Month: July 2016

Well… I sat down to tell ya all about the cute/funny things my kids said this evening (and I will in just a second here) but in the 3 seconds since I opened my blogging app this happened:

Me: oh… looky here….  I can just prop my computer up on my gross belly… how convenient…

to which my less than bright husband responded: “lose the butt, gain the gut…”  I looked at him – mentally weighing the pros and cons of different forms of torture, when he looked at me, apologetically and said, “you know… that’s what they say when a person gets old.”

wait… what????

Anyway, back to my evening with my children.

Abby was explaining to me how she no longer needs to attend gymnastics – “mom, I don’t love the beam or vault.  Honestly, I hate them, ok they scare me.  I love the uneven bars, but I have my own – I’ll youtube lessons and teach myself.  All that’s left is floor and technically – cheerleading IS floor… you know, except the toe touches and the cheering part.”  She’ll be a lobbyist for the cigarette companies, no doubt.

Earlier in the evening, the eldest 4 Isemingers went out to throw the ball around – and boy did we throw the ball around.  I’m dumbfounded by the amount of running we do while playing catch; I’m no expert (obviously) but I really think ‘playing catch’ – if done correctly – should involve little to no leg work.  I’m pretty sure I logged a half marathon this evening.

My sub-genius husband is, at the very least, exceptionally chivalrous and offered to grab an errant ball for me (nice enough, yes… but let’s be honest – he was chasing his own miscue to a nearby spot).  Anyway, he grabbed the baseball I was too inept to catch, ran towards me and in true Dan fashion… at about 20 yards out – heaved the ball… right into a tree limb.  He then chased the ricochet while the rest of us worked on not pissing our pants.

Incidentally, Dan and I texted quite a bit today about the kids and their need for long-toss training.  He kept telling me what they needed, I’d then send him a screen shot of the instructions I’d sent to the kids an hour prior which included exactly what Dan had suggested.  Being who he is… (he can’t stand to have ZERO input into a situation) he texted me (and I quote), “Hopefully they have the sense to warm up first and gradually increase the distance.  I probably wouldn’t have when I was a kid…. then again, I still wouldn’t warm up first.”

hold that thought…

We headed to the field after grabbing our gloves and a couple of balls; while we were walking Cal threw me a laser, which I missed… it rolled roughly 4.16 miles.  Dan , who was just coming out of the house (cold), ran it down and came up firing.  “Ooooohhhhhh… owwww.”  I mean… who does that?  who has that little sense? especially after discussing this very situation not 5 hours prior????

Ok… back to the purpose of this entry – my kids and their funny comments.

We came across a kitten during our outing.  Yeah…. you know where this is going.  It started out innocently enough: Alex, Cal and I were taking turns being the kitten’s favorite.  Alex mentioned how thin the kitty was and compared it to BrettFavre (the cat… not the man).  I said, “I know, right?  Brett is outside running around, playing constantly, yet he’s still so fat.”  Cal gave me the ‘I feel his pain’ look, patted his own gullet and said, “Maybe we shoulda named him CalIseminger insteada BrettFavre.”

As the kitten continued it’s attack on my steadfast refusal to take him home, Alex and I marveled at how smitten the kitten was with Cal.  I puzzled over not only this attraction but our dog’s loyalty to the boy and mentioned my surprise that Brownie sleeps in Cal’s room every night; Alex, with an offended air, said, “He has absolutely nothing to do with any of the animals and they love him… I don’t get it!”  He said, “Clearly those animals know who’s the bees knees in that house.”  I can’t explain it… but hearing him refer to himself as the ‘bees knees’ knocked me on my ass.

The kids begged, implorrrrrred me to accept the kitten into our home; I was in urgent need of reinforcement when Dan joined us with Abby in tow.  The kitten (trying to manipulate the situation) was all over each of us without prejudice.  The kids were begging, unmercifully – but Dan and I stood strong, openly scoffing at the “…this time will be different” lies.  Finally Cal looked at me and gave the most convincing argument of all: “Mom, we HAVE to take this kitten… we’ve never known anybody or anything that likes all 5 of us.”

…it was such a sadly true statement… it ALMOST worked

 

 

As we left the restaurant last night, Cal walked up behind me and with a voice withered by defeat, asked if we could go on a date (this is code for ‘hold hands’).  I put my hand out, he laced his fingers in mine and with a weariness no 12-year old should know, he said, “It’s getting really hard to walk onto the field anymore.”

In the 3rd inning we were up 10-0…

There are plenty of excuses I could cite for this team’s 2-7(?) All Star record; some valid, some questionable, none of any importance.

What I do know is: ol’ number 31 is tired.

It ain’t easy to watch your kid lose; it’s crushing to watch him break…

A game of catch between Dan and Cal summed up nicely in 1 little picture collage:

First… the glove.  Luckily… we are a multi-sport family; when all of your gloves are in Poppa’s car, you can go to your hockey equipment in a pinch.

As the 5 of us began our family fun day I asked, “where’s your first baseman’s glove?”  Cal (with the uhhh-you’re-a-dumbass tone), “it’s in Pop’s car.  I play first base mom.”  Interesting… you see… I was “being ridiculous” when I bought the boy a first baseman’s mitt.  I’m pretty sure it came in the mail on a practice day, Pop stopped to pick up Cal, Cal showed Pop the glove and Pop said, “…stupid, leave that thing here…”  and off they went; I stood there, thinking, “hmmmm that’s not quite the reaction I was expecting”.  Well so much for my “stupid” purchase… Anyway, he had no ball glove at home, thank garsh for our house overrun with good intentions – we have no time/opportunity for Cal to play hockey… Dan however, will not give up the dream.

We got to the field – the 5 of us – with 3 bats, 2 water bottles, 4 cell phones, a goalie’s glove and a bucket of balls.  The bucket of balls contained 3 baseballs, 2 t-balls, 3 regulation softballs, 3 smaller softballs, some whiffle balls, a  few hockey pucks and a thing that used to resemble home plate.  Basically…. we suck.  It seems to me – a family of sports fiends should be able to scrape up more than 5 usable balls; to reiterate… we suck.

So, anyway, back to the picture collage…  We all don our gloves – Cal looking ridiculous – and begin to spin our arms in an attempt to loosen up.  Cal immediately shouts, “I’m warming up with dad!”

Now…….

 

this pisses me off for myriad reasons.  First and foremost – I can’t stand not being picked first – plain and simple.  The thought of throwing with Alex was far from repulsive (my girl can play her some catch) but for Cal to jump all over throwing with Dan right off the bat… whadabbuncha bullshit.  (As an aside, Alex and I got Abby – there was no discussion, we are just better people than those 2 assholes).

“I’m warming up with dad!” – gah… so irritating.

The main reason I was ticked is:  we all fucking know I’m the best catch player in the family…  in any world other than my jackass son’s – if it came down to asking me to play catch or asking his father to play catch – there is not a single person on earth who would pick Dan.

Take a look at the pictures my friends…  Remind yourselves that earlier in this blog I mentioned Cal is a first baseman – you have to be pretty inaccurate for him to miss the catch (especially with THAT glove).  When I took these pictures – we had just started throwing, I was simply recording for prosperity, just randomly snapping pictures.  Only after looking through them did I notice the theme – Dan can’t hit shit.  It brings to mind my very favorite comment after an ESPN article (I’m a comments whore – I could spend all day reading people’s wit), anyway, a reader wrote, “Tavaris Jackson couldn’t hit a toilet with his own turd.”

Anytime I think I’m even remotely funny I humble myself by perusing the comments following sports articles.

So… I sit here laughing.  Cal had to know what was coming – he’s spent plenty of time playing catch with both of us…  He’s spent loads of time chasing errant throws from his father and he’s spent equal or more time playing ‘hit the glove’ with me (we put our glove in a spot and the thrower tries to hit it – I am the champion).

I don’t care… let ‘im chase baseballs with his dumb ol’ hockey glove – it doesn’t bother me at all….

I’m fine with it…

…you and dad have fun over there…. warming up…. your legs….

What a weekend!  Alex played ball down in my old stomping grounds in Maryland.  Well, about 30 minutes west of the grounds I stomped, but close enough.

I got to catch up with some fabu people.  Amy, Jack and Quinn (or some variation of the 3) came to visit for most of the games.  I got to tell Jack and Quinn how their mother dragged me away from college softball and into college keggers.  (I love that Jack believed me and asked Amy why she did it…).

Randy and Carroll came for a game – I’ve known them most of my life.  Carroll and Pop played some ball of their own back in the day.  If memory serves, I do believe I had my first sip of beer during one of those ball games (at the ripe old age of 5 I hated it… I think I’ve turned that around nicely).  I wish I could put into words the fondness I have for so many of my parents’ friends.  Now that I’m older and can enjoy those friends as my own…  I don’t know how to explain it but there’s a feeling, a deeper connection or maybe just an entirely different level of emotion I feel for this group of people; maybe it’s the connection to my mom, people who loved her and understand my loss…  it was wonderful seeing these 2 lovely people.

The last visitors were Holly, Wilson, Declan and Eghan.  Holly was part of that crew who drug me from the diamond to the red solo cup.  Being less than 12 hours home from a 2-week vacation, I was touched that she and the boys would make the trip to see us.

So, now with all of the thanks outta the way…  I gotta tell ya about my trip.

Day #1 was a pain in the ass.  Well, it was only a pain in the ass for about an hour or so…  Google maps got us to our destination — or so I thought.  The place wasn’t well marked so when that Google bitch told me I had arrived – and there was nothing but forest all around me – well, let’s just say there was yelling (although I do love it when she says, “You have arrived” – I feel incomparably successful).

so we passed the park, turned around

once in the park, turn into a meaningless parking lot, turned around

looking for the not-well-marked field, missed the “bump” sign – we got air

pulled toward the field, no parking, no room to turn around, backed back out

dropped Alex at the field with her team and left to check into our hotel

forgot the well disguised “bump” –  got air…. again

the Google bitch made me miss my turn into the hotel so I had to turn around, then she made me go the wrong way from that turn around, so I turned around again

pulled into the parking lot, chose to ignore the big ass blue sign indicating the hotel was to the right, and turned left on Google’s suggestion, turned around

got to the hotel desk simultaneously with another (different team) softball mom, let her go first (believing in karma) and waited 10 minutes for her to be checked in

as I stepped up to the counter – the phone rang, waited a few minutes

impatiently waited through my 10-minute check in, picked up our 4 bags and headed to the elevator

walked alllllllllllllllll the way to the end of the hall only to find our key didn’t work

schlepped back down the hall, elevator down, then watched a man get to the counter a heartbeat before me, waited 10 minutes for him to be checked in

keys reactivated, picked up 4 bags, back up elevator, allllllll the way down the hall

as I walked passed the front desk, on my way back to the fields,  I said, “ok, if you see me before 9pm shoot me and put me out of my misery” the girl, being in the know of my recent adversities, chuckled

the smile left her face 90 seconds later when I came back in and said, “my car keys are in the room……”

Day #2 was fun – Pop showed up completely unexpectedly.  Drove 2 hours to see Al play…  if you can say nothing else about that man, he is a magnificent Poppa.  The girls played 2 more ball games (ended the weekend with a record of 4-0-1) and then off to my childhood home (pop headed back home).

As we drew nearer and nearer I pointed out memories to Alex; most of which started with, “that wasn’t there….” or “that used to be….”.  I drove down the neighbor’s driveway and was dumbfounded….  the blue ranch-style home of my childhood was now a tan 2-story.  I sat there in awe, staring, taking a few pictures – trying to imagine the story of this massive transformation.  Then I noticed the guy on the front porch looking at me like, “uhhhhhhh surely you know I have to ask you what the hell you’re doing, right?”  So, Alex and I got out and spoke to the young lady walking toward us.  I explained that I had grown up in that very house; she smiled and said, “You’re Dan and Eileen’s daughter.”

Her mom came out, arms open wide, “Karen…..  I’ve always wondered if you’d stop by and hoped you would.”  We hugged and she told me how very sorry she was to hear of mom’s passing.  Wow…  overwhelming. Holding back the emotion was actually, physically painful.  Kim welcomed us into her home – and it was completely her home; the changes were remarkable.  Ironically, all that remained the same were 2 bedrooms – my parents’ and mine.

I’m still not sure if that made it easier or more difficult…

We talked for a few moments, she told me how profoundly my mother’s death had affected her and we hugged more than a few times.  Alex and I walked away from this home, that little resembled that of my memories, with an open invitation to come back often.

I called dad as we were leaving and said, “You aren’t going to believe this!  It has a second story now…”

hmmmm, yes… it does, indeed have a second story………