digest was "Quotable Quotes", a page of quotes from famous or notable people. It was my least favourite of the recurring Digest pages. I much preferred "Humour in Uniform" or "Laughter in Medicine". 

I've always felt that way about quotes. We've all seen those Facebook posts from some Karen telling us to "Believe in urself" superimposed on a picture of a creek. Or like "Where's my wine" and it's just women laughing. Truly the very dregs of modern culture. 

I think it's why I love Disappointing Affirmations on Instagram so much

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So it's in that context that I find myself quite confused about my recent obsession with quotes.

I think it's coming from all of the self-help books I've been reading lately. If the information in a self-help book is the tile that builds the floor, quotes are the grout that keeps them together.

I've found myself writing these quotes into my journals and copying them onto my studio whiteboard on a regular basis. I don't think they're changing my behaviour or making my life any clearer. But I'm copying them. And this isn't me copying quotes from the books I'm reading. They're quotes I'm hearing out in the world, stuff I'm hearing people say.

Stuff like: 

"Money is the result of investing in hard work" - Susan Sneath

"Always move on. Take the next step forward" - Elder Harry Francis - Piapot First Nation

"You are playing the game of becoming more yourself every day" - Designing Your Life

Ok well that last one was from one of my books. But it's not a quote of a quote - it's right from the book. 

Maybe it's helping me to put all of these new ideas I'm grinding on into context. Or maybe knowing someone else said this stuff gives it more legitimacy. 

I dunno. But I'm pretty into quotes lately. 

Share your favourite quote in the comments. Or better yet- write me your own quote that I can put in my journal and write on my whiteboard! 

A story about gitch

Gitch. Gotch. Ginch. 

Call them what you want, they're all underwear and of late, I've needed some more. It's a combination of realizing that my 10-year-old Pac Man underoos have very few outings left in them and the fact that the Fruit of the Loom pack I bought last year never really lived up to their promise. 

So it was in that environment that I was on the search for something new a few weeks ago. I investigated some new styles, learned about breathable cotton and all sorts of things. Through this sea of options, it occurred to me that maybe I could be finding something Canadian or local to buy. And that's where I found Do + Dare. 

It's a small company out of Toronto that makes underwear here in Canada out of bamboo. They've been on Dragon's Den and overall seemed like a good match for what I want. 

I put in an order for a couple of different styles, including, of note for this story, a 3-pack of "Shorties Undies" which were listed under the Unisex section of their site. Honestly, what I'd been looking for was something closer to a brief over boxers, and these seemed to be the closest thing they had. 

Now, I'm not so naive that I didn't clue in right away that these really looked more like women's "boy short" style underwear, but I thought maybe there was something about the material or make that I didn't see. They were listed as "unisex" after all. 

A few days later, a little paper-wrapped package arrived with my new underwear! It was with the type of glee one can only experience when new underwear arrives that I ran upstairs to try them on. And they... they weren't right. 

To the uninitiated, wearing women's underwear is a strange thing. Sure, there's the kink of it all. We can all enjoy that. But they just don't fit. And it's not just the pouch in the front. It's like they aren't tall enough. Like the bottom of the underwear comes up just a little too high. That's the experience I had putting on these underwear. 

But fret not, this wasn't a waste! By some serendipity, while Rhonda and I are of very different heights, we are nearly identical around the waist. So Rhonda got herself three new pairs of Canadian-made underwear. Everyone wins. 

A few days later, I got the usual "review our product email" and did so by giving the product 4/5 stars and commenting that maybe they shouldn't be categorized as unisex because they're clearly designed for people with female anatomy. 

Imagine my surprise when I got a personal text message from the owner of the company asking to discuss the issues I had and offering to make things right! We had a really productive and open conversation about my experience, and he was very open to my observations that this wasn't an issue with the product but an issue with the marketing. To his credit, he shared that the underwear is indeed designed for women, but they found a lot of men in the LGBTQ+ community were buying them, so they thought they'd give this a shot. I didn't say it to him at the time, but the thought occurred after that: maybe there's some kink to buying women's underwear, and you're actually taking that away with the permission that unisex grants. We also talked about sizing and how maybe an XL of this product would have been a correct fit.

All this to say, a company saw that I had even a minor issue and reached out to see if they could fix it. I do note that the shorties are still listed under the unisex category, and there isn't a change to the sizing guide. But maybe that's coming. You can't change every time someone makes a complaint. Plus, they gave me a $10 credit, which I used to buy some 4" Boxer Briefs, which fit great. 

And wouldn't you know it - there was another minor problem in that I ordered a 3-pack and the colours I wanted were out of stock. So in came another text message to make a few quick substitutions and another text from the owner saying he'd made sure my new order was sent out with care. 

All in all, it ended up great. The new undies fit like a dream, and I have a company that I'm prepared to sing the praises of. 

Oh, and there's an epilogue to all of this. Wouldn't you know it if I got an email last week inviting me to test drive their new underwear style - men's briefs. Dammit. By the time I got on the website, my size was sold out, but you can bet that I'm going to be waiting with baited breath for them to go on sale!

Incidentally, I understand that my only reader is my brother, so a post on underwear is uncomfortable. But I spared you the details of the thong, and I didn't post any pictures of me in the shortie undies to illustrate the poor fit. So just say thank you and move along.