update from the snowy north

I was going to post an update from Green Bay, but then I figured, sod it, everyone who cares about the curling will be checking the standings on more official websites, and the rest of you reading this care more about me than about the curling. (Don't you?) So, here's where we are after five draws:

Potter 4-0
McCormick 3-1
Smith 3-2
Wright 2-2
Sormunen 2-2
Karst 1-3
Carlson 0-5

You will see from these standings that Carlson and Smith have one game remaining apiece; each has one of the byes tomorrow. So Carlson is done; the best she can do is 1-5, which with everyone else on a maximum of four losses will not be enough to get her to the Challenge Round. I forget what all the rest of the matchups for tomorrow are, but I do know that there's a possibility of a four-way tie at 3-3, which is actually NO PROBLEM, because if Potter and McCormick are the top two finishers and everyone else but Carlson is tied at 3-3, that's a four-way tie for three Challenge spots, which actually works out to a two-way tie for one Challenge spot, meaning only one tiebreaker.

I also know that McCormick faces both Wright and Potter tomorrow. Smith's opponent can't be wright, because Smith has the last bye and Wright v. McCormick is the first game. So if Smith wins, and McCormick loses twice (to Wright and then Potter), and Wright also wins her second game, then I'll have Potter on 6-0, Smith on 4-2, and McCormick and Wright and maybe someone else tied on 3-3 -- also no problem. The nightmare scenario, then, is Smith losing and McCormick losing twice with Wright losing her second game; then I'd have Potter on 6-0 and Smith, McCormick, and Wright all tied on 3-3 for the second Qualifying spot. Three-way ties for one spot = two tiebreakers = games on Monday, and Fox changes her flight and then cries and cries.

Let's not have that happen, shall we?

update to the update

No, the nightmare scenario is the toddler in the room next door who has been sobbing "mommy" for the past ten minutes and not likely to stop until he wears himself out. (Great! While I've been typing this, we've moved on to screaming!)

update to the update to the update

[choir of angels]

(Recall that the internets don't reach all the way to my room, so I am sitting out in the hallway in the manner of a kid in a college dorm.) Along comes a woman who has been bottle-feeding a baby in the lobby. We smile hellos, and I say "Are you mommy?", and she is horrified to hear the toddler crying, because his daddy was in there with him, but whatever, the minute she went into their room, the shrieking stopped. Thank goodness.

"i screwed up." "you THINK?!"

I made a mistake today -- in the best good faith, but still -- that could have had kind of disastrous consequences. Fortunately, things worked out so the only thing damaged for sure is my pride, and the only thing damaged for possibly is my standing with the USCA (I may not be invited to the next level of certification as soon as I might have absent this error). Since the fault was 100% entirely mine, that's as it should be.

Made the mistake at the beginning of the third end of a ten-end game, though. Spent the next couple of hours feeling progressively more terrified. The team in whose "favor" I had made the mistake (it wasn't really an advantage for them, in fact, but they were nevertheless the ones I'd allowed to do something I shouldn't have allowed -- in case any of you are interested, I misinterpreted the rule permitting lineup changes when mid-game substitutions occur, and allowed them to change their lineup without putting in a substitute, which is illegal; they only got one point in that end, and I corrected the mistake in time for the fourth end and gave the opponents the option of resetting the clocks and playing the third over, which they declined) stole end after end and finally, thank god, the other (non-offending) team got another big one in the 9th to put it away, so the offending team was defeated and everyone is okay.

Except me, right, because you all know how it is when you do something that has the potential to be truly awful and then it turns out all right, you keep feeling sick for days.