Category Archives: Baseball

Here’s some random crap!

It’s not that I don’t love you, my four blog readers… it’s that, well, things are a bit of a tornado lately and there just hasn’t been time to sit down and write about how awesome I am.

So here’s some random junk.

1. WTF is up with my right foot? The sole of it is all hard and leathery and has cracked in places, which is uncomfortable at best and fucking painful the rest of the time. Getting a pedicure is out of the question at the present time, since I’m sure they want someone with oozing sores getting germs all around the place. I suppose I could maybe quit wandering around the backyard in bare feet and put some damn shoes on, but I probably won’t.

2. I managed to catch a cold. In July. At first I thought it was allergies, but after the initial early-spring pollen showers, I haven’t had any problems. Until this week, which brought on the sneezing and the sneezing and the sneezing. I think it’s going away now, but I still have that sunken-eyed feeling. Sexy.

3. My garden is quite a sight. The front garden was strewn with wildflower seeds in hopes that SOMETHING would grow there until I can actually sit and look at it and decide on a more permanent way of going on. It’s very pretty, with lots of blue and orange flowers that Jillian enjoys chewing on. Hope they’re not poisonous! I also have a few sunflowers that are still alive, which is a miracle to me since I have never been successful with those.

4. The back garden is… a tomato jungle. I planted sixteen pods with tomato seeds, thinking I was going to do it right and thin them before sticking them in the actual ground. I overestimated myself and ended up just putting the whole pod in. So now I have a veritable rainforest of tomato plants, which are being held up by a combination of cages and yarn. I need to stake them, like yesterday, but haven’t yet been able to carve out the time. I am hoping beyond hope that the hornworms don’t find us. Those things creep me out SO MUCH (more than soggy Cheerios, if you can imagine anything more horrifying than that) and if I see one, I’m busting out the Agent Orange.

5. The cantaloupe and the zucchini didn’t make it, sadly. It seems that buying plants from Home Depot is a bad idea – I have never done well with them, because they’re always diseased or something. The peppers I bought seem to be doing okay, and the eggplant… might live… but the others I bought DIED. DIED DIED DIED! Fuck off, Home Depot. Next year we’ll be more organized (ha ha!) and start zucchini and other fun things from seed.

6. I am trying to get Freddie to let me bust up the front lawn and put raised beds in there, but there is something encoded in his suburban DNA that makes him shrink with horror whenever I talk about NOT HAVING A LAWN. As it is, I refuse to water it no matter how brown and grody it gets because using fresh water on something that is ornamental and ultimately USELESS is so wasteful, it makes me want to barf. So… brown lawn. I did convince him to use a more or less ignored strip on the side of the house for next year’s veggie garden. We’re going to build the beds in the fall and hope that when spring comes, we’ll be able to grow stuff there.

7. My knitting projects are coming along nicely. I have finished the front of the Big Ugly Sweater and have started work on one sleeve. I might get it done by the time winter rolls around, but let’s not hold our breath. It’s my Aries nature – I love to start things, but the finishing… not so much.

8. Sewing is happening as well. Sort of. I am far too impatient to actually follow directions, so my projects tend to stall until I have some kind of brainwave that gets me through to the next section. Again – love to start things. I adore picking out fabric, but when it comes time to actually do something with it, I’m already bored and onto the next thing.

9. Tomorrow I’m heading up to Massachusetts to party with some of my Imaginary Internet Friends. I need some time away, badly. The last month or so of life here at The Butterfly Ranch has been extremely difficult, but I haven’t really been able to talk about it. It sucks, but that’s the way we roll here. I am thankful that I have my IIFs to vent to, or else this last month would have found me curled up under the dining room table, scratching at imaginary bugs.

10. Sunday Freddie and I are going to see the Mets! We weren’t counting on being able to get tickets at all this year, since it’s the last season at Shea Stadium, but thanks to his connections at work, we are using someone’s season tickets for this game. WHEEEE! Or, as Jillian would say “Yay Mets! Baseball!”

11. The Jillian is, as always, a constant source of amazement and delight. She is talking talking talking all the time, and putting words and sentences together left and right. Her latest obsession is airplanes, so every time we’re outside, we look up in the sky for airplanes. She is also a big fan of flowers, and after breakfast every day, she stands at the baby gate to the kitchen and says “Mama. Shoes. Outside, new flowers!” She also likes to learn new words and will happily repeat them all day long. Yesterday’s word was “greenies,” since she wiped some boogers on me and I said “Ew! Greenies!” So yesterday was all about “Mama, greenies in my nose!” And then she would cackle.

12. I fear the child has been cursed with my hair issues. I have cowlicks all over my head, which means the hair does not lie flat, ever. Jillian seems to have the same thing – her hair grows in about fifteen different directions and cannot be tamed. I am going to break down and get some barrettes to attempt to keep it out of her eyes, but I am not confident that this will help. Freddie is all for cutting her hair, but I refuse to allow him to do that! People just stopped telling me what a cute little boy I have, I’m not about to butch her up again!

13. I need to figure out what to do with this ridiculously large head of bok choy that I got yesterday. We joined a CSA, which, yay! But you get what you get, and a 2-pound (possibly heavier) head of bok choy was in the basket yesterday and… I’m at a loss. I know it’s related to celery and that I can use it in stir-fry and possibly also a soupy-thing (there’s a Naked Chef recipe that I have made before that was excellent), but other than that… I’m stumped. I tried last week’s [much smaller] bok choy in a tomato sauce over pasta, but I wasn’t thrilled with that combo.

14. I like the CSA. So far. We paid $350 for a 1/2 share, which looks like it’s going to be plenty. The farm is organic, and our farmer sends out a newsletter every week with little tidbits about what he’s doing and how he’s doing it organically. It’s very interesting. If I had the $$, I would love to buy a bigger plot of land out in the boonies somewhere and grow more food. I’m going to try, year by year, to take over more of the backyard.

15. And there you have it. Maybe, if you’re really lucky and you wish really hard, I’ll quit being lazy and post some pictures. Jillian’s 2nd birthday is coming up (I know – I can’t believe it either), so maybe I’ll post a bunch of her.

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Filed under Baseball, Food, Friends, House, Jillian, Knitting, Me Me Me

Some random junk

Lost starts up again tonight! As much as I would love to think that I am above TV-watching, I have to admit that I am not. I even watch American Idol. But Lost is the one thing that I will kill people for interrupting, so let’s not call my house while it’s on, ‘kay?

I am angry at chocolate. I need to figure out what the hell is wrong with the chocolate sponge cake I want to make into a jelly roll and why it’s too dry and WON’T ROLL. It breaks. I can’t figure out why. Working on it, though.

My child is currently on a serious waffle kick. She will eat waffles for every meal of every day if I will let her. I’m thinking about getting a waffle iron so I can at least put fruits and vegetables into the batter. However, I know that as soon as I buy or otherwise acquire a waffle iron, she won’t eat waffles anymore. SHE IS NUTS.

My father is currently not speaking to my mother. Apparently, he got pissy about something and decided to sleep in his recliner. This was two weeks ago. He’s still there, according to the email that I got yesterday. Even for our family’s standards, this is taking it a bit far, I think. I’m going to have to call him and ask him what’s up so he can launch into a litany of petty complaints about my mom. Then I’ll have to tell him that he’s acting like a dick and should really stop.

I love the fact that I can talk to my parents this way.

What else… what else…

Freddie starts his new job at his old company on Monday. He felt like he had gone as far as he could go with his current job, and as he started looking for something new, he contacted his former boss for advice and was offered a job pretty much instantly. Sweet. I think it will be a good opportunity for him, even with his trepidation about going back to his old company. We’re going to spend the weekend going through his wardrobe and shopping for clothes to add to it. He’s been able to wear jeans for the last two years, so his suit & tie collection suffered immensely.

I have to paint my living room. It’s really starting to wear on me. Unfortunately, the previous owners did the worst painting job I have ever seen and now I have to paint the damn ceiling, too. The ceiling would need to be painted ANYWAY, but I might have been able to get away with not doing it just now if they hadn’t gotten shit-brown paint roller marks all over it. Fuckers. I hate them.

I keep going back and forth about painting the trim or not. It’s white, and needs to be painted anyway since when it was installed, they didn’t fill in the nail holes and there are hundreds of wee little black specks everywhere. Of all the crazy crap in this house, that pisses me off the most. So it does need to be painted, but I don’t know if I want to paint it white or if I want to do something a little more dramatic. Decisions, decisions.

I suppose the trim color can be decided once I decide what color to paint the walls. I can’t seem to make a decision about this and it’s driving me nuts.

In other Jillian news, she is finally starting to grow some hair. You can’t see the outline of her skull anymore, so that’s a nice change. People have stopped asking me what my son’s name is. Of course, it helps that her winter coat looks like we killed a gay Muppet to make it, but even in the summer when she’s dressed in pink and frills and stuff, people ask me what “his” name is. Teehee.

Whew. I need a nap. I’m battling the beginnings of a cold and I really really don’t want it to escalate because instead of being inches from death for a few days with a quick recovery, I tend to be utterly miserable for months. Between Alka-Seltzer Plus (cherry flavor) and yoga, I feel pretty good today. I have hope.

Speaking of hope, didja see the trade the Mets did? DIDJA?

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Filed under Baseball, Food, Freddie, House, Jillian, Me Me Me, Stuff, TV

And while I’m at it today…

What the hell happened to the Indians?

MY GOD, PEOPLE. All they had to do was win ONE MEASLY GAME, but no – they had to lose.

And not just lose, they got KILLED.

Sigh.

Go Sox, I guess.

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The World Serious

Ever since the Great Mets Choking Incident of 2007, I haven’t been paying attention to baseball. However, now that it looks as if the Indians might make it to the World Serious (as my dad calls it), things are looking interesting again.

Having grown up in NE Ohio in the 80’s, I was witness to years and years and YEARS of bad Cleveland baseball. I mean, the entire premise of the movie Major League was based on the Indians winning some games, so you knew that it was fiction. You couldn’t make that same movie with, say, the Yankees (even though they have had their sucky times as well). The Cubs, possibly, but the Indians were far more believable.

So I shall watch the game tonight with interest. I doubt Boston can again pull off a crazy comeback a la 2004, but I heard a rumor once that I was wrong about something, so anything is possible, I guess.

Go Tribe!

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RIP 2007 Mets

It’s 8-1 at the top of the 9th. Unless the Mets pull 8 runs out of their collective asses in the bottom of the 9th, we’re done with baseball for the season because the Phillies are up 6-1.

Oh well – there is plenty of bad TV to keep us busy for the rest of the month.

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That gagging sound is coming from Queens

The HELL? I have the Mets game on but muted. I look up to see it’s already SEVEN to NOTHING in the FIRST INNING?

What the hell is going on? Apparently the Mets do not WANT to go to the playoffs. There is no other explanation. I am shocked and dismayed. This is just stupid, man.

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Collection

I didn’t do a Friday Random thing last week due to my bone-deep laziness. So I’ll do it today and we’ll start the week of right!

1. We are STILL waiting to hear about this house that we have been trying to buy. We are STILL in attorney review. I’m starting to get tired of waiting. We have continued to look at houses, but haven’t found anything that we like, except for one, but they are considering “multiple offers” right now, so we aren’t even going to bother throwing our hat into the ring. It’s a shame, too, because that house was really cute.

2. Except for the basement. First, you have to go down Danger Steps to get to the basement. At the third-to-last step, you need to bend over at the waist to avoid smashing your face on the support beam. Then, if you are any taller than I am, you have to stoop to walk around down there because the ceiling is so low. I can just barely walk upright and I’m only 5’7″! This confuses me SO MUCH that I cannot sleep for wondering WHY someone would build a house with a basement that you can barely access and use. WHY? That makes NO SENSE.

3. The other house that I really liked but definitely will not offer to buy was built in 1870 and has ghosts. I know this because when we went to look at it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and my ears started ringing [more], which is always a sure sign that I’m not alone. The house itself was actually pretty awesome. Lots and lots of rooms connected willy-nilly by bathrooms and closets. It would be a great house for a bunch of kids. Alas, it would need some very serious updating and love (read: money) to make it truly comfortable. I don’t know that I’d ever be comfortable there, though, considering the fact that I passed by the attic door and realized there was no way in heaven or hell that I would ever, of my own volition, open that door. Nuh-uh.

4. I’ve been putting off washing the car, thinking that surely it will rain soon. Of course, as soon as I can’t stand it any longer and decide that today is the day I will get the car washed, there is rain in the forecast.

5. Jillian threw an entire bowl of peas at me today. It got on me, the fridge, the wall, and the ceiling. So much for letting her feed herself, eh? I am trying to phase out the pureed food in favor of actual pieces of food, but she does the whole gagging Drama Queen act. On the one hand, I don’t want her to starve, but on the other hand, if she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat. I don’t know where on that spectrum I actually am, though.

6. Football season has started, and the Jets are already disappointing me. Nothing unusual there. I just hope they don’t have to get the Reanimated Corpse of Vinny Testaverde again. Actually, I think Vinny is or was under contract to another team last year? I don’t know and am too lazy to look it up. At least the Mets are still in first place.

7. I’m amused to report that the cat is still stupider than the baby gates. This animal can launch himself from the floor to my bed or up through the kitchen pass-thru window, but cannot seem to figure out how to get over the baby gate. He is a stupid, stupid cat. In fact, he fell off the windowsill this morning before I got up, which caused the blinds to click and clack all over themselves and caused me to curse at him and them under my breath. Chester is deeply stupid.

8. The fall TV season is starting up and I have no idea when any of my shows are on. Good thing we have the TiFaux set to record most of them. Too bad I don’t foresee any actual time in which to watch them, what with us about to be homeless and all. We have a maximum of six weeks left in this house, no matter what. This is shaping up to be an interesting autumn.

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Filed under Baseball, Chester, House, Jillian, Me Me Me, Real Estate, Stuff, TV

Random Friday strikes again!

1. I watched a good portion of the Princess Diana memorial service this morning on BBC World. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Prince Harry is definitely the hot one. And I wish I had more occasions to wear a hat. Nobody rocks hats like the British.

2. Jillian is not quite walking yet, but we’re in no rush. She has a couple of toys that function as walkers and she’ll truck around behind them, but no actual walking yet. Thank GOD. Her balance is getting better, too – we’ve had fewer headsmash bruises these past two weeks. Of course, I’ve just jinxed us and she’ll find a way to give herself a black eye today.

3. Our house is well on its way to being sold! We are out of attorney review and are just waiting for Chuck to get the inspection and his financing in order then we are going to be handing the keys over! AIEEE!

4. As for our house-buying adventure, we’re still hashing out some things on the contract. There are some issues with some wording in the contract regarding “cosmetic defects” which we are taking to mean the siding in the back that has been scratched up by the seller’s two humungous dogs. We’ll try to get them to give us a credit or we’ll have to decide if we can live with it for now. But the whole thing seems to be progressing well enough, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be installed in the new place by the end of September.

5. To that end, we have to start packing. After all, come October 1 we’re going to be moving SOMEWHERE, whether it’s to this new house, or a different house or a hotel or a homeless shelter, so we have to pack. We have waaaaaaay too much shit. Luckily, one of our friends is opening up her house to have a huge yard sale, so maybe we’ll be able to unload some of our crap there. And there’s always Ebay.

6. The job search is coming along. In addition to having the staffing agency look for something, I am also digging around to see if there’s anything else out there that looks promising. My one obstacle is that I cannot do a job that requires me to be on the phone, so that kind of limits me. Sigh. In the meantime, I’m going to start putting together a business plan that will help me get set up to work from home. I’m not sure how it’s all going to shake out just yet, but with some work and some hustle, I might be able to get something off the ground here.

7. I hate the Today show. I think watching it makes me stupider, and god knows I need little help with that. The other morning shows are just as bad if not worse, so we watch Sesame Street instead.

8. Once we get all the house stuff worked out, I’m going to have an actual backyard! I’ll be able to have a real garden! I might have exorcised my brown thumb demons once and for all, since I have managed to keep all my plants alive all summer. I have even been able to eat the peppers and tomatoes I grew, so I have a great deal of hope that I will be able to manage an actual garden. So I need some kind of Gardening Bible, that tells me what to plant and when and what kind of soil and all that stuff. I might even give roses a try, since the rosebush I inherited here actually came back to life. The previous owners of this house probably attempted to take it with them and they hacked the hell out of it. Eventually, it [sorta] grew back under my Benign Neglect regime and actually produced actual flowers that were quickly eaten by the Japanese beetles. So I’m thinking that if I get a rosebush and actually pay attention to it, I might be able to have some pretty, pretty flowers in my garden.

9. The Mets are pissing me off. I can’t believe they got swept by Philly. And yesterday’s game was just stupid. What happened to our relief pitchers? Let’s hope the Atlanta series goes a bit better or we’re fucked.

10. Last weekend we went to the track because they were having a crab cake cookoff. I love me some crab cakes, so we loaded up the family truckster and headed down the shore. It also happened to be Free Chair day, so we got our free little folding chair thingies. They give you a voucher at the gate and then you have to go over to a booth to claim your free chair. While we were standing there, a woman came up and complained that the chair she was given had dirt on the cover. I was like “um, it’s free, lady. Shut it.” God, what a bitch. Even the poor lady in the booth was all “um, what do you want me to do? They’re all pretty dusty.”

10a. I won $31 on the horse that I picked. I suppose I could take some time and learn how to read the racing form and then make a decision based on the horse’s previous stats and stuff, but I pick my horses by name. I usually do pretty well, considering.

11. Go Rutgers!

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Filed under Baseball, House, Jillian, Me Me Me, Real Estate, Stuff

For Mike

This one is for Mike:

How awesome is it that a Mets fan caught the 756 ball?

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It’s Friday, you know what that means!

It means an unordered list of things that may or may not be related to one another and may or may not have any relevance to anything at all! YAAAY!

1. I got my nails done on Tuesday. The mommy group went out en masse and got a discount at a nail place. Yay, sorta. Every time I’m getting my feet scrubbed and sanded down, I wonder to myself why I don’t do it more often. But that feeling fades almost as quickly as my feet return to their natural, hoof-like state. I hate spending money on beauty-type things like hair and nails. It shows, unfortunately, so perhaps I should get over myself and get my nails done more often.

2. The only thing I’m pissed about is the nail polish on my fingernails peeled off already. I suppose it’s because I wash my hands about 234 times a day, and my fingernails have never been very strong.

3. Is it just me, or does the Today Show suck? Did it always suck, or is it just the first hour that’s good and the rest of it sucks? It’s so, I don’t know, fluffy, that I’m not sure I’m getting any smarter by watching it. Yesterday they spent a good 40 minutes total on the Miss New Jersey non-scandal. This is news? FOR REAL? Isn’t there a war or something going on someplace?

4. The Mets have let Julio Franco go free. The guy is a thousand years old, but I’m sort of sad, since I watched Julio wreck the place in Cleveland through the 80’s and it would be sort of cute for him to still be playing when he’s 50. That dude that they called up instead, Lastings Milledge, seems like a real dick. I don’t think I like him.

5. I’m going to NYC tonight to see a whole gang of my Imaginary Internet Friends. I cannot wait, because it is going to be Super Fun! Of course, I’m getting old and decrepit so I’ll probably be on the train home by 10PM. Hee.

6. We leave for Lake Placid on Wednesday. We will have three days to fart around the Lake Placid area (including time for me to get my Harry Potter book on Saturday morning as the bookstore opens), then the race is on Sunday, and we return on Monday. It will be fun and exhausting so we’ll spend the week afterwards shoveling out the house in preparation for Jillian’s birthday party! WHEEE!

7. I have yet to replant my peppers and tomatoes. Perhaps I really will do that tomorrow, since I will be baby-free for much of the day. Freddie’s family is celebrating his stepfather’s 70th birthday, so he’ll be down there doing that. I will have some free time! Which I will probably waste on the Internet!

8. I made a banana cake yesterday that turned out surprisingly well. I have a tendency to make banana-related things that are goopy in the middle, but this cake held up pretty well. The middle is a bit sticky but it’s not completely raw, as my things occasionally are. The batter was SO good I wanted to eat it all. I suppose if I used Egg Beaters instead of actual eggs, I could make the raw batter work. Hmm.

9. The Jillian is starting that whole “cruising” thing. While I’m not happy about her picking up gay men in bars, the almost-walking part is really coming along. She pulls herself up to standing whilst holding on to the couch and moves from there to an ottoman. Or to the TV stand, where she tries to smack the TV or open the CD player. Great. I’m going to have to lock everything up now, but you can’t change the channel on the TV if the doors on the TV stand are closed because that’s where the cable box lives. Sigh. Her newfound mobility is going to kill us all – she tried to take the carbon monoxide detector out of the wall twice yesterday.

10. I am still working on my sweater. The knitting actually goes pretty quickly if I sit down and do it but I don’t really have much time to just sit and knit. But I’m 95% done with the back, so all that’s left is sleeves and hood. I’m thinking about cheating totally and making the sleeves and hood single colors instead of stripes. I’m sure it would be fine, since there are three colors in the stripe pattern and I can use one for each remaining piece. But that feels kind of like a cop-out, so I’m kind of undecided.

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Filed under Baseball, Friends, Jillian, Knitting, Me Me Me, Stuff, Triathlon