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When we were at my mother-in-law’s house last weekend, her friend brought over her puppy, Zeke. Zeke is a big baby and loves giving my kid puppy kisses.

Also note my kid’s chompers. Considering that the husband and I both had to get our teeth jackhammered into something resembling straight, I’m thinking that the local orthodontists are salivating in anticipation of my kid’s date with the Train Tracks of Doom and OMFG My Mouth Hurts.

But anyway PUPPY!

I want to smoosh both of their faces.

Also, my kid finished up a few weeks of ice skating lessons yesterday. I’m fairly certain that the recent pwnage that the Penguins handed out had something to do with this. He’s pretty good at it, though.

I’ve been ice skating twice, I think, and each time was a total disaster. I mean, a disaster if we’re measuring ice skating success by being able to move about the rink upright and not lying on the ice, crying. Ahem.

Ignore the pile of shirts in the background (hey, they’re folded, right?) and feast your eyes on my kick ass tshirt. I came across BelieveMerch a few weeks ago and ordered two of these shirts, one for me and one for the husband as a graduation/anniversary/Father’s Day gift. Then I had to wait because only someone of brilliance orders something from a small, local merchant who peddles Pittsburgh sports stuff two days before the Penguins win the Stanley Cup. I waited as long as I could before sending them nagging emails (by the way, if you happen to read this, BelieveMerch folks, sorry I put my mom voice on in that last email). But the shirts finally arrived today and I’m so so excited.

The reasons for the awesomeness of this shirt are threefold:

- It looks fucking badass
- It’s about Pittsburgh
- It’s a Weeds reference (Shane, a young character on the show, goes through a period of obsession with Pittsburgh, convinced that it’s the Promised Land and obviously art imitates life so he’s absolutely correct.)

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t totally sure that the Penguins could pull it off. Having to go back to Detroit for Game 7 after every appearance there in these playoffs was a total disaster had me thinking that last night could be another heartbreaking loss. But the team that played last night was a totally different team that played there a couple of nights ago, when we lost 5-0. Everything came together. They played well, they were focused, and, yes, we had some luck on our side.

And they won. They won. It was thrilling. Getting to see Sidney Crosby hoist the cup was awesome and watching him hand it off later to Mario Lemieux was almost too much. I only have vague memories of the last time that the Penguins won and Mario was the first to lift that beast over his head, mostly of hugging my parents in our living room and banging pots and pans outside. Last night was nice and clear, though.

As I’ve said before, I don’t care that it’s “silly” to be emotionally invested in my sports teams. There’s happiness and joy there. That’s a good thing.

We walked to our main drag last night and watched some of the celebrating. We left when the cops showed up in case things took a turn, since we had the baby with us and I would really like him to wait until he’s older to get teargassed for the first time. But things remained rowdy but peaceful. I could hear the cheering from all over the city for hours. It practically became my lullaby as I drifted off to sleep, so happy to call this goofy city my home.