Vacation Re-Entry

I probably should write about something different today but I don’t quite feel like delving into anything topical or deep.  So why not tie a bow on my vacation?  I know you’re all dying to hear more.  I mean, I wrote about the first part on Saturday and then I wrote about the second part on Monday morning, so that left a day or so that wasn’t covered.  You know that my life is an open book, but who knew it was as thick as “War and Peace?”

OK, I freely admit that I suffer from “Blogger’s Disease,” wherein a person expects that everyone else is as fascinated by the minutiae of his life, as he is.  Why else would I dare to trot all this stuff out week after week?

Anyway, I started feeling sick on Sunday night.  I was starting to get a scratchy throat, which led to an uncomfortable night and come Monday morning, it was still sore and now I was tired too.  A sore throat with me is usually the first step to a full-blown cold, so I wasn’t looking forward to that experience, although it would have been a good opportunity to get some of that vaunted Mother’s Care for her Poor Sick Baby.

We were going to go out to Pensacola Beach around 9:30, but I had to put the kibosh on that plan.  Just wasn’t up to getting down there, traipsing around the beach and setting up the chairs and umbrella, just to walk around in the surf for an hour.  (Remember, Pinky’s a redhead, so we have to limit her exposure to the sun, lest she burn up in a wisp of smoke, like a vampire.)  But after all, we already got to take in the beach beauty from the Jimmy Buffett Hotel on Sunday night.

But I wasn’t feeling so poorly that I wanted to pass on the trip to the Chinese Buffet that we had planned for after the beach.  Oh man, they really did it up.  They had at least 5 food islands with stuff on each side (75% of which was chicken).  Man, I really got my feedbag on and certainly got my eight dollars worth.  With me in the back seat, I think my folks’ back bumper was dragging on the street.  We may have started a brushfire with the sparks.

I was able to pick up some Listerine on the way back, so I could lay some of it on the back of my throat and gargle.  Sometimes I can cut off a cold if I drown the throat germs in Listerine.

We also stopped at a Bell’s department store beside the drug store.  I had noticed my dad’s nice new Nikes and asked where he got them.  After my last (unsuccessful) experience seeking sneakers that didn’t look like clown shoes or moon boots, I figured it couldn’t hurt to shop out of town.  Found a nice pair of New Balance, size-12, Extra-Wide.  The dogs need it to be roomy.

The thing I hate about Bell’s is that for years, I thought it was BEALL’s, but eventually learned from my parents that the “A” was actually supposed to be a bell and was not part of the name.  But THEN, upon looking up a picture to show you what I was talking about, I see that the bell IS supposed to be an “A” and it IS “Bealls.”  See?

My parents have some ‘splaining to do.  Perhaps the “A” is silent.

For the most part, I figured I wouldn’t have to eat again the rest of the day.  But part of that Sick Child Mothering I was getting included homemade chicken soup.  I can’t exactly pass that up, now can I?  And to go with the soup, there has to be sandwiches, right?  Soup and sandwich go together like peanut butter and jelly… like steak and potatoes… like bacon and me.  Some things go together so well you just can’t refuse.

I was still full when we got up on Tuesday and packed up for the return trip home.  I told Mom not to make us any breakfast because we had a two and a half hour layover in Atlanta, so we would eat there.  This time, we didn’t have to “settle” for Wendy’s.

Anyway, we made all our flights and landed uneventfully, which is what I always hope for.  Nice, dull flights… no excitement needed of any kind.  I took Wednesday off too, as a “recovery” day, to rest up from all the swimming and eating and traveling and drinking.  It’s nice to come off vacation, straight into a 2-day work week.  I’ll have to remember this travel plan.

Now, just a couple short notes that I forgot to cram into the prior posts…

Dog Days

One thing I forgot to mention in the part of my first vacation post, where we were rambling around the empty ballpark, was the existence of the “Largest Hot Dog You Have Ever Seen.”  

No, it wasn’t this one… I’ve seen much bigger.

“Get yer dogs, right here…”

Unfortunately, all I could do was take a shot of the sign.  But one day, dare I say in the not so distant future, I may behold the “Largest Hot Dog I Have Ever Seen,” humbly called “The Big Wahoo.”

What else can they possibly have called it?

Calling in the Geek Squad

One inevitable part of a visit with my parents is providing Tech Support.  The only time either one their PCs get any kind of scan, sweep or maintenance run is when my brother, my brother-in-law, or I come to visit.  But that’s OK with me because it’s one of the rare times they need me to do anything, and it’s something about whichI know a bit.

This time out, Dad wanted me to make his PC run faster.  So I did a Spybot scan, installed and ran CC Cleaner, deleted a bunch of useless programs and icons and voila!  Back up to decent speed.  Maybe not 85 in the passing lane, but at least 60 in the middle.

On my mom’s PC, (and yes, they each have one of their own, at which they sit back to back like dueling pianists,) she needed her sounds updated.  Ages ago, I set up her and Dad with some movie sound bytes from Monty Python, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, that would play after designated actions.  But when she got her new PC, the tech guy transferred her sound files but didn’t attach them to any functions.  It was a quick enough fix for me.  I love the easy problems.

When I stay, I can always tell when Dad logs onto his PC in the morning, because I hear, “Hello, vould you like to have a roll in ze hay?”

Knee Jerk Reactions

Two days before I left for vacation, I somehow did something to hurt my left knee.  I guess the medical gods figured, “Well, he finally got his shoulder to stop hurting; what can we mess with now?”

I didn’t even do anything in particular; it just started hurting in or around my kneecap when I go up or down stairs.  I can walk just fine.  It’s only the stair-stepping motion.

I was hoping that my parent’s single-story house would give me plenty of time for it to recuperate, but there were those three single stairs going up and down from kitchen to porch (where we spent a ton of time).  But I kept forgetting to ease up the steps and then POW!  I’d take a bad step and almost pitch forward into the French doors.

With cases like this, I’m hesitant to go to the doctor’s.  It’s been my experience that these things heal with time.  I’ll give it a month or two and try not to aggravate it.  Then if the pain persists, I’ll go get it checked out.

Now, back at home, I have 6 stairs going from ground level down to my apartment and then a ton of them getting in and out of the subway station.  Today I had to force myself to ride up the escalator instead of walk up like I usually do.  I do NOT have the temperament for that.  Maybe I’ll suggest they put in a mural on the side, so that I’ll have something to look at besides someone else’s ass.

Sigh.

Getting old sucks.  But at least I get to retire soon, right?

Meanwhile, this week is a 2-day workweek.  Too bad all of them aren't…

Another Day (or two) in Paradise

Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, as well as Derby Day.  After I dropped the previous post, we headed out to lunch at a local Mexican place, Rio Bravo, after which we headed for Walgreens and Lowe’s.  My folks needed to go to Lowe’s to pick up some flowers, and we went to Walgreens because that’s what my parents do whenever they’re out on the weekend.  Shopping at Walgreens is like crack, to them.  But I was able to pick up a Pensacola Blue Wahoos t-shirt.  I was looking for a hat, but apparently the team doesn’t have all their merch on the streets just yet.  I’ll probably pick on up online, when I get home.

As for the flowers, Dad got a tray of vincas… as he put it, because it was Vinca de Mayo.

The rest of the day was spent in the pool, sipping margaritas and watching the Kentucky Derby.  Props to Uncle Crappy for publicly picking the winner, I’ll Have Another.  I’m definitely going to him for my Preakness pick.

Dinner was Grilled Steak ala Geezen.

And in case you’re wondering, that sign above the grill, hand-painted by a friend more that 20 years ago, says, “Iron City Lounge.”

There was a huge full moon on Saturday, which really lit up the night.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a picture that would really do it justice.  This will have to do instead.

Maybe next time I won’t be too drunk to remember to use the moonlight setting on the camera.

As we rode out the night, out on the porch, Dad told me a new story, which again involved his crazy friend, “The Lob.”

This was back in the 80’s when we lived in NW Ohio.  My dad had a work function at the very staid Inverness Country Club.  This was a pro-level golf course and club that has hosted a good number of PGA golf tournaments over the years.  Why they let THESE guys in, I’ll never know.

So… end of the night, The Lob is pretty hammered.  He and my dad to get their coats from the coat check and something catches The Lob’s eye.  He pointed it out to my dad… three hats lined up in a row, two fedoras and one honest-to-God, Abe Lincoln tophat.  The Lob said, “Watch, I’m gonna go get me a “hat trick,” and then walked over and went, “Wham! Wham! Wham!” as he flattened out each one.

They beat feet out of the place, giggling like schoolboys the whole time. 

I had no idea my dad and his friends were such hoodlems.  No more play-dates for those two, that’s for sure.

Anyway, Sunday was more of the same… We opened with breakfast

...and shots;

And yo, that's Crown Royal Black!

not necessarily in that order.

Then we spent the day around the pool and playing with Dad’s new accessory.

Of course, this isn’t just any bobber…

Introducing “The Big Bobber Floating Cooler.”

Heartily endorsed by semi-renowned blogger, Bluzdude.

I also spent considerable time stalking the geckos that run rampant around the back yard.

At least he’s not trying to sell me shitty insurance.

There was also another one running around, one that had lost his tail.  He spent most of the time in the shadows, probably out of embarrassment from being teased by the other full-tailed geckos.  I tried to get a picture of him, but it came out too blurry.  It looked like a reptilian version of those infamous “bigfoot” pictures, like it was the Loch Ness Gecko.

The high drama of the day came later, as Pinky and I were sitting out on the porch.  She saw a kitty wandering around in the back corner of the yard.  The yard is enclosed by an 8-foot wooden fence so I figured it had just climbed over.  But it seemed to be in distress.  It sat by the back fence, meowing plaintively.

I told Pinky to let it be, that it found its way in so it would find its way back out when it was ready.  But not being one to let anything alone, ever, she went back to investigate, when she heard the back neighbors calling for a pet.

She yelled over to ask if they were looking for a kitty and they were.  Thus commenced

RESCUE KITTEH 9-1-1!

Pinky told them that they should bring a pet-carrier around to the front.  The neighbors then asked what the address number was.

[blink]

What, did they think we mailed ourselves here?  We had no freakin’ clue, and the folks were inside. 

But they also mentioned that the cat was declawed.  That puzzled me because now I had no idea at all how he got over here in the first place.  Maybe they had a table or something close to the fence on their side, and the cat used that to jump over.

But anyway, once I heard that he was declawed, it became a no-brainer.  Because I didn’t have to worry about getting my arms shredded, while Pinky was in the house trying to get the address number, I went over to the fence to see what I could do.

There was pretty little black and white cat sitting at the base of the fence.  As I’d hoped, he didn’t seem spooked by me at all.  I squatted down and offered my hand and he walked right over for a sniff.  After a quick pet, I picked him up and hoisted him up to his daddy, who was reaching over from the other side.  Problem solved.  I returned to the porch like William the Conqueror. 

After we cleaned up, we headed out for dinner.  We were heading to one place down by the beach, but because there was a storm coming in, there was a flood of people coming back from the beach.  This became a problem because we needed to make a left into the restaurant’s parking lot but there was no turn arrow.  With all the traffic coming the other way, only one car per cycle could make the left.  Not wanting to starve to death in the car, we cut out of there and improvised.

We ended up at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, inside the Jimmy Buffett Hotel.  (No, I didn’t know he had a hotel either.)  The place was nice enough and we had a table right by the window, overlooking the Gulf.  Dad and I went with the All You Can Eat Grouper Bites.

Unfortunately, this place uses the Red Lobster theory of All You Can Eat, where it should more properly be called, “All You Can Eat, If You’re Willing to Spend Your Entire Night Eating 5 Bites Every 20 Minutes, Which is as Fast as We Will Bring You Any More Tiny Servings... Sucker!”

But I can’t complain… We’ve been eating like Kings all week.  I’m sure my circulatory system was thankful that I didn’t load it down with even more fried shit than I normally do.

After dinner, we took a little stroll around the perimeter deck and soaked in some of that Gulf atmosphere.

No one can say that I’m a photographer without pier. [snork]

We were going to go down to the beach this morning, but I got up with a sore throat, signaling that I’m about to get one of my colds.  I think I got it on the plane from the woman across the aisle that was coughing up a sundae every 15 minutes.  I know I should have breathed exclusively through the air jet.  Anyway, I’m just going to lay low today.  We have a little shopping scheduled, and a Chinese buffet.  And I know that THEY won’t skimp on the seconds…

And then tomorrow, we leave The Good Life and return to the hamster wheel.

Man, I wanna be retired.  Can I retire now if I promise to go back to work when I’m 80?

Wahoo! It's Florida!

Just checking in at the halfway point of our vacation… Short version: we came, we saw, we’re eating all the food.  Long version: here goes…

One good thing about taking an afternoon flight is that it’s much easier for me to get to sleep the night before.  When I have an early flight, I usually lay in bed worrying about oversleeping, or making sure I get to sleep right away so that I’m not overtired.  This is guaranteed to delay falling asleep by 2 hours.

But with a 1:45 flight, I could prep the night before, sleep well, pack in the morning, set sail at the pre-determined time and enjoy an easy trip around the beltway, without any rush hour traffic.

We only had one hiccup at the airport… This was the first time I had to go through one of those body-scanning machines, (they were sending everyone through), so I wasn’t sure of the drill.   I’d already taken off my shoes and belt and emptied my pockets of all metal.  But that wasn’t good enough.  As I stepped in, the dude was all, “Please empty your pocket of whatever is in your left back pocket.”

I was like, “What, my ass?”

OK, I didn’t really say that.  I know that if you joke with the security people, they take you right to the smart-ass section of Airport Jail.  So I just took out my wallet and put it in one of those plastic bowls, to go through the scanner.

Then when they scanned me again, they were like, “PLEASE REMOVE WHATEVER IS IN YOUR FRONT LEFT POCKET!”

Gingerly, I reached two fingers in and pulled out…

…my tiny plastic package of Listerine Flash Strips. 

They had to pat me down to be sure that’s all I was packing and then they sent me on my way.  Another aviation crisis averted.

Our plan was to get dinner while we had a layover in Atlanta, but Air Tran messed up my calculations.  I was counting on boarding the plane 20 minutes prior to take-off, like Southwest does.  But Air Tran boards 40 minutes prior, so that carved a good chunk out of our mealtime.  Because we didn’t have time now to have a sit-down dinner, we had to settle for a dash through Wendy’s. 

OK, Pinky “settled.”  I was in hog heaven.  I love me some Wendy’s.  But anyway, we got in just fine and the Oldes met us at Security.

I had planned on eating at the airport so that it would be one less meal Mom would have to make, but it didn’t quite work out that way.  We still had a cheese/crackers/pepperoni/olives plate, then soup and sandwich.  I suppose I could have just “not eaten,” but come on.  I could never insult my mother that way.

We got up Friday morning to a most inauspicious start.

Luckily it didn’t rain like that for very long; in fact it had stopped by the time we arrived at the place we were going for brunch.

Omelets, courtesy of "Another Broken Egg."

Because it had cleared up, we took a ride by the new ballpark that just opened this spring.  Pensacola houses a minor league AA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, called the Pensacola Blue Wahoos.

A “blue wahoo” is a kind of fish that’s caught locally.  It also sounds like what you’d call a sad redneck.  

I’m not exactly sure of what we’re supposed to call it.  There was no sign on the building, and even online, there seemed to be a couple of names in use.  Mostly, it’s referred to as “Blue Wahoo Park,” but there were also references to “Community Maritme Park,” and even more formally, “Vince J Whibbs Community Maritime Park.”  I’m envisioning Chris Berman, right now, referring to it as “The Big Whibbs.”

Anyway, the park was beautiful, sitting right on Pensacola Bay, holding 5270, including “standing room.”  At first I thought we were just going to drive by, but Dad noticed that the gate was open, so we strolled in like we owned the place and had a walkabout.

Shot toward the right field wall.  Pensacola Bay is just beyond the wall.

They have a very cool “lounge” area out beyond right field.

You can also sit or stand on the grass, just behind the outfield wall.

We were prepared to be tossed out, but nobody really gave a crap that we were there.  Little did they know how dangerous I actually was…  After all, I was still packing my Flash Strips.

Once we exited the Park, we decided to mosey down to the edge of the Bay.  Once there, we spotted a couple of blue herons, which were pretty cool.  They even posed for me.

 He even gave me the perfect “profile” shot.  Must be used to the paparazzi.

I named this one Chester the Molester.  Totally looks like he’s flashing.

"I've got my eye on you..." 

“Just a regular heron, out for a stroll…”

When we got back, it was nice enough for a swim, so out to the pool we went.  Dad pointed out where he had to have a limb cut down from a big tree, so now it looks like the tree is, um, “excited,”

Now I call it, “The Boner Tree.”

It even looks like it has the hole on the end.

He had to have it cut down, because it was blocking the sunlight from one of his Bradford Pear trees, which was planted to block the sightlines from the apartments behind them.

To go along with the tumescent nature of their back yard, they also have this thing:

Presenting: The Balsam Barometric Weather Stick.  Right now, I'd say it's pretty darned excited about today's weather.

It’s supposed to raise up when the barometric pressure goes up and lower when it goes down.  I asked what that meant in terms of the weather but they didn’t know.  They just liked to watch it go up and down.  Such is the nature of Life in Retirement.

Also, I liked these flowers, (mandavilla), that Bluz Sister had given the folks.

This one will be in my next year’s calendar.

After pool, (and drinks) it was dinner time again, where we assembled for stuffed shells.

We only ate just over half, so I know we’ll be seeing these again.  (I can’t wait!)

Amidst all our yakking, Dad laid another great story on me, from back in his travelling days.  He was out in Boston, taking in another baseball game at Fenway with his friend “The Lob.”  They were sitting in the lower bowl, about halfway between first base and the outfield wall.

A big power-hitter named George Cooper was up at bat and smashed a screaming line drive right in Dad’s direction.  With beer in hand, he quickly leaned over, in classic “kiss your ass goodbye” position and the ball just grazed his back and landed under some seats.  Out of danger, Dad popped back up, un-spilled beer still firmly in hand, and received a nice round of applause from his section.

You know how you can drop a cat from any angle and it will land on its feet?  My family is like that with drinks.  I think we are genetically programmed to do a front handspring and not spill a drop of our drink.

Evolution is a wonderful thing.

PS. Happy Cinco de Mayo and happy Kentucky Derby Day.  In honor of our Mexican friends, we will be substituting the usual Derby favorites of Kentucky bourbon and mint juleps, with margaritas.  Arriba!

 Cheers!

Down Time

By the time you read this, I should be doing this:

Pinky and I are heading down to visit my folks in Florida on Thursday, for a long weekend.  I should have some kind of post up over the weekend, probably gloating about the good times, good food and good booze we’re having, and then we should be back home Tuesday night.  I’ll probably post again on Wednesday.

See, even on vacation, I’m concerned about you not finding fresh material here.  And obviously my life is far too fascinating not to share all my adventures… [snork!] 

And you know, one bright spot about the Penguins washing out of the playoffs in the first round is that I don’t have to stress out about which game jerseys to pack.  (I mean, what if they played 3 games and lost the first two… if I’d only brought 2 jerseys, I wouldn’t have anything but a losing jersey to wear for the 3^rd.  So you can see how stressful this decision would have been.

Anyway… I’m looking forward to hanging with The Oldes.  Maybe I can dig up some more good story material.

So I’m all packed… all I need to do is put all my stuff in the suitcase; I’ll do that tomorrow morning.  But I got the important things done.  I have my reading material, my camera and phone are all charged up, I’m checked in, parking is arranged, newspaper and mail delivery are cancelled, I’ve DVR’d all the TV shows I’ll likely miss…  That’s the hard stuff… the stuff I fret about before traveling.  It’s all done now.

Now, a good night’s sleep and then we’re off to fly the Friendly Skies…

Well, OK, it’s Air Tran, so it’ll be more like the Adequate Skies.

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel: The O's vs. A's

When I got up on Sunday morning, I looked out the window and saw that it was a beautiful sunny day and thought, “Gee, it looks like a good day to go down and catch an Orioles game.”

They were playing the Oakland A’s at 1:30, so I figured, why not?  They had just unveiled the first statue in the picnic area the day before, so I was anxious to go check out the new Frank Robinson statue.

I know I just did 2 Camden Yards posts a couple weeks ago, but shit, what’s the point of doing anything if you can’t do a post about it?  This one will be different, I promise.

When I went online to buy the tickets, I noticed that the place actually looked like it was going to be crowded… at least in the cheap seats.  But I spotted an aisle seat in the right field bleachers, about 3 rows back, so I jumped on that.

Unfortunately, I decided to look at my Orioles schedule after I bought the ticket… the promotional calendar said that it was Little League Day.  Gah!

That meant the place would be crawling with rugrats.  I had a couple of jabbering magpies totally ruin a game for me last year, who when they weren’t yakking at each other, they were screaming at the players from about a foot behind my ear.  Looked like I’d be out there surrounded by yard-apes all day.  I put the over/under on how many chattering monkeys I’d have to toss over the outfield wall, at 4.

Still, you can’t beat a cool, clear, sunny day at the old ballpark, so out I went.

“I welcome me to Camden Yards.”  If you look close, you can see the reflection of my arm holding the camera, in my left sunglasses lens.

Because it was Little League Day, the kids got to walk around the perimeter of the field before the game.  That also meant that there would be no meaningful batting practice.  I bought my traditional First Beer from the Beer Lady on the flag court and collected my traditional fist bump from her.  (She said, “Much love, baby.”  I love it when old black women call me “baby.”  Would it be insulting if a middle-aged white guy answered, “Love you too, Big Mama.”?)

I got a shot of the flags, up on the flag court, which I omitted from my prior ballpark post.  They have one flag for each team in the American League, in order by division and standings.

You can tell it’s April when the O’s flag is flying in first place.

While I was up there, I took a shot of where I’d be sitting.  Looks like I’d have to move some dudes out of my seat there on the aisle. 

Old dude with his arms crossed is in my seat.

Technically, I was in the 6^th row, but the rows of that section start at the very bottom.  But over around the bend of the wall, the 6^th row is the 3^rd row from the wall.  That’s baseball metaphysics for you.  I also noted, even as the section filled up, that I didn’t see many kids.  I appeared to be in the Crusty Old White Man section, so I would be among my peeps.

Anyway, I lit out for a look at the Frank Robinson statue.  They did a good job on it, but getting a clear shot of it was troublesome.  Everyone else in the park was trying to get a shot of their kids with the statue, so I had to wait a bit.  Then much to my relief, after another Family Portrait, this dude beside me said, “Do you mind clearing off for a sec, so I can get an unpopulated shot?”

That worked wonders.  He was nice about it and everyone complied.  Then about a half dozen of us childless people had a chance to get a picture without someone else’s little angels hanging off Frank’s legs.  I thanked the dude for saying something; that’s not usually My Way.  (My Way is to stand there looking irritated until someone figures out what I want.)

The statue was a little smaller than the ones at PNC Park, but the detail was just as good.  Robbie was a heck of a ballplayer… it’s just too bad that he couldn’t beat the 1971 Pirates.  (Woooooo! Go Bucs!)

I finally went down to claim my seat and it was really no problem.  The guys sitting there were two truckers from Chicago and they couldn’t be nicer.  The guy said that he got walkup tickets and asked for something on the aisle.  I guess she just got him close because I had that aisle seat claimed several hours earlier.  But it was cool.

I love meeting people at the ball park, especially if they’re from out of town.  I try to leave them with the impression that there are some nice people here.  And of course, they were from the Midwest, so they were nice by default.  We talked Cubs and Sox baseball for a while, as I told them how my first baseball game ever was at Wrigley and how my little 3^rd grade heart was broken by the 1969 Cubs.

My view from the outfield.  Everything didn’t look quite so far away, in person.

The game rolled by pretty quickly, as it turned out to be a pitching duel.  The Orioles couldn’t do squat at the plate.  The A’s weren’t much better, but did come up with a couple of runs.  Could have been more, but the Orioles outfield made a couple nice plays.  Nolan Reimold went up over the wall to rob a guy of a homer in left, and Adam Jones made a nice diving catch of a sinking ball in center.

About the 5^th inning, the ushers came by, passing out the All Star ballots.  I dutifully filled mine out, but they never came back around to pick them up.  Pissed me off.  It’s like, they ran out of things to do on the scoreboard, so they thought, “Let’s let them try to punch out a bunch of paper holes for a while.”  This is probably why the Orioles never have any more than one All Star each year.

So, here we are, bottom of the 9^th, O’s were down by 2.  I considered heading up and watching the bitter end, up by the exits, but you know, with only being down by 2, the game can be tied with a mere swing or two.  Next thing I knew… Orioles Magic.

One guy bounces an infield hit.  Next guy dubs one that the pitcher fields, and then throws away.  Now there’s runners on second and third.  Hot damn!  Rally time!

Matt Wieters (whose jersey I’m wearing) cracks a long ball off the wall for a double, scoring both runners.  Tie game!

Next guy is walked intentionally to create a force-out situation, runners on 1^st and 2^nd.  New acquisition Wilson Betemit comes to the plate and cracks a fly ball straight at me.  Once it went over the right fielder’s head, I knew that was ‘game,’ so I jumped up in celebration.  I saw the ball bounce off the wall and back into play, but the fielder was already going back to the dugout.  I figured that it was because it only took one run to end the game so he bailed.  Later, I learned that it was actually a home run, because the ball hit the “secondary” wall behind the outfield wall. 

If you scroll back up to the picture of my seats, you can see the “shelf” over the wall.  The ball skipped off the horizontal plane and bounced off that second wall.  That’s a home run.  But you couldn’t tell that from where I was.

But that’s how, for the 4^th consecutive game, I ended up either on TV or in a press photo.

I didn’t set up to DVR the game so I just turned on ESPN and there were the highlights.   And then, there I was.

There I am under the arrow, the goober in white, doing the Y-M-C-A.

 By that time, I had moved back a row, (after a family had left early) to give my Chicago friends some elbowroom.

Ferris Bueller, eat your heart out.

I should start a new blog and post each time I turn up in a crowd shot.  I’ll call it Zeligfish.

Story Hour

You may recall that Pinky works in a Seniors Center as an activities person.  Back in mid-February, she approached me to give a talk to her seniors and tell some of the stories about my Grandpa.  I’d recently run a couple of stories here about my Grandpa and his crazy family, thus giving Pinky the idea for me to come in.  The date she was holding open was Saturday afternoon, March 31, at 3pm.

Now, know this about me… I’m not a guy that seeks out the spotlight.  I’d rather write material for someone else than get up in front of people and do it myself.  So right off, I had to try to figure out how to get out of it. 

After consulting the NHL schedule, I saw that the Penguins were NOT playing that afternoon, so they were no help to me at all.  So I tried to reason my way out of it.

“Why would your seniors want to hear a bunch of stories about some stranger’s relatives,” I asked.  “Why would they care?”

“They like to hear stories about the old days, plus, you’re new so they aren’t tired of listening to you,” Pinky responded.

I had to change tactics.  “But I haven’t given a speech or talk to a group since… well… since the mid 90s.  My speech-giving days are long past.” 

“You’ll be fine, all you have to do is tell the stories like you told me.”

With that, she put me on the schedule.  Apparently I didn’t really have any choice in the matter.  Resigned to my fate, I began to ponder the up-sides.  It would be kind of fun to tell the stories to a group; in fact, it would be just like my Grandpa would do.  I would be channeling him, as a way of honoring him.  Yeah, I could pull this off.  Besides, if I suck, they’ll probably forget all about it within a day or two.

Telling the stories themselves would be no problem.  Hell, I’ve already told them all right here.  The one about my Great Grandpa sending his wife to Italy and then leaving her for a year, the one about her stuffing bits of rags into his annoying musical instrument, Grandpa’s brawling brothers handcuffing their parents together until they settled their argument, and the one about the one brother lugging the other up the stairs, but was in fact so drunk he didn’t realize he was carrying a rolled up carpet… all of those were in one post.  The story about my Grandpa smuggling booze into the Pacific Rim war zone by replacing maraschino cherry juice with bourbon was in this post.  So I basically already had my material all worked out.

But I didn’t want to tell them as nothing but a bunch of disjointed vignettes.  They had to make sense as a whole.  But that’s where being a writer paid off.  I approached it like I was telling one long story.  I just needed to connect them all the stories together.  So that’s what I worked on… devising the segues to bind it all together.  I had about 5 pages worth of notes typed out and that didn’t even include writing out the stories.  I certainly didn’t want to go out there and just read from the pages, so I went over it enough times so that the notes were just there for reference.  I did a rough timing rehearsal about a week out and on the morning of the event, did a full out practice run at home, for maximum freshness.  It timed out to about 20 minutes.  I even prepared a little “stunt” to liven up the part where my Grandpa was in the hospital, at the end.

Pinky had us set up in a large rec room, with couches and easy chairs in a semi-circle around the speaker’s chair.  I was hoping for a podium or something, so that my note pages would be less conspicuous, but I had to make do.

We ended up with a little over a dozen seniors, mostly women, maybe 3 men.  It was kind of funny, looking out at all of them, with their walkers sitting in front of them.

Once I was in the room, I knew that I had to shed any ambivalence I had about speaking.  One thing I remember from my college days (which included a great deal of public speaking) was that you had to keep your energy up and be fully engaged, if you wanted to capture your audience.  You had to commit.  I also knew that the opening would have to be strong if you wanted to draw them in… first impressions and all.  So I had a couple of jokes ready at the outset.

“When Pinky first told me that she wanted me to speak to you, my initial reaction was to say, ‘Why, did they do something wrong?’”

I totally ripped that from Modern Family.*  Luckily, it got a laugh.

“No, for years, she’s heard me talk about my Grandpa on my Mom’s side and tell stories about his life and his crazy family, and though that maybe you’d like to hear them too.  Just remember, if you don’t like the stories, it’s HER fault.”

Another laugh… phew.  Those two jokes were my canaries in the coalmine.  If they died, it would be a long, uncomfortable 20 minutes for me.  So I went on the stories and pretty much killed.

Channeling Grandpa and trying to make my notes look inconspicuous.

Right off the bat, I found one lady that was completely engaged in the stories.  I could see her following every plot point with the reactions on her face.  Naturally, I started to look her way most of the time.  She was on my left, so a number of times, I had to make a conscious effort to look back to the right.  Otherwise, I could have played to her the whole time.

Lillian, the one in the dark outfit in the middle, was my Go-To Gal.

Really, I WASN’T reading my notes!  It just looks that way!

The whole thing went great.  I got laughs where I wanted and seemed to carry their attention throughout the presentation.  I heard later that they liked how I got up to demonstrate how my Great Uncle was hauling his brother (the carpet) up the stairs.

And even without seeing, I caught the laughs drawn by my “stunt,” when I was telling how Grandpa entertained the nurses assigned to give him his pills while in the hospital.  He’d take the pill cups and draw eyes on them, then put them over his own eyes and hold up a newspaper in front of them.  Then when they walked in, he’d drop the paper and…

“Perhaps a little less caffeine, please.”  I probably should have tipped Pinky off about this bit so she could get a live picture, but I wanted to surprise her too.

So, I wrapped it up in 20, thanked the seniors for their attention and soaked up their warm applause.  Then Pinky threw it back to them, to ask about stories or memories of their own grandparents.  It was sad how many of them never knew their grandparents, because they had died so young.  Occupational hazard of being alive in the early 1900s, I guess.

I also took the opportunity to talk a little bit about my other Grandpa, who is still very much alive and rocking all of his 96 years.  I told them the story about how when my Dad got in trouble as a teenager for hopping on freight trains, Grandpa left his ass in jail until past midnight, when Grandma finally made him go get her son out of the town lockup.

It’s a shame to think that there are people that never had grandparents that could pass on family lore like this.  I am so lucky, in this respect.  I got to know all four of my grandparents and still have clear memories of each.

Anyway, the audience participation ran until everyone was talked out.  Many of them came by to tell me how much they enjoyed my stories, which touched me greatly.  They were all very sweet.

And the funny thing was that there was one guy in the crowd, on my far left, that barely moved a muscle the entire time; he just sat there with his chin in his hand, expressionless.  But afterwards, he came up and we ended up talking for another 20 minutes.  Seems we had lived in a number of the same places.  He even worked at the Chevy plant in Parma OH, right across the street from my apartment. 

And he was a Browns fan and wanted to know if it was true about how the Steeler fans used to smuggle booze into the games.  That gave me the opportunity to talk about all our adventures at the Steelers/Browns games over the years, including our methods of illicit booze smuggling.

Demonstrating the use of “Bar-Noculars.”

All in all, it was a very good day. 

And somewhere, I’m sure my Grandpa was smiling and I hope, very proud. 

Director’s DVD Commentary: The Modern Family joke came from when Phil and Claire were at the theater about to see a cheesy monster B-movie, but instead felt they needed to attend a subtitled French film, so to not seem dumb to the daughter’s classmate’s very educated parents. 

Said Phil, “Why do I have to see a French film?  I didn’t do anything wrong!”

See Spots Run

I’ve told a number of stories about that period in time when I was married (cold chill runs down spine.)  There were the stories about my Ex-wife getting stuck upside-down behind the dryer and getting trapped in the back yard buck-naked.  (Both can be found in this post.)  I’ve mentioned the strained relationship she had with her young son and the toll he took on our relationship.  I’ve talked about how she had a new guy living in the house a month after I moved out.  And I’ve talked about the wearying fights we would have, usually after she was already pissed off at the boy and I would stumble into it.

House cleaning was a subject that came up all the time, especially during the periods that I was unemployed (or under-employed).  Now I had no problem with doing the housekeeping.  I was the one at home, so I did all the cleaning, shopping and cooking.  But damned if I could ever do it “right.”

But it wasn’t even so much that I didn’t DO it right, it was that I didn’t decide to do it before she said to have it done.  I think a lot of that came down to a basic difference between men and women.  Dave Barry said it best: “Men clean when they see the dirt.  But women see the actual dirt molecules…” so we seldom considered something in need of cleaning at the same time.

She would yell at me because she had to tell me what to clean and when.  This would take about a half hour.  I would respond by saying, “All you have to do is say, ‘would you please vacuum, clean out the microwave and change the cat litter tomorrow?’  And I’d say ‘sure’, and we’d be done.”  Since I was the one doing the work, I didn’t see the big deal.  Obviously my perception of what needs cleaned did not match up with hers, so why not just tell me?

Anyway, the Number One Bone of Contention was the issue of Spots on the Mirror (SOM).  Toothpaste spots, to be exact.  For some reason, SOM short-circuited every synapse in her brain. 

Now, we had a big bathroom mirror.  It spanned across two sinks and included a low-level mirrored cabinet with sliding doors.  Knowing how she was about SOM, I began brushing with my lips closed, and I’d wipe away any errant spot as soon as I saw it shoot out.  So it wasn’t like I didn’t try.

More often, the problem was her son, who was much less careful with this brushing, or anything else, really.  Plus, he was brushing at a much lower height, so his spots were rarely in my line of sight.  But goddamn, this woman would rage for a solid half hour about these fucking spots!  I mean, she’d get started, I’d walk over and clean the spots in, like, two minutes.  And she’d still be carrying on… I’d say, “Honey, I cleaned the spots 15 minutes ago… let it go.”

In later years, I often thought that it was the kind of mental issue that could best be summed up with Goth Girl poetry.  You know… the kind scribbled on spiral notebooks by sad girls on rainy afternoons…

For years, I’ve had the tone in mind, along with the opening.  But I’d never been able to take it any further… until last night.

I was out at Happy Hour with Sitcom Kelly and for some reason, SOM came up in conversation.  I mentioned my Goth Girl poetry idea and right out of left field, the next line popped into my head, so I quickly wrote it down on my napkin.  Maybe it was the nachos, maybe it was the beer, maybe it was my proximity to Sitcom Kelly that goosed the Goth Girl portion of my brain into action.  When I got home, the rest of it poured out, still on the napkin.

I don’t write poetry; that’s my mom’s gig.  In college, I took a creative writing course where I had to do both poetry and prose.  It was painful... I did maybe one decent poem, another that was absolutely atrocious, and all the others were comic.  I couldn’t help it.  If it’s not a limerick, I’m hopeless.  (I’ll have to see if I can dig some of them up.)

So, picture this being read by a woman dressed in black, alternately pounding her chest and gesturing towards the skies, reading with the voice of Carmela Soprano.

Spots on the mirror

Spots on the mirror

Speckled doom fills my soul.

Connect-the-dots torment,

Your pox mocks my very being

Out, out damned spots

Or at least get a better job.

[drapes arm across brow]

Thank you.