If someone had asked me yesterday, I'd have told them that the Quebec Conference is made up of six professional hockey teams

Shot Glass of the Week

As many of you know, I collect shot glasses. My count right now is up to 478. (I actually had more before the move to NC, but one shot broke during the move; thankfully it was one I actually have 2 others of, so it’s not a big deal at all.) I’m starting to slow down in my collecting, as a) it’s becoming a chore to find the room to display them, and b) moving them is the BIGGEST pain in the world. It took me 2 months, but I just recently finished unpacking and cleaning all my shots from the move. This took me a while because before I unpacked them all I wanted to build new shelves for them. In the old house in Rockville we had great built-in shelves in our basement and it gave me tons of room to display them. In the new house, which doesn’t have a basement, I wanted the shelving to be uniform since they would be in “public” areas, and we didn’t want the place to look like a Frat house. I ended up building some quick & kind-of-ugly shelves in our family room, which took me a few weeks to finally get cut, stained, and installed. (I also used a couple of small tot-glass cases I bought that doesn't look too bad above our fireplace -- see photo to the right. In the middle is the beginning of a golf ball collection. Who knows how large that one will grow.) Once those were up, I wanted to wash all the glasses before displaying them (I’ve never actually washed them before, as I never drink out of them), and many were getting really coated in dust, dirt, and fingerprints. Now that they’re all unpacked and displayed, I thought I’d start a “Shot Glass of the Week” segment on the blog. Each week I’ll spotlight one not-so-random shot glass, giving some background to it, maybe a personal memory that’s attached to it, or sometimes it just might evoke a unique mood. Exciting, isn’t it? (Note: I doubt I’ll end up doing this every week, but I’m sure it’ll be more than once a month. And “Shot Glass of Every Other Week, or Whenever I Get Around To It” didn’t sound as catchy.)

Quebec shots. These are actually the first 2 shot glasses I ever bought, but they weren’t for my collection. Back in 1984, my 9th grade French class took a trip to Quebec City. I bought these as gifts for Mom and Dad, and I really can’t remember why I thought these would be good gifts. Probably what happened is that a classmate was buying gifts for their family, guilted me into buying something for mine, and these were the cheapest items in the store. (I’m not proud to say that, but it’s probably true.) Once I started collecting (in early 1990s) Mom gifted the shots back to me. Interesting side note: On that trip to Quebec, we stayed at the world famous Chateau Frontenac hotel. I can’t imagine why a 5-star hotel like that wouldn’t mind a bunch of middle-school kids from the States running around and ruining their reputation, but they put up with us “stoopid Americains”. I did have a brush with greatness during that trip. One night, as we were heading out for dinner, there was all sorts of bustling in the lobby. Someone said Pierre Trudeau, the PM of Canada, was arriving in a few minutes. So we stood in line, and a few minutes later I was shaking hands with the Canadian PM. I remember the next day another classmate actually had his picture on the front page of the Montreal Gazette. I guess my timing just wasn’t right. Anyway, who would have guessed that these seemingly innocuous gifts purchased in 1984 would morph into a collection almost 500 strong. Certainly not that snot-nosed kid on a 9th grade school trip.