A glorious day to stand up to the patriarchy

A pretty nice day, all things considered, helped immensely by the temperatures rising to a respectable -8ºC, which enabled us to set foot outside. It was also reasonably sunny, which was also nice. Winters like this, I can stand (at least for a week or two).
 
Even Ottawacker Jr.’s football was at a reasonable time too – 11am. So, we headed to the RA Centre for his warm up, finding a small area behind the goal where he could prepare physically and mentally. He played well, even if his U14s team lost 4-1 to OSU Blue. He might have been at fault for one of the goals (maybe, if we are being ultra critical), but he dominated his area and made a number of very good saves. Importantly (at least for me), he is making technically difficult saves look “routine”, which is usually the sign of a good goalkeeper.
 
Back home from his football, we had lunch, and then hung around for a while until Ottawacker Jr.’s afternoon practice with the U13s. Having dropped him off at the Louis Riel Dome in Blackburn Hamlet, we then set out on a manic 90 minutes of shopping. As we have joined the massive undercurrent of people boycotting everything from the United States, this means checking labels and companies, and shopping local – which we should have been doing in any case, to be honest. Today’s shopping excursion took us to the butcher’s in Navan, the LCBO (which still stocks US products, despite making a claim it wasn’t going to), Metro supermarket, Petro Can for gas, and Shoppers Drug Mart. It really is a bit of a downer to discover that favourite products are either manufactured in the States or owned by an American company (like Dove deodorants, for example), but whaddyagonnado?
 
We managed to make it back to Blackburn Hamlet with a few minutes to spare, and so sat and chatted with a couple of people while the practice finished. Then back home, to split the meat into smaller portions for the freezer. Ottawacker Jr. showered and, at 5.25pm, went to bed. There he stayed till after 7. Mrs. Ottawacker and I heated up leftovers, sat and chatted, and then, once he was back, watched another episode of Jonathan Creek. Or, at least, they did: it was my turn to crash in the chair.