Let me just start by saying life is grand. Before I get into my Saturday night let me just recap on some other exciting things…

Excitement #1:

I pre-emptively cleared myself to be off my crutches and it proved to be in my favor. Crutch free for exactly 1 week! My left armpit, hand and leg are thanking me for the reprieve. See ya Dora!!!

Excitement #2:

On Thursday my PT got all wild and crazy on me when she had me do STEP UPS on a bosu ball! It still amazes me that every time I go to do something that is new to me since surgery, I get a serious moment of hesitation as if I don’t trust my hip. I mean it makes sense but it’s there’s a very odd dynamic going through my head. I’ve heavy lifted since I was 14 but the thought of doing step ups on an unstable surface scared the bejeebes out of me. Talk about positive mental encouragement. “Come hip! You can do it! You got this!” goes through my mind more often than not.

Excitement #3:

Another PT advancement. Lateral slides on the Bruins slideboard!!! Talk about AWESOME. My PT motioned for me to go to the back room with her so I knew she meant business. I am starting to drink water at PT which means I am working harder and therefore sweating so it only makes sense that I have to stay extremely well hydrated so that I can perform flawlessly in all these new exercises. I haven’t quite graduated to electrolyte beverages…I’ll save those for squat day.

Excitement #4:

My old fart of a dad turned 63 and was blessed with a 2′ snow storm up in Vermont. I can easily say this is the first time in 4 years I have been antsy to ski. But I am thankful my dad got to enjoy it. He took over the role of my ski technician, became my pseudo ski coach, my cheerleader, my supporter, my rock, my nurse after hip surgery, my verbal punching bag and my friend. I couldn’t ask for a more awesome dad.

Excitement #4:

Now this is where life gets REAL exciting. So I do PT at the same office that the Bruins players go to for PT and I have been joking/secretly hoping to meet one of them ever since I started going there even though I know next to nothing about hockey and couldn’t have named a single Bruins player by their full name up until Saturday night.

So my girl Susan texts me and tells me that she is going to a fundraising event with some of her friends at West End Johnnie’s that night because Johnnie is running the marathon and was fundraising for the Bruins Foundation. She hinted, or rather blatantly threw in my face that there would be Bruins players there. ON IT. SIGN ME UP. Again, I wouldn’t have been able to pick out any of them out from a crowd so when I was asked which Bruins player I had a crush on once I got there, I was semi, if not completely dumbfounded. But boy was my little mind going to be blown!

Now I have this little habit of becoming completely oblivious to people around me once the alcohol hits my lips and that habit did not fail me Saturday night. So here we are all hanging out and Susan’s friend tells me all the Bruins players are in the corner of the bar and before I can say a thing, we start walking over. “Where? I don’t see them.” Of course they were literally right in front of me. Go Kara. So I start to check all these kids out and I notice one of them simply because his leather jacket was PHENOMENAL! I have a thing for leather jackets so I decided in my little brain that all I would do would be to ask him who made his jacket because clearly I didn’t want him to think I was hitting on him…too cliche. And he already had a few ladies throwing out the vibe and I didn’t want to interject.

So I casually, if not blatantly make eye contact with him and quickly look away. Then I find my eyes slowly circling back to look at his jacket and our eyes meet again. OK, Kara. Get your shit together and go ask him where he got the damn jacket.

“John Varvatos. Do you know that designer?”

“Of course! (mentally shaking my head no but pretending I do) Sorry to interrupt. I just really love your jacket. It’s legit amazing.”

“What’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m Kara. What’s yours?”

Obliviousness sets back in or I didn’t care enough to remember his name. I told him it was nice to meet him and just walked away thinking I wouldn’t ever talk to him again. Raffle ticket time and the fact that I won two pretty awesome prizes proved me wrong. Now I have never in my life won a raffle, ever, so after buying $40 worth of tickets I didn’t really expect much. When I drink, my eyes get really tiny and I can’t see much so I had to have my friend hold my tickets and listen to the numbers to tell me if I won. I suddenly get super in to knowing my raffle ticket numbers so I peer anxiously over her shoulder until she turns to me with excitement and tells me I won! So I bee-bop my way up to the table to claim my prize. It’s a hockey stick signed by #38. What is it with pro athletes and making their signatures totally illegible? Cool. So I walk back and the Bruins player with the really cool jacket asks me what I won. I proudly hold up my stick and ask who signed it…Jordan Caron. And who is the boy with the really cool jacket might you ask? Jordan Caron.

Great. I think I walked back to my friends only to be told that I won again! So I bee-bop back up to that table to receive prize #2. I am just baffled that I won twice! I am handed yet another stick and as I start to walk away they catch me and give me this piece of paper as they mumble “letter of authenticity” which I can’t currently find. But cool. It’s a stick. I have two sticks now. What am I going to do with two sticks? Come to find out, this stick is signed by the Bruins team. WOWZER!!! Both of my sticks side by side look so good together.

I am not sure how many people I almost knocked out with my sticks that night. So here I am walking around Johnnie’s with two hockey sticks that I guess are pretty valuable and with vodka soda running through my little body. Talk about recipe for disaster but somehow I made it out alive. Next thing I know we are standing at the end of the bar by the bathrooms and my friend turns to me and tells me two Bruins players just went into the bathroom and that I should catch them on their way out. I think he really wanted to set me up with one. Again, I am oblivious so when they come out my friend motions to me and what do I do?

“Where’d you guys sign my stick?” They kind of look at me awkwardly and I motion towards my white stick. I think they pointed out where they signed it but it’s a little fuzzy in my mind. So I end up chatting with both of them for a brief moment when all of a sudden one of them disappears. I come to find out it was Joe Murrow. Again. No clue. The one I end up chatting with for a while was absolutely adorable. Normally I would say hot but in this case I’d rather use the description of cute. Maybe it’s because he is 23 and I am almost 28 so it makes me feel old.

Now I am not sure how our topic of conversation switched to this but all of a sudden we start arguing about nutrition. I am currently studying for a nutrition certification and it just so happens when I drink, I get really smart (I think) and so I felt the need to educate him as he was telling me things that I just didn’t agree with. Next thing I know he tells me to give him my phone. Excuse me? “Give me your phone. I am going to give you my number and we are going to go to Whole Foods and I will blow your mind with nutrition.” Direct quote and yes he put his number in my phone and yes I texted him the next day and yes he remembered talking to me but didn’t remember my name which he said he felt bad about. Doubtful. Even if he actually did feel bad, it’s a bar, people are drunk and the only reason I remembered his name was because he put it in my phone. Unfortunately at that point we were both beckoned by our friends and we parted ways.

Even though my night didn’t end until 4 am that night, my highlight was by far the West End Johnnie’s event. Clearly the hockey Gods are telling me that I should try out for next years Bruins team. I mean I am doing PT where the Bruins go, I am using their slide board, I now have two sticks, one of which was actually used on the ice AND I met 3 players that night. Bruins on Bruins on Bruins. Maybe I will start paying attention a little more now.

Saturday night was my first real night out since surgery and it couldn’t have gone any better. Huge smiles from this kid! Things are looking up! Watch out Bruins. I’m comin for ya!

Oh and the sticks…well those are going to my big brother Miles for his birthday which isn’t until June but I think it’s acceptable. Love ya kid. 🙂