Month: June 2016

Is there anything worse (in the sporting realm) than 2nd place?  You’ve sent out 47 texts… “We made it to the Championship game – it starts at 4, I’ll send updates when I can!”

 

 

 

Here’s an update – we got ourselves a 2nd fucking place trophy.

The worst is: you’ve got just as much time invested as the winners.  Every other team has cleared out – those rat bastards are home napping (a select few with LOADS more sense of duty are actually taking care of their lawn – we simply replace the ‘crime scene – do not cross’ tape every now and again to freshen up the place).

You got up on Saturday at 5:30ish am, just like the people with the 1st place trophy.  Ya know… Alex used to always be on the team drawing the 1st game of the day, which meant getting up as early as 4am on occasion; this season her team seems to be the “we drew the 2nd game and the last game” type.  (incidentally… friends of ours drew the 1st game and last game Saturday… poor bastards.) Anyway – this early game/last game scenario guarantees you at least 14 hours not taking care of your home.  At least when she had the 1st game curse – we were often home by 5 or so, with this 2nd/last shit we don’t get home ’til almost 10.

And has any parent enjoyed a day of games in 65 degree weather, 0% humidity, 4mph breeze with lazy clouds?  Fuuuuuck.NOOOOOO.  We have 38 degrees with hurricane winds, 97 degrees with 114% humidity or torrential downpours – at no time are these girls solely battling pony-tailed opponents (although I swear our opponents never face the elements like we do…).

This weekend was an anomaly.  From a “I can go in and out at will” standpoint, the weather seemed perfect; from a “I’m going to sit here for 14 hours today” standpoint it sucked – or blew, as it were.  The wind at our tournament was obnoxious – 15(?), 20(?)mph constantfuckingly blowing.  There were no less than 11 tornadoes over home plate.  And the sun…  the sun obviously had a keen interest in these games as it decided to pull up a fucking seat right next to my forehead.  I don’t know which is worse – the underlying 2nd degree burns or the wind burn on top of the blistering.  The wind was so biting it required a thick zip-up hoodie, at one point my pacing in the final game drew me out of the shade and into the sun – my metal zipper melted.  I looked like an MLB pitcher between innings – the arm in the shade pushed through my hoodie sleeve, the arm in the sun pushing the sunscreen past it’s limits.

Why’s it seem like every single game has me staring into the sun?  We were at 3 different fields and almost without fail, I sat facing the sun… I went through 7 gallons of sunscreen, the opposing moms walked away with sun-kissed tresses.  Not only that… this weekend I ate more dirt than I have since my grade school years. I swear the umps decided home v. away teams based on my appearance at the field; “oh, it’s that lady… we like to have her facing the sun with the dirt blowing into her mouth.  Winning Edge you are the home team….”

Generally speaking, we don’t do well in the seeding games; we’ve been cursed with bad 1st day outings.  For those of you not in the know – Saturday usually consists of 4 games which dictate seeding, you come back on Sunday per your seed and play until you lose.  Usually Alex & Co. (no matter which girls make up the Co. part) bomb Saturday – which means we are most often a mid to low seed.  Unfailingly, her team finds their groove on Sunday so we spend the whole day fighting our way through the teams who had it together on Saturday.  We’ve played as many as 6 games on a Sunday (having to beat the same team twice in one tournament).  It should be noted: while I sit there in 98 degree heat, soaked like a person with a sweating disorder doing hot yoga, my girl is crouched behind home plate, covered in gear, involved in nearly every pitch…

eh screw ‘er, she’s young – it’s worse for me.

This weekend our girls actually got the 1st seed – we were looking forward to sleeping in… only… not so much.  Being inexperienced at this 1st seed stuff we always assumed the bracket favored these girls.  We’ve never been last seed either – we always assumed being last seed was also agreeable in that you were pitted against the 1st seed people who got to sleep in.  This is not so.  First seed teams get hosed.  You wanna fall in somewhere like 4th/5th seed.  I’m not saying blow any games, but had I known… I mighta been a little less enthusiastic about our winning pace on Saturday.

But… there I was on Sunday – exhausted, hungry (I do NOT eat concession stand food – done my fair share of concession stand duty…  I refuse to eat that stuff), one side of my body oozing from the sun poisoning, the other side goose bumps, my face wind burnt, down $319 in lunches, dinners, gas and a pick-me-up trip to Dunhams after a nasty foul tip off my girl’s mask (and to celebrate her walk-off pick-off), another $203.45 in gatorade, my weekend shot after 25 hours already spent chewing sand crystals.. but I was ready.  This was what it’s all about… bringing home the trophy.

Only… our girls clearly felt a 2nd place trophy was ok.  There wasn’t a bunch of terrible play – there just wasn’t a whole lot of play…  ‘Lackluster’ is the best word I can think of – and Alex Iseminger led the pack.

I knew early on we were coming home with 2nd place.  It was all I could do to not walk away.  I can tolerate being outmatched – what I cannot stand is being out “hearted” and that’s what happened.  If you’re going to go into the top game with no desire to be there – have enough respect for my time to lose in the 1st game of the day so I can get to my couch.  (Please note: this is directed at my kid only… for all of those parents I spend a tremendous amount of time with – I judge only  MY child’s lack of heart).

As I said… I knew early on we were headed for obscurity.  I had 5 innings to practice my “Hey 2nd place ain’t bad, you should be proud of yourself” speech.  At the end of the game parents lined up to take pictures – I was not one of them… I stood back rolling my eyes, disgusted (if you’ve ever seen Pee Wee’s Big Adventure… think Pee Wee barely tolerating the tour of the Alamo).  Alex came over with a smile on her face , I asked how she was (she took a couple off the mask) – now out of the fold of her beloved teammates, she dropped the smile and grunted.  I put on MY fake smile, did my best impersonation of a liar and said, “well…. 2nd place is ok, nothin’ to sneeze at…” Alex looked up from her bag like she was gonna cut me, “yeah…” then tossed her dumbass 2nd place trophy in her bag.  Didn’t talk to us for 2 hours.

Schwew…. for a while there I was afraid she was ok with 2nd place….

 

We have a boy.

We have a dog.

That’s about where the connection ends… mostly.

Alex is the in-house animal whisperer. Pretty much, when we need for the dog and/or cat to behave a certain way, we open with, “Alex! Can you get the cat/dog to…..” She has always had a connection with our animals.

Abby… only connects with reptiles, I’m pretty sure she speaks parseltongue… (ok, no she doesn’t. It’s not even a real thing – I am currently immersed in the Harry Potter books and as such, I’ve mentioned Abby/parseltongue at least thrice today. Parseltongue is the ability to converse with snakes and is most commonly associated with the Dark Lord… hahaha if any REAL person could speak parseltongue, it’d be that girl). But in the non-wizarding realm, Abby has no real connection to the animals – as a matter of fact, BrettFavre (the cat not the man) takes a swipe at her frequently when she breezes by him. ‘Course right now he’s curled up on her, purring….

Cal couldn’t care less about the animals. He… is me – he neither loves them nor loathes them. They are… that’s it. It’s odd because he’s such a lover, I really expected a deeper relationship. Brownie (the dog) has taken to sleeping in Cal’s room – right beside his bed. It’s pretty cute, it’d be unbearably cute if Cal had any affection for the dog whatsoever. Let me say again, he doesn’t DISLIKE Brownie, he just doesn’t give her too much thought (unless she’s hurt or not feeling well, etc.). Brownie has, unfortunately, always smelled bad (only to find out a decade later – German Shepherds are one of the worst smelling dog breeds :/ ) and always had nauseating breath (completely our fault) and she has always, ALWAYS, thought she was a lap dog. These traits are not endearing. Cal and I find them especially not endearing.

Of course – she’s hanging on well past her life expectancy (after all, there’s more undercoat to spread). It seems Shepherds are expected to live 7 to 10 years, Brownie will soon be 12. She has very little energy left – except to cram her face into my face and breath that stank-ass breath on me… Every time Alex looks at her, Brownie is in the middle of a breath – we are literally watching for her to stop breathing – and Alex starts to panic if her stomach doesn’t rise or fall immediately. The dog seems extremely happy and content at this point but we are bracing ourselves for the time her stomach doesn’t rise again, or worse yet, when we have to make a decision…

Anyway, back to Cal and Brownie. Years ago… YEARRRRS ago – I think Cal had to be in the 2-year old range; I got home from work to find Alex (4) and Cal outside with our sitter (Annie, I was going to write ‘nanny’ but I didn’t want to sound all high falutin… you still have your own computer login here, clearly more than a “sitter”). Annie left and I looked to Alex and Cal and said, “I’m running upstairs to change clothes – I will be right back down.” I had shorts and a t-shirt laying on the bed and was basically a round curtain and some glitter away from being that lady at the circus who changes outfits – I couldn’t have been upstairs for more than 2? 3? minutes, if that. I got back outside to – no Calvin.

I was asking Alex where he was, screaming – SCREAMING – his name, frantically looking around the house (we live on a moderately busy road… I shudder to even imagine………). I called my dad, “I’VE LOST CALVIN HE’S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!” Frantic is the word I’ll use here but any parent who has been in a similar situation knows……. knows there is no word to adequately express the feeling. I was running around the house for the second time and I don’t know why or what made me look down the alley that runs behind our house – Cal was so small, he shouldn’t have been able to traverse our patio steps – but there he was, my little physically advanced boy walking down the alley – headed God knows where, just away from this dump. And there was Brownie – walking circles around him. She was also 2 years-old – about the age a shepherd comes into “protection mode”. She didn’t stop Cal but as he walked forward, she walked around and around and around him. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

My love for Brownie begins and ends with her undying devotion to the safety of my children – that is why I wanted her, she has never let me down. About 6 months ago the kids were home alone when my dad walked into the house, now… my dad is here almost daily and Brownie stays with Pop when we go away, Pop is not a stranger… but he caught Brownie off guard, she didn’t have time to register just who was in the house. My dad said it was unbelievable – he got her calmed down quickly once she realized it was him – but there was no question – NOBODY was going to harm my babies. That dog is the most beautiful, sweet, kind hearted, lover of a dog – but first and foremost, she is our protector. I often pet her and tell her “thank you, girl… for protecting the loves of my life.” Then she starts prancing around, steps on my bare foot and blows death into my face until I’m pushed to yelling, telling her she smells bad and to get away from me – I’m not proud of myself, people – she just always has to push it… it’s never enough.

We are… well, we’re asshole dog owners. We know she would never hurt anybody (unless provoked) so we are not exceptionally responsible about keeping her in the yard. Her roaming the neighborhood is almost always the result of me falling for her innocent, “I’m just going to lay here on the step” routine – I go back 5 minutes later and she’s gone. I allow this because I know she’s such a wonderful dog – I’m a complete and utter asshole because, not everybody knows she’s such a wonderful dog. So, there I was – a tad irritated with her (even more so with the kids) when I got a call from my mBFF (the in-town mailman) telling me he got a call from my home mailgirl saying Brownie was not where she should be… Brownie would NEVER hurt anybody without serious provocation but… she is a tad intimidating, so I was worried.

Then I got this picture:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And my heart melted. Cal walked to the pediatrician’s office for his monthly bee shot; Brownie followed him then waited at the door for Cal to come out. This picture brought tears to my eyes… and then… I thought, “HOLY SHIT!!! What if some unsuspecting, little kid opened that friggin door????” Frantic calls ensued. She was back home without incident. So much for enjoying the innocence of the love between a boy and his dog!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night as we enjoyed dinner, the 4 of us discussed sports. (There were only 4Is because a friend of Abby’s invited her for a sleepover – it’s not the 1st time either… I find this slightly disturbing…  these people are repeatedly volunteering to take Abby into their fold – I’m starting to question the parents’ decision making skills…..).

It’s no secret my kids got their unhealthy sense of competition from me (I guess it could be Dan… he’s pretty ridiculous about it, too – nah I’m exponentially worse…  see? I’m even competitive about who’s more competitive).  Either way, they want to win and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them give less than their all in any game-time situation.

Last night Cal says, “….yeah he came back into the dugout after striking out and he was LAUGHING!!!  Me and Josiah wanted to punch him…”

I looked over, wide-eyed with the disappointment-riddled, I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look on my face.

Cal caught my expression, wiped his exasperated hand down over his acquiescent face and said, “oh… sorry… Josiah and I wanted to punch him.”

 

This whole kid-in-the-gorilla-enclosure thing has sparked me to action… or words anyway…

I have so many issues with this entire situation – I’m not sure where to start.  Let’s start with the mom…

At what point in this lifetime did we become so fucking judgmental?  I won’t pretend to know exactly what went down to result in that kid ending up in the gorilla enclosure (and all of the attention being paid to the situation is a deterrent for me to read more about it) but let me say this: don’t you think this woman, this family, has been through enough – do we really need to run her parenting skills through the ringer?

I’m a pretty ok parent and only by the grace of god have my kids never ended up in this situation – well maybe not this PARTICULAR situation. I’m weird about zoos, irrational to say the least but, in all honesty – if I didn’t hate walking around in 98 degree temperatures, smelling animal dung – I’d probably be sitting here telling you my own horrific kid/zoo story.  First of all – kids are little assholes.  Ok, ok, ok that might be offensive – lemme talk only of what I know – MY kids are little assholes.  I can be very clear regarding dangerous situations and my kids will think they are immune to it all (well, not Alex – she’s of a different breed, but she is the exception and NOT the rule).

Cal, Abby and I hiked around Shawnee park Sunday, the most dangerous situation was a (maybe) 20 foot ledge on the path over the lake – how many times did I have to tell the kids to back up?  God forbid I lose myself in the flora and fauna of my surroundings – those little shits woulda been in the water – those little shits are a ton older than the kid in question.  My point being – who the hell are we to judge this mom?  In any public situation I am one over-sized-person-in-too-tight-clothes away from being totally distracted to the point my kid could be hanging over the edge of the Grand Canyon and I’d be all caught up in, “…does she NOT have a mirror at home????”

I don’t care if this woman was gawking at a hot mess of a person walking by; I don’t care if she was busy with another child.  I don’t care if this woman was overcome by shock at the size of an elephant’s penis (this actually goes back to a very early story in my parent’s marriage – “Dan!  look at that elephant!  He has FIVE LEGS!!!!”  “Shut up Eileen…..”) – no parent can ever say they have full control over their kids at all times.  The woman was taking her kid to the zoo – she was actively engaging her child… let’s save our judgement for – oh! yeah… we aren’t supposed to pass judgement…  hmmmmmmm novel thought.

I just read an article entitled “The 40 most hated players of the NFL” – number 39 was Brandon Bostick.  This name probably means nothing to most of you… to Green Bay Packers fans – his name conjures up an image of missed opportunities.  He was the guy who was supposed to block during an onside kick in the NFC Championship game a couple of years ago – the best hands in the league (IMO) were behind him – block for Jordy and we go to the Super Bowl… only… he decided his hands were just as good.  He bobbled the ball and 2 weeks later the Seahawks represented the NFC in the Super Bowl.

The connection?  He made a fucking mistake.  Like the mom in question – don’t you think he’d like to have that moment back????  And he’s one of the MOST HATED players in the game???  He didn’t stomp on a player while he laid on the turf… he made a split second decision that turned out not so good.  Really??? and this leaves him hated to such a degree that I’ve read he still needs therapy…  first of all – the game went on for a considerable time after that (including OT)…

Sorry, my tangent is taking on a life of its own – every situation can lead to a mistake, a life altering mistake – why do we as a people feel the need to question these decisions?  You think this mom isn’t questioning herself???  Dear God people, she wasn’t shooting up heroine and leaving her dirty needle around for her kid to find it – she took the kid to the zoo and he did what kids do – it ended badly, please show some compassion.  She will, for the rest of her life, relive that day (as will Brandon Bostick) it will be a living hell without you and I telling her what a POS she is…

Now to the gorilla.  I love the average Joe’s out there screaming, “he was protecting the boy!!!!!!” I’m not saying he was, I’m not saying he wasn’t – what I’m saying is – shut the hell up already.  If my kid is in a gorilla enclosure, unexpectedly – I want that gorilla shot.  I mean shoot that damned gorilla and shoot it again and again and again.  I don’t give 2 shits what Joe Blow thinks is going on in there – shoot that mother effer.  Is it sad?  hell yes.  Is it awful?  obviously.  I.don’t.give.a.shit.

‘If my kid is in a gorilla enclosure, unexpectedly…’ I’m leaving myself an opening here on the off-chance I toss one of them in in a fit of rage….

The zoo is now falling all over itself explaining why the shooter did what he (she?) did…  STOP!  you owe me nothing.  I will defer to your judgement every single time.  It would never occur to me to second guess a decision – an educated decision – that was time sensitive and involved the life or death of a human being.  There is nothing about this situation which warrants our criticism, our questions or any demands for answers.

Show compassion people.  A woman got distracted, her child did the unimaginable and a zoo worker had to do the unthinkable PERIOD.  You’d think this woman were on a bench, blitzed out of her gourd, got up stumbling thereby knocking her kid into the enclosure; with an excited zoo worker sitting there hoping something like this would happen so he could snuff out this animal like he was on a paid hunt.  Stop!  Let these people deal with their own, individual hell without judgement from us…

Let’s get this situation out of the headlines and instead let’s question why my music teaching sister-in-law is losing her job.  Ask why schools are cutting the arts – those very programs that have proven time and time again to develop our children beyond the core curriculum.  Quit calling out a tragically unlucky mom and start calling out the people who are doing more harm to our children by going against proven results.  Stop tearing apart a devastating situation with no chance for a positive outcome and start questioning bad decisions made by people who have other, more child-centric options.

Pick your cause – my sister-in-law is my cause of choice right now.  She teaches in North Carolina – quite a distance from my school district; but her situation will set a precedent.  We are losing our children to testing and bad budget decisions; one distracted mom is not our enemy – she is you and me on a regrettably national level, let’s spend our time protecting ALL of our kids….