A crazy bird and a little hockey made this day just about perfect

Joan and I are on completely different sleep schedules. She is the night owl and I’m the early bird. We’ve worked it out in our own way and most of the time I am up and at ‘em a couple hours before she opens her eyelids for good.

This morning was a good example, although I actually slept in until 7 a.m., which is about 30 minutes later than usual. My routine is to get up, check my e-mail and blogs and then I go for a little walk and work out at the park fitness center.

By the time I get back to the trailer, about 9:30 a.m., there is a slight stirring from the bedroom and within a few minutes Joan is up and ready to start the day.

The AT&T Center in San Antonio

Just the opposite is true at night. While I am drifting off to sleep about 10 a.m. in my chair, Joan is ready for another couple hours of television (which includes shopping channels after I am asleep). Somehow it works.

After a quiet day around the trailer we headed to the San Antonio Rampage hockey game at the AT&T Center which was sponsoring a “Faith and Family Night” promotion for the game. Each ticket purchased for $15 had $5 go toward a local Christian food pantry, so it was for a good cause.

The hockey wasn’t bad either. The game reminded me a little of a hockey game my Dad took me to as a boy at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. I think that team was called the San Francisco or Golden State Seals, can’t remember exactly.

Tonight’s game was a cross state rivalry between the San Antonio Rampage and the Houston Aeros. The Rampage team is a farm club for the Florida Panthers. The game ended with a 5-2 Rampage win so the crowd, and we, were happy.

Late in the third period, the score was 3-2 in favor of the home team and people started chanting “We want chicken!” “We want chicken!” We were totally confused thinking they must be looking for a player with a nickname of “chicken.”

When the Rampage scored the fourth goal we learned why people were chanting. Whenever the home team scores four goals, the local sponsor, Chick-Fil-A, gives away a coupon for a chicken sandwich to every fan at the game. So we left the game armed with our coupon for a free sandwich.

Representing the Red Wings in San Antonio

During one of the intermissions, someone in the rafters of the beautiful AT&T Center (it’s also where the San Antonio Spurs play) dropped toy cows attached to parachutes, which was another Chick-Fil-A promotion. We were not lucky enough to catch one.

There were plenty of nifty goals and one good fight in the game, so everyone went home happy. The locals here seem to love to pound on the glass. The folks with front row seats pound on the glass when the referees are nearby, when the opposing players are nearby, when no one is nearby and just about any time they want to. Bizarre, really.

We also have tickets for next Friday’s game against the Lake Erie Monsters, which is also a fund-raiser for the Susan G. Komen Cancer group and the local players will wear pink jerseys and they promise that they will dye the ice pink, which should be different. I represented tonight wearing my Detroit Red Wings hoodie.

T-Bone the Rampage mascot.

Love the Rampage mascot, which is a angry looking bull with a jersey with the name “T-Bone” on the back. Only thing missing was my buddy Greg and his friend Pam, or Red Wings companions back in Michigan.

Today was a little cooler than yesterday, with tonight expected to be down in the 30s, with no chance of freezing, which is a good thing because otherwise I would have to take some precautions with the trailer.

We took another walking tour of the RV park and we sat outside and read this afternoon, but slightly more bundled up than usual. I began my newest Master and Commander book,” Treason’s Harbour,” which is book nine in the series.

Since my post with the states represented in the park I have discovered seven more out-of-state license plates, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming,  and one new Canadian province, Saskatchewan. More than half of the states are represented here and I won’t even pretend to know how many Canadian provinces there are.

Our free sandwich coupon.

In my post on Thursday I forgot to mention a minor annoyance that occurred when we stopped at Dairy Queen for a little after dinner treat. We both ordered medium Blizzards (me: Snickers, Joan: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup) and the young clerk automatically tacked on a 10 percent senior discount.

Joan and I had a small disagreement over the automatic discount being added. Joan was happy and grateful, but I was a little put out that the young woman assumed (correctly, by the way) that I qualify for the 62 and over discount for the restaurant.

To be clear, I’m not unhappy about getting the discount, but it would have been nice, and polite, for the woman to ask me first if I qualify instead of looking at me and making the assumption that I’m old. 

Joan doing the "booga-booga"

One of the highlights of my day has become the time in the morning that we are bombarded by a young male Cardinal who insists on bashing into our back picture window. Apparently he sees his own reflection and believes that his area is being violated by another young male Cardinal.

The highlight isn’t the bird hitting the window, but Joan’s interaction with the bird in which she looks back at the bird and cries loudly “booga-booga,” which I guess is a word meant to tell the Cardinal to go away.

I’m not sure which is more annoying, the bird hitting the window or Joan’s continual “booga-boogas.” I’ll keep you posted. Church in the morning and shopping the afternoon tomorrow.