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In the Spirit of the World Series

November 2nd, 2009

I saw my own high stakes baseball game yesterday. The River Cats took on the Thunder, I think. River Cats are a rust red color. Rollie is #9. I was so proud – he is really improving in his fielding skills. He helped make two outs in one inning! (This is huge for t-ball.)

The shortstop fields the ball. . . To Johnson, the Shortstop

He bobbles it!

He quickly recovers!

He recovers.

Scoops it up!
The throw to second!

And the throw to second!

The runner’s out!

The runner is OUT at second!!

Yeah!

Yeah!

Coach Fred comes out to bump the rock!

Coach Fred approaches to hit the rock!

The fist bump!

The fist bump!

But you win some, you lose some.

 Line drive, right past Johnson at 3rd!

Line drive, past the third baseman, Rollie J!

Look at him hustle!

Look at him hustle!

It's heading into the outfield!

That’s gonna be an error on Johnson, folks!

This is gonna be an error on Johnson.

The left fielder picks it up.

The left fielder comes in to back up Johnson.

We just keep on telling him it’s not about winning, it’s about how you play the game. You always wear your helmet to bat. You wait patiently in the hole. You listen to the dugout mom.

You Put on Your Helmet and Wait Patiently In the Hole

You practice your swing when you’re on deck.

You Practice Your Swing On Deck

You choke up the bat and keep your eye on the ball.

Eyes on the Ball!
You swing for the wall!

The Swing! He Gets the Hit!

You run it out, no matter what.

The Play's at First!

Don’t worry about where the ball is, just run it out!

Run it out!

You make sure you touch the bag!

Safe!

And you lead off a little at third, keeping your eye on the batter, and listening to the coach for the go-ahead.

You Lead Off a Little When You're On Third Base, Eyes on the Batter

I am so proud of my boy. He’s really getting it. And I think he is enjoying it, too. And that’s the best part.

A Halloween Story

November 1st, 2009

Last night, we took the kids trick or treating, despite the misty rain, and the mud, and the fact that the Gators were still in the midst of kicking Georgia’s ass. Sometimes, it is better to just walk away and eat candy and drink beer.

Rollie was a mummy (Not that fun a costume to put together, and even worse to remove! Like the old school costume ideas, though.) and Tills was a cheerleader. We went to meet neighbors a couple of streets over for a neighborhood tradition. A family has always done a pinata before trick or treating. It started with just a family or two, but over the years, has ballooned to tons of neighborhood kids showing up to take a shot at the pinata. I think they even have two pinatas, one for the big kids and one for the little ones. So many people show up that I dropped candy off the day before to help out. The whole thing is a ball of candy frenzy, but so much fun. It gives the parents a chance to group, pour themselves a drink (everyone has a cup or a rolling cooler with them), chat while the kids wait in line for their turn to whack the pinata, and to check out all the costumes in the floodlights of the driveway. When the pinata finally cracks open, candy rains from the sky, and the scramble for booty begins. One mother in my neighborhood aptly referred to it as “like a scene out of Lord of the Flies.” I loved that book! Perhaps not for everyone, though.

After that, we all give our thanks and head around the loop to trick or treat. The bigger kids race from door to door, their parents yelling, “slow down! It isn’t a race! Wait for your sister! You’re going to trip over something cutting through a dark yard like that! Don’t ring that doorbell! Porch light off means they aren’t giving out candy!” The shrieks and yells carry through the night, echoing off the houses. The parents walk down the middle of the street, then weave to one side or the other, depending on which house the kids are going to. Occasionally, the kids stop at the parents to yell excitedly that a certain house gave a certain something awesome. Some houses have scary stuff – motion-activated sound machines or mummies and vampires that pop up when the kids approach the steps. One got Tiller so bad that she turned around and ran back across the yard, to the sound of myself and todd roaring in laughter. Parents drag coolers or wagons or push strollers (they make great drink transportation!) The little ones get tired about 3/4 of the way and start dragging and wanting up to be carried or in the wagon. (“Baby, Mama’s cooler’s in the wagon. You better keep walking.”) We finally finish the loop and head home, the kids wild-eyed and digging into their candy before we get there. We visit the old folks around us, which we should have done before going to the pinata, but damn it, Mummies are hard to wrap. The old folks make over the kids and the kids stumble over their words trying to explain everything that they saw, and who was dressed up as what.

Then you get home, and you let the kids have some candy. (Yes, we are terrible and limited their intake right before bed. We wash off mummy makeup and take off saddle oxfords and tights and tuck them into bed, visions of pumpkins and candy dancing in their heads.

Then we rummage through their candy, and pour ourselves a drink. Finally, we walk out into the carport to blow out the candles in the pumpkin and step on a pile of muddy shoes, twisting our ankle and bumping our head on the brick wall, our screams of agony resonating throughout the neighborhood under a Waxing Gibbous moon. We limp back to the couch with the help of our husband, who brings us a water, Ibuprofen, a bag of frozen fruit, and a beer. We prop our foot up, icing it and watching The Night of the Living Dead.

Getting a little excited. . .

October 31st, 2009

Thanks, Georgia Sports Blog.

It’s a Cake Walk

October 30th, 2009

I did my time at the inflatable slide. I had to be the bad cop, yelling at kids to go one at a time, and feet first, and stop pushing and all that jazz. Things that came out of my mouth: “I see you back there.” “No wedgies.” “It’s not nice to roll your eyes at the slide master.” “No, I don’t own this slide. I wish!”

I also had the pleasure of working the slide with beta club students from the local high school. I really don’t talk to a lot of high school kids, so it was interesting. They even confirmed a suspicion that Todd and I have had for a while: Hobos are so in.

Rollie had come home from school recently and was constantly talking about hobos. He had learned about them from a kid on the bus. We discussed hobos, and what they were. Rollie thought they were people who were poor and who steal. I tried to explain to him that his idea of hobos was not really accurate. Mostly I tried to understand how the hell these kids had learned about hobos in the first place! Since then, i have heard other kids down the street talk about hobos, and it’s come up a few other times. Todd and I started wondering why they are all talking about them, other than the obvious answer that they talk about it on the bus.

So, the high school kids and I were talking about costumes, because the kids at the festival wear their costumes, and i asked them if they still dress up and trick or treat, or go to parties, or whatever. One girl said her friend bailed on her, because the friend thought it was stupid. I asked her what she was going to be and she said “a fairy who had lost her wings.” Her costume sounded v. subversive. And the boy? He was going to be a hobo.

I was like, “what is the deal with hobos?” And the girl said, “They’re just kind of in.” So strange. I think i need to be a hobo zombie pirate tomorrow.

After I got off duty, I headed to the cafeteria for a dinner of bbq sandwiches, baked beans, and squash casserole with the fam. Not bad.

Highlights of the evening included doing the cakewalk with Rollie and i won and he got to pick the cake and he picked homemade chocolate cupcakes and we did high fives and it was awesome. I also enjoyed it when Tiller’s balloon animal (a dog she creatively named “woofie”) came unwound and turned into just a long balloon. She cried and cried, wearing her pigtails, and her saddle oxfords and white tights and cheer leading outfit. I held her and then told her we would find the clown and see if he could fix Woofie up. We did find the clown, but the line was so long that i just went up and watched him make a balloon dog and tried to mimic his actions. After three balloon dogs, I had it down, and it was one of those perfect parenting moments where you know that your kid thinks you can fix absolutely any problem that comes down the pike. She looked at me with her eyes big and tears still wet on her cheeks and i said, “Betcha didn’t know that Mama can make balloon animals, did ya?” And she shook her head side to side, and looked at me with awe, then i handed her Woofie. She hugged him to her chest and laid her cheek on him and then put her arm around my leg, and said, “I love woofie.” We walked back to the car in the dark mist, just me and her, hand in hand, her clutching Woofie. The whole way home, she held Woofie, and petted Woofie, and told him it was okay, he was going home with us.

When we got home, Woofie sat with us as she and I had a cupcake together at the kitchen table that belonged to my Grandfather. We sat in only the light of the fixture over the table, just like Pop would have done at 9 pm on a Friday night. (At least until Friday night fights came on.) Woofie sat on the sink while Tiller had her bath, and then she hugged Woofie while I read SkippyJon Jones to her. I had to convince her that Woofie would be better off on the bedside table than in her arms while she slept. She loves Woofie so.

I decided not to tell her that Woofie is deflating as we speak, and that he probably wouldn’t be around come Monday.

Fantastic Friday

October 30th, 2009

Busy day at Chez Dogwood: I have finished getting my basement awesomeness room set up and now I’m setting up the office. (Not so awesome.) Gotta pick the tills up, then lunch, then off to set up for Fantastic Friday. That is basically like your old-fashioned elementary fall festival. We do ours at end of October, so there is a haunted house, but also the old staples: cakewalk, etc.

I am working the damn inflatable slide. Please God, have mercy on my soul.

In the meantime, Todd sent me this and i got a really good laugh out of it.

Dead Men I Crush On

October 29th, 2009

I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Lord Byron. (I think this is pretty normal for literature lovers, male AND female,) and so I really enjoyed this short NPR piece on his letters to a friend in the clergy.

Who wouldn’t be drawn like moth to a flame to a man whom a lover referred to as “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know?” And a man who called his contemporary poet, William Wordsworth, “Turdsworth.”

Love him. I also kind of crush on Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln. Yep, i said it. Abe Lincoln. Hot. Clark Gable.

Do you have any dead crushes? And James Dean is boring and so done.

Sleepless: A Tale of Revenge

October 27th, 2009

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I thought that I had a cold that was lingering, but i think it is actually allergies. I have been coughing every night when I go to bed. It is a tickling, itchy cough, and once I get started, I can’t get rid of it. Thinking it was a cold, I took Theraflu Cold and Cough before bed. Didn’t work. Last night, I tried a Claritin, and it either worked, or I was so exhausted that I finally fell asleep during the coughing. I am going to try one again tonight and see what happens.

Anyway, I was in the throes of being unable to sleep, with Todd snoring lightly next to me (not an annoying snore, except that it was adding insult to injury, since I would have loved to be snoring.) The cats were walking all over my legs, trying to find a comfortable place and I was frustratedly kicking my legs to displace them from being pinned down by fat cats. I had been drinking a lot of water, trying to diet, so I had to pee. I got up, and as usual, went into the bathroom, didn’t turn on the light, and sat down on the toilet.

And kept going.

Is there any worse feeling than being half asleep, thinking as you sit down on the toilet that there is a seat down, and finding your butt going farther than you thought it would, and realizing a split second too late to pull up that there is nothing there, and that you are going to be sitting on a dirty toilet bowl rim? (I have a 6-year-old boy – just imagine how disgusting my toilet bowl rim can get.) Or that your butt will be touching toilet water?

I jumped back up, butt wet and images of the most disgusting my toilet bowl has ever been in my head. I grabbed the towel hanging over the shower door and wiped my bottom and back of my legs, then threw the towel down on the floor in anger. I cussed. A LOT.

Damn it! Why are men so fucking incapable of putting a fucking toilet seat down on a fucking toilet????!!!! I should march right in there and punch his lights out. I should scoop a cup of water out of that toilet and go in there and dump it on his fucking head!

I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t even say it out loud. I just threw the towel on the floor and climbed back in bed, hoping for sweet, relieving sleep. Okay, that’s a lie. Maybe I stomped in to the bedroom and jumped back in bed, and sighed a lot, and pulled the covers back over me very dramatically and very loudly. The snoring continued.

This morning, I overslept and Rollie missed the bus, and I had to drive him to school (The principal was the one that helped him out of the car, making me feel guilty, seeing the hazmat site that is my car, and with Rollie clutching his breakfast – a South Beach Diet bar and cup of milk. Oh, the shame!) I got back home, and Todd came down from taking his shower, all clean and dressed and ready for work. I had cooled off from the evening’s toilet adventures and I was drinking my coffee.

Me: “Did you sleep well?”

Todd: “Yeah, I slept hard. You?”

Me: “Not really. I coughed a lot. And baby, I love you, but you gotta put the toilet seat down. I fell in the toilet in the middle of the night.”

Todd laughs.

Me, eyes narrowing: “Did you use the towel that was in there? The one on the floor?”

Todd: “Yeah, why? The kids always pull them down when they are drying their hands.”

Me, smiling angelically: “No reason.”

Get Stuck in Seattle

October 26th, 2009

Busy with unpacking all the stuff we boxed up for basement renovations, painting some doors, and drinking coffee while listening to Miles Davis, but thought i’d mention that i just added my friend Nikki’s blog to my blogroll.

She is an acupuncturist and just got a new office, so I thought I would mention it on here so that my Seattle readers (I’m looking at the three of you!) would look Nikki up first in case of a need to become a human pincushion.

No, seriously, Nikki is awesome and I know she’ll do great in her new endeavour! Incidentally, she is also the one who made the awesome tote bag that I always get compliments on. The one with the big purple and pink flowers. You know. That one. Very talented, that Nikki. Actually, I kind of want to hate her, because she is one of those moms that makes Halloween costumes for her kid, and stuff like that? And here I am, just slapping the plastic K-Mart masks on my kids? But, I can’t, because she is nice.

Damn nice people.

The Creekers

October 25th, 2009

The Creekers got together last night for a cookout. We had the usual fun, and we got to meet the newest Lil’ Creeker, Connor. (Not to be confused with honorary Creeker Conor the Elder.) Thanks to Dan and Wendy for hosting, and to Owen’s oldest, Ian, for making me feel like Betty Crocker and eating four helpings of my baked beans.

Spooky Photos to Come

October 22nd, 2009

I am currently totally digging Digital Photography School. What a great idea – Really useful, down-to-earth, and useful photography tips. As a beginner, I think I have seen my photos improve, just from reading this guy’s newsletter every once in a while. I also like the very timely tips he sends out. For example: Halloween Photography Tips. I always try to read them before going to an event such as Fourth of July fireworks, or Trick or Treating, or a trip to the beach.

Am I a pro? Nope. But i sure am having fun learning about what my camera can do.