When I was growing up, baseball (and a few other sports) was something my family could do together.  It wasn’t a perfect context by any means.  But, we could usually watch the Braves and be ok for a few hours.

I’ve always held onto baseball.  I lived in DC pre-Nationals, so I didn’t adopt a second team in my time there.  When I moved to L.A., I adopted Teresa’s Angels (after I met Teresa, that is) and continued to root for the Braves.

When I was in graduate school, I had a hard time my first summer finding a job.  I finally landed one with a company that did SAT tutoring in high school students’ homes.  I have never before (or since) had such an up-close view of affluent L.A.  Before I started the tutoring (which was mostly a late summer/fall activity, scheduled around the SAT test dates), this company hired me to answer the phone in the office.  The office was in one of the owners’ apartments down in a cool part of the city.  I wasn’t allowed to do much, just take messages.  The owner, in fact, laid me out when he heard me giving a parent a little information about what they did.  I had repeated a little bit of his spiel verbatim.  I had, after all, heard it a thousand times by that point.

He was an arrogant prick.  Very impressed with his own masculinity and Ivy League degree.  He was also a rabid fantasy baseball player.  He dismissed my curiosity about it.  Women couldn’t possibly be interested in baseball at the level fantasy required.  Certainly not mid-Atlantic educated ones, who weren’t admitted to an Ivy.  Or a seven sister.  Or…

I worked for them for one SAT season.  Never once did I ever see or experience them backing up one of their employees.  They were perfectly happy to let us line up passively in front of the bus that was angry parents of lazy student’s SAT scores.  It was a wretched experience.  If anyone wants the name of the company (they sold out to a national company, but still have the same set-up), do let me know.  I know, given the current economic situation in the U.S., there are lots of people who need jobs.  If you’d like one that will make you feel like shit, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

I left the bad company and went to work for a much more pleasant one (who did the same thing(ish) in a mini-mall east of downtown).  Company II was owned by and catered exclusively to Taiwanese immigrants.  Laying the weird meat buns I would sometimes get as gifts aside (but not those lovely red envelopes with money), it was a nice thing to do for the rest of my graduate school summers.

I held onto baseball past that.  I hoped with the Braves every year.  Felt very sad the summer of 1994.  Got back my joy with the Braves World Series of 1995.  Teresa and I went to Angels games, mixed in a Braves/Dodgers game here and there.  We also took time out to go to minor league ball in the Cal League.

My favorite experience was attending a game at the home of the Stockton Ports (now the Mudville Nine) and winning a six pack of pickled peppers.  What was not to like?

The 2002 series was unbelievable.  We breathed in and out with each pitch.  We named our new cat Halo.

Then, a few years ago, Ivy-jerk notwithstanding, I started playing fantasy baseball.  First, I played for free (with strangers) on Yahoo.  Then I joined a money league, ran the blog league and enjoyed myself (mostly).

Last year baseball started to change for me.  The money in the game has been out of control for a while.  Add the drugs.  What have I watched?  The game itself is fine.  MLB far from it.

Was Mark Lemke the last clean player?  Maybe Tim Salmon?  Bob Horner?  Bib Gibson?  Did Bart Giamatti’s untimely death ruin it for good?

When I think about my sadness around baseball–and it is surely there–some of it is tied up in fantasy.  The baseball blog league (which was terrifically fun) never attracted enough people to keep it going (unlike it’s much healthier sister blogleague football–coming soon for 09!).  The pay league, into which I was invited by my brother, has gone like this:

Year 1:  My dad and I agree to have a team.  He does nothing except pick the team name (with which I am still saddled).  I finish dead dog last.  It cost me real money.

Year 2:  I invite a blog-friend in.  I finish tied for third.  It costs me less money.  Somehow, my dad gets talked into taking a team of his own.  I try to help him on the phone.  I try to help him in person, while we’re on vacation.  It’s really frustrating.  He finishes last.

Year 3:  For some subconsciously masochistic reason, I agree to be the commissioner.  I like being the commissioner in the blogleagues.  This is not also true of the pay league.  I also switch jobs mid-summer.  Result:  I finish out of the money by 1 point, I spend a lot of time I don’t have entering changes for the league.  Mostly though, I have my integrity questioned, am accused of using my commissioner “powers” to cheat and then have a huge fight with my brother.  He tells me in the course of the fight that the guy who said I had cheated had done more for the people in the league than I would ever know.  I decide to quit.

Year 4:  I don’t quit.  I think (at the time) that I might get some love of the game back.  Be easy, enjoy yourself.  Today, again, my integrity is questioned because of a lopsided trade I agreed to.  It was lopsided trade designed to help me next year.

But today, I keep thinking about baseball.  And feeling sad. And wondering whether I should play or watch at all next year.  Or the rest of this.

I can think of a few things that might help me feel better–the Ken Burns doc, some Roger Angell, some Stephen J. Gould.  I’d say that I could go to a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game, but we’ve had two actual earthquakes in the last three days and somehow I don’t want to go to a stadium called the epicenter.  Plus there’s that whole–I don’t like the Inland Empire much problem.  My university’s team is done for the year, so the *pling* of the aluminum bats can be no comfort now.

That’s Bronson Arroyo, one of the guys I got in the lopsided trade.  He’s curently 6-5 with an ERA of 6.56.  He’s 6′5″ and goes 195.  I don’t think he uses steroids.  That’s good, at least.

It’s a beautiful game, baseball.  I need to find out how to get back to its beauty.

The dirt’s pretty.  So’s the ball.  It’s everything around it that’s suspect.

Cue outro…

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio [or insert alt player, as needed]…?”  I’d like some of the joy in Mudville back but am afraid there are too many strikes now.

When I was little, my parents had a succession of cars with which they were largely unsatisfied.  There was much lamentation about the sold VW Beetle–replaced by the unsatisfying AMC Rambler.  They replaced the Beetle because I was born.  The purchase of the Rambler was my fault.  So was the collapse of AMC.  You heard it here first.

The Rambler, in turn, was replaced by a VW 412 which overheated a lot.  The VW was replaced by a Buick Electra Limited, a behemoth whose soft steering was my comfort as I was I learning to drive.  Its landau top was forever the source of family drama because of the sparkler thrown onto it by my brother after an explicit warning not to throw sparklers.

I should note that this car lament/blame had a parallel in a story about the cat who died, because she was let out onto the busy street and run over.  As I was weeks old at the time, it was not I (in the Electra) who ran her down.  It was, nonetheless, my fault.  I was said to be the source of her “freedom” because the African-American woman who helped my mother care for me as an infant had warned that cats will “suck the life out of babies.”  Thus, cat outside on busy road, and a bad end.

Anyway, back to the cars.

Got the sequence?

Gave way (because of me) to:

Which wasn’t a good car, caused the downfall of AMC (my fault), and was replaced by:

Which overheated a lot.  Did I mention that my brother and I didn’t get along as children?  Thusly, one of us had to ride in the “way back” over the overheating engine one summer on a trip from Atlanta to New England.  I can still remember how hot I was.  Hotbox was replaced by:

There were more cars later, including the unfortunate car that became my first (handed down from my mom) and therefore the subject of my early driver accidents…

Have you ever noticed that certain cars never make people wistful for the past?  No one longs to have a fully restored 1980 Chevrolet Citation.  And that is why GM is failing.  You heard it here first.

Anyway…

Between the 412 and the Electra, my dad bought a used car, which he drove for six or nine months.  My excellent internets-based sleuthing has led me to the conclusion that it was a mid-70s Toyota Corona.  (I knew it was a Toyota, I knew approximately when we had it, and then I recognized it while looking at google images of mid-70s Toyotas.  See how clever I am?!)

That Toyota–while otherwise an ordinary car–had one extraordinary feature to my school-age mind.  The headrests of the front seats had openings into which the poles slid.  They functioned fine and the headrests were firmly attached.  Nevertheless, into one of these very small holes, someone had placed a dried bean.

Like that one in the middle there.  I saw very clearly how the bean could have been inserted.  Getting it out was another matter.

I could not, for the life of me, sort out how it might be extracted.  I spent hours contemplating.  I really wanted to figure it out.  Then, my dad sold the car and the bean was gone from my life.  I still thought of it occasionally for years.  The problem I could not solve.  The void filled with bean.

I thought about that bean today.

We spent yesterday with Teresa’s parents and their three dogs and our two dogs.  They have a small dog along with whom Biscuit does not get.  (Did you follow that?)  Anyway, Biscuit got into a fight with that dog and as a result, she smelled a little like the pee that dog emitted as a result of the fight.  I should note that non-Biscuit dog started the fight and I later said, “Lulu wrote a check she couldn’t cash.”  As a result of Lulu’s check, Biscuit smelled like Lulu pee.  Oh and chocolate chip cookies.  She smelled like pee and chocolate chip cookies.  We had a fresh chocolate chip cookie in the car on the way home (a result of a coupon at Black Angus.  Don’t ask).  So my car smelled of dog, urine, and cookie.

I was taking Biscuit to get groomed this morning.  I was traveling to a part of SoCal I generally avoid.  Biscuit’s groomer had moved from a store in the valley in which I live to another north of here.  I programmed my Garmin Nüvi with the address and set out.  When I arrived in far northern valley, I discovered that the store was on a new bit of road that wasn’t known to the Nüvi.  I got lost.  I found myself staring at the Nüvi, which was showing my car in a blank space on the map.

It looked like that except there were no roads.  I stopped the car and looked at it.  The Nüvi said I was nowhere.  And yet, I was somewhere.

The where was new space–not in a good sense, mind you.  There I was driving down a new road lined with faux-Spanish facade built around all the expected national chain stores.  Ex-urbs have no soul and may well be the reason for the bad economy.  You heard that here first.

But Biscuit likes Harvey and Biscuit doesn’t like many people and Harvey had moved to the PetSmart at the place unknown to the Nüvi.

All of a sudden, staring at my virtual car in a virtual wasteland, I thought of the bean.  I also thought of my nine year old self staring at the bean, trying to get it out of the void.

Then I looked up.  Away from the blank, away from the bean.

I found the store and took Biscuit inside.

(Why does Biscuit’s hair cut cost twice as much as mine?  Never mind, I know.  It’s because I don’t nip and my hairdresser doesn’t brush my teeth).

Normally, when I defy the Nüvi’s directions, she says “recalculating” in a way I find judgmental.  Today, as she tried to find her way through the blank space, I found her recalculations less judgmental and more bereft.  She seemed (not that I’m anthropomorphizing AT ALL) relieved when I headed home.

When left to pick up Biscuit, I turned the Nüvi back on and directed her back to the blank space. Biscuit didn’t smell like pee anymore.  The blank space is now filled in my mind by the exubry stuff that’s actually there.

I was listening to Carrie Newcomer as I descended back to the valley that is my home.

I’m the fool whose life’s been spent.
Between what’s said and what is meant

Or so she sang.

That bean is surely gone now.  Dessicated enough to dry up and blow up and away from its void.  Maybe it’s still there.  It’s not a problem I need to solve.

So I will wander without fail
In circles that grow ever wide
The sky expands and then exhales…

When I arrived home, the Nüvi said, “arriving at home, on right.”  We both felt glad.

(Lyrics from The Geography of Light by Carrie Newcomer, “There is a Tree”)

For those of you who have read and still read my homages to randomness, you know that occasionally I lapse into discussion of bicycles.  I am aware that no one but me wants to read these lapses.  Yet I persist.  It’s a little like my current occasional behavior of defying the Garmin Nüvi.  I just can’t help myself.

See?  My Gunnar Rockhound. Don’t tell me to turn on Roscoe.  I just won’t do it.

Today, though, I am coming clean about a new two wheeled addition to my life.

Here it is surrounded by its non-motorized friends…

Introductions all around, shall we?  In the back top, we have my newest bicycle, the Kona Dew Deluxe. It’s not REALLY a hybrid if it has disc wheels, right?  Underneath it (and mostly obscured) is Teresa’s Gary Fisher Tassajara.  To the right on top it my (now sold) Surly Cross Check.  We never quite got along.  Below the Surly is my Gunnar.  And in the center is my Kymco People 250. (Teresa’s Orbea Onix was inside at the time the picture was taken and her Honda Magna was in the shop–see explanation below).

There it is…

Let’s go back a few years shall we?

When I was in graduate school, I decided to get a motorcycle.  Why did I decide to do this?  Well there were a few reasons.  UCLA let you park one for free.  UCLA didn’t let you breathe for free.  They also didn’t let you park a car at all unless you lived in Amarillo and could prove your commute was too long by bus.  So, parking a motorcycle in any number of highly convenient motorcycle lots (including one right behind the building my program was in) seemed fab.

Also Teresa had one.  I like doing what Teresa does.  She’s my honey, after all.

Teresa, being the independent sort that she is, had learned to ride her bike on her own, taken the DMV test on her own, and was all set.  I’m not that adventurous.  Instead, I decided to take the Motorcycle Foundation Safety course.  It consisted of two in-class session that were a little like High School driving class.  Taught by an older guy who said he never drove a car, they were a little boring, but ok otherwise.

The class also had two riding days.  We rode little motorcycles in the parking lot of Pasadena Community College.  I was the only woman and the instructor thought me pretty much incapable.  Those two days were among the most stressful in my life.  I can, right now, conjure my late 20s self standing at the trunk of my car, on a break, my legs trembling, eating some string cheese and a nutri-grain bar.

Somehow, despite his dislike of me, I passed.  He wasn’t done, though.  His parting shot was, “do some of what you’re doing out on the road and you’ll get yourself killed.”

Pedagogically, a very weak approach, I must say.  I don’t know WHAT I did wrong that was going to put me in danger, but I do remember the fear and humiliation.

Anyway, I got myself one of these:

It’s an 84 Honda Nighthawk. I bought it in 95 or so.  I rode it to UCLA for several years.  Didn’t get myself killed, obviously.

I sold it in 99 or so.  I needed the money.  I had stopped riding it once I finished my degree.  I must say that I never quite got over the MSF guy’s warning.  I was relieved when a nice Air Force officer bought it from me.

I always regretted that Teresa and I didn’t ride more together.  We did a long ride once and I was barely able to get through Malibu Canyon because of fear.  She was fine.  I’m scarred.

Teresa kept her motorcycle and it sat in our garage for a long time, inoperable.  Last summer, with gas at almost $5 a gallon in California, she decided to get it fixed.  That’s her story.  My story, typically, is to follow along with Teresa’s enthusiasms.  No motorcycle, though.  Not this time.

I wanted a scooter.  Cute, fun, feet flat.  Automatic.  A Vespa.  I’d wanted a scooter for years.  I remember checking the alternative weekly in Washington when I lived there for one to buy. Didn’t have to be a Vespa.  Any decent scooter would do.  It was going to be different this time. I was going to be different this time.

So, I investigated.  Discovered that there were, essentially, four types of scooter manufacturers:

Italian: Vespa, Piaggio, Aprilia.  Uber-cool, super-expensive, and probably out of my league.

Japanese:  Some of the usual suspects, Honda, Kawasaki, etc.  Moderately priced.  Not a lot of choices.

Taiwanese:  Lots of choices, decent reputations, brands I hadn’t heard of:  Kymco, Sym, Genuine

Chinese:  I gather to be avoided.

I ran into a problem.  I wasn’t the only one who thought to buy a scooter last summer with gas the way it was.  Quelle surprise.  Finding a scooter in a showroom was hard.  Verging on impossible.

What you could get was a 50cc.

That Nighthawk?  It was a 700cc.

50s are great for gas mileage.  They’ll get 80-100mpg.  They also only get up to about 30 miles per hour.  I test rode one.  I really liked its looks.

I was a total freak about riding it.  Nervous and tense.  Once I got going, though, I remembered.  What to do.  Where to look.  How to use my hands and feet.

I might have bought it right on the spot, but for the 50cc thing.  And Teresa calming me down.  Bless her heart.

Most scooter manufacturers make a 150cc.  Yamaha 150s would be available in October (this was July/August).  Vespas could be sooner, but they cost $5000+.  Genuine Buddies were too small.  The world seemed to be tilting toward a Kymco.  The Kymco dealer was getting some Agility 125s in.

I haunted craigslist and ebay.  The same scooter popped up on both down in Orange County.  It was a 250cc, which seemed better for hauling my ass around.  I talked to the guy and made arrangements to come see it.  I even bought a helmet.  I brought some mountain bike gloves.  I got out cash.  Carrying around a lot of cash makes me nervous.  So does buying motor vehicles.

Teresa and I agreed that it would be better not to take it on the freeway.  Getting from Orange County to Los Angeles County without using the freeway is not easy.  I think it took about three hours.

By the time we pulled into the scooter dealer (it needed service), I was exhausted.  I was also pretty sure I had made a good decision.  It ran well, fit me nicely, and it was fun.

I ride it a couple of times a week, at least.

Sometimes, I act like a goober and stick my knee out when I turn.  Mostly, though, I just ride it.  Sitting up straight.  Following all the laws.  I never split lanes.  I always wear the gear (jacket, full-face helmet, armored gloves).  Gas costs $2 a gallon just now.  It cost me $3.11 to fill up the People last week.

Teresa and I have ridden a couple of times together.  We’ll ride some more, I’m sure.  Maybe not Malibu Canyon.  Maybe to the movies again.

Vroom.

So, Treecup has got herself a new passion. It’s great for her.  She looks good, feels good, has normal blood sugar.  Sly describes himself as “raw adjacent” and I feel adjacent to the adjacent.  On Saturday they were kind enough to invite us to their club, which I heart.  After working out we went to a large chain restaurant, and Treecup had cooked vegan food to be social.  It’s perfectly normal to go work out and then go eat chain restaurant food, right?

Once we reconvened at their house, I wandered into the kitchen to explore the raw zone she’s created.  I was being my usual forward self and smelling tubs of stuff and being perhaps more disparaging than I ought.  Treecup offered up “cheese” on a “cracker.”  Sly says that her food has entirely too many quotes.  The “cheese” was made of cashews and was a rough approximation of cheese.  Like, if we were in the cheese ballpark and cheddar was playing first base, this was in an obstructed view seat in the upper upper deck.  Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd, buy me some (raw) peanuts and cracker flax…

Anyway, if the cheese was in the cheese bleachers, the “cracker” was maybe standing on the street waiting outside cracker stadium to catch a long ball hit by a saltine.  When Teresa asked how the seeds could be made to form a “cracker” Treecup informed us that, when soaked, flax seeds exude a semi gelatinous substance and then can be made into cracker shapes. Handy.  (See, there I go again being more disparaging than I ought.  Still, I have anti-flax seed feelings just at the moment).

We departed soon after our raw experience.  (I should note that I demurred for us when Treecup offered up a viewing of her new raw dvd).  She claims it very inspirational and I think we may need to watch it next time.

Anyway, I kept pulling flax seeds out from my teeth with my tongue.  One of them got lodged in my windpipe just as I was steering the FJ onto the 10.  (Non-SoCal note:  Socalies use the definate article when referring to freeways.  I’ve lived here long enough that I do it too.  “The 10″ = “Interstate 10″ which stretches from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Florida.  It’s 2460 miles long, which makes it longer by 270 miles or so than my high school distance.  I can code-switch well enough that when I go to Atlanta I switch back to “I-75″).   So, there I was getting on the freeway and needing to merge onto “the 57″ (aka California 57, which runs from Glendora to the Orange Crush for a distance of almost 24 miles) and I’m choking on this flax seed.  Coughing with watering eyes choking.  It persists all the way up the 57 until I merged onto “the 210″ (aka California 210/I-210 which runs from San Fernando to Redlands for a distance of 86 miles, it swiches from I-210 to CA-210 at the 57).  Choking and coughing so hard, I’m hoping not to vomit choking.

Teresa was very supportive during my coughing episode.  She offered my some tepid lemonade and offered to drive.  She also refrained from saying disparaging things about my Garmin nüvi, which was telling me to do things vis à vis the freeways.  Teresa vacillates between thinking the Nüvi is rude and thinking it might lose the will to live.  She doesn’t like that it interrupts her (which it does) or that I defy it (which I thoroughly enjoy doing ).  I agree wholeheartedly with my co-worker who says that all Nüvis (she has one, too) are “judgemental” when they say “recalculating” after you’ve defied their direction.

As I merged onto the 210, I finally stopped coughing.  I noticed at that very moment a Dodge station wagon (of the modern magnum/charger variety) that had a brown body and bright orange expensive looking rims.  It also had sepia tinted pictures painted across its sides.  Of Jesus.  Both sides.  Sepia Jesus on a Chrysler product.

WHY I stopped coughing is up to debate.  Some possibilities:

Chance?

The 210?

The biological dislodging of the flax seed from my windpipe?

The shock of the sight of the car?

Divine intervention?

Very hard to say.  Maybe if I had watched the raw dvd I’d know better.

Cracker flax, know thine enemy.

Essentially lifted from Facebook…

I was doing one of those 25 things things.  I never do memes on the blog, why I did one on Facebook, well, I dunno.  I have NOT done any of the follow-up memes.  48 things, etc.

Anyway, here was things #23: I once got “stranded” on a rock in the former Yugoslavia (when it was still Yugoslavia). My friends and I made our way into town and I bought and ate some mallomars. They tasted better than any cookie ever had before or since.

___________________________________________________________________________________

A friend asked for more info on what had happened.  Here’s my response.  I should note that I have now corrected my spelling of the cookie in question.  It’s Mallomar.  I’m going to maintain that it should have a w, but acknowledge that it doesn’t.

My response:

In the late 1980s, I traveled with friends from Italy, up through Austria, and down into Yugoslavia. The train to Zagreb was fine, the train from Zagreb to Split was not.

Once we arrived in Split, we explored the city and decided to take a ferry one day to Hvar, an island off the coast. We were the only Americans, probably the only English speakers, and certainly the youngest people of the ferry. The ferry arrived at a rock. It opened itself up and we got off. Everyone else drove off in cars or was picked up. The ferry closed and started back to Split. There we were standing on the rock.

There was NOTHING there. Alone.

Off in what looked like an impossible distance to travel was a town. We climbed up the road and down into the town (it wasn’t actually very far). It turned out to be a pleasant resort town, largely closed for the winter (it was March). We wandered around, found a small grocery store. I bought the best Mallomars ever. When we saw the ferry headed back toward us, we walked back to the rock.

In our exploration of the town, we found a path along the harbor that got us back to the rock without having the climb the road/hill. We arrived as the ferry did and boarded it back to Split.

That night we had goulash, and the following night we took the overnight ferry to Bari.

It was that moment on the rock. I wanted to jump in the Adriatic and swim down the ferry.

That and the Mallomars.

On Tuesday afternoon I asked my boss if I could take my half-day of “informal time off” the governor gave us on Christmas Eve.    She readily agreed, as the beginning of the semester can be stressful.  I didn’t actually extract myself until almost 3pm, so I later got an e-mail from her ordering me to take another half day off soon.  Have I mentioned how much I like working for her?  I do, indeed.

Anyway, I was chilling (really heating) at the spa after my “service” and got to thinking about Facebook.

Teresa and I had been to this self-same spa the previous Saturday. (No treatment, just soaking–should I mention we got gift certificates for Christmas?  I’m all for keeping the economy going, but this is a lot of spa time).  Anyway, Teresa noticed that a woman was sitting behind us on a rather hard uncomfortable bench while eating a banana.  We were changing.  Not ten feet away was a padded bench next to a fountain.  Teresa decided (and I think she’s right) that this woman had achieved true spa mindstate.  Eating her banana on a hard bench while people changed clothes.  Directly behind their butts.  One might also use the word fugue.

I am never able to achieve that mindstate.

Which is why I was thinking about Facebook at the spa.  Given some of the other stuff that has been going on in my life, I was actually doing pretty well thinking about Facebook.

I was also thinking about how much my steam rooom skill has increased.

First encounter with a steamroom=pretty much total I’m drowning in eucalyptus water panic.  Now–I can be in there for a long time.  Not as long as Treecup can get beaten up by jacuzzi jets, but a long time for me.  Growth comes how it does.

I had resisted Facebook.  My brother likes it.  He has a lot of friends on it.  It seemed like something he did.

Then, last spring I was standing around on REALLY hard marble at my dissertation advisor’s retirement party.  Why does marble hurt to stand on so much?  Anyway, a bunch of people were talking about Facebook and how they had a Facebook group and and and.

So I signed up.  Which was fine.  I was friended by some people from grad school.  Then Teresa signed up.  Then a couple of blog friends who know my name found me.  Ok.  I also friended my brother and sister-in-law.  See how enlightened I can be?

Ok, so some colleagues from work found me.  Also fine/good.  One of them suggests a lot of things to me.  Also ok.   He’s like that and he’s a good guy.  I don’t have to TAKE his suggestions, if I don’t want to.  Plus, he also friended T, despite never having met her and he sends her almost as many suggestions.  In that sense, I confirm that it’s his approach to Facebook and I don’t feel either special or put upon.

Anyway, then I found a high school friend.  We had been in and out of touch, but I figured I’d poke her.  All of a sudden (and it was probably not a result of my friending her), a BUNCH of H.S. people started friending me and each other.  I agreed to all requests, but didn’t initiate any.  Recently, I looked over my friend list (which isn’t long) and my “people you may know” list and it’s 75% high school.

I live 2191 miles from my high school (and yes, I did just look it up).  I didn’t like high school very much.  I have exactly ONE person on my Facebook friend list from college.  I loved college.

The presence of people from more recent periods in my life is more easily explained.  But the high school to college ratio is puzzling to me.

The thing is, the high school folks mostly seem like the kind of people I might like now.  Funny, down-to-earth, liberal, interesting and engaged with the kinds of things I care about.

I am going to “unfriend” one of them–though I haven’t decided how confrontational to be about it–who affiliated himself with the American Family Association yesterday.

It’s odd, actually, to think so much about high school now.  It’s more than 2191 miles away in time.  I’m glad to be through and past it.  Don’t much want to look at pictures of myself from it.

Having a good relationship to my past self is not always easy for me.  Hell, having a good relationship to my present self isn’t all that easy, either…

I was also thinking this week about a friend I used to have right after college.  He called me a few months ago and assumed that I had caller id on my home phone.  I didn’t and cannot find him.  I’ve tried and recently got an e-mail about him as a result of my search that suggested his life has been very hard.  It brought me no closer to him and has made me very sad.

I can only do the best I can.  Sometimes that means looking at pictures of myself in ugly shorts and thinking about high school without being freaked out.  Sometimes it means staying a little longer in the steam room.

2191 miles traveled.  Or more.   A lot more.

(BTW, is any blog readers want to “friend me,” send me an e-mail sporksforall at gmail dot com and I’ll friend you up, yo).

Business Balloon note:  The ephemeral nature of business balloon will out.  eb took her blog down and with it all the balloons.  I’ve removed the links, but trust and believe that the baloons were there once, both interneterally and corporeally.  Where there once were links and, therefore, balloons, I’ve italicized.  Feel the loss with every italics.

The guvment of Houston Texas has let the people of America down.  eb brought me such joy.  Almost every week.

eb paid tribute to our wedding

Teresa and I even helped out

Then there was the 40th birthday tribute (complete with Elizabeth Mitchell–contented sigh)

2008 was a good year.  It had lots of business balloons.  (Other things happened, too, of course).

Then Houston went and messed things up

Here’s the thing though, what Texas does wrong, Hawaii can help fix.  See we just got rid of the semi-Texas doofus in the White House.  Got ourselves a nice Hawaiian fellow in return.  Aloha and mahalo.

So, here’s my contribution, straight out of Hilo.

Did I mention that this balloon was clean and accessible up close?  It sure was.

I love me some Hawaii.  Happy ballooning my blog-ohana.

Sporks:  Hey blog, how are you?

Sporksforall:  Sporks!  WTF, woman?  Where’ve you been?  I’m good.

Sporks:  Oh, really sorry about the inattention, blog.  Thanks for just hanging out.  Been kinda busy, you know.  New job.

Sporksforall:  Wow, Sporks.  You’re a Dean?

Sporks:  Actually, no.  See that sentence toward the middle:  “Most have several assistant or associate deans as well (such as an associate dean of academics or an associate dean of students).”  That’s me.  Associate Dean Sporks.

Sporksforall:  Pretty cool.  Takes up a lot of time, does it?

Sporks:  Yep.  What have you been up to?

Sporksforall:  Oh, mostly handling random searches on rancid oil.  One cool thing you know about, though.  You know our picture of the nene foot?  It’s going to be exhibited at the University of Hawai’i, Manoa.  Best nene foot picture ever.  It’s also the top hit when you search nene foot on Google.  Pretty awesome.

Sporks:  Yep that is superveryawesome.  I’m going to get to see it.  Teresa and I are back to Hawai’i later this week.

Sporksforall:  Which islands?

Sporks:  Same as last time, Hawai’i and O’ahu.  Going to miss the Obamas, though.  Fine with me actually, as I’m mighty irritated (ok, royally pissed) about the Rick Warren thing.

Sporksforall: Yep, pretty awful.  Hey, so with all this going on–the Associate Deaning and the trip to Hawai’i–what are you doing chatting with me?

Sporks:  Oh, well, I have a few days between a trip to Atlanta and the one to Hawai’i where the Uni is closed.  First downtime in months.  Figured I’d just check in.

Sporksforall:  Ah.  You been up to anything in the downtime?

Sporks:  Organizing, actually.  I know, I know, not usually my forté.  The new job has made me appreciate a little organization, though.

Sporksforall:  I see.  What did you organize, then?

Sporks:  Glad you asked.  First up (yesterday) was the bathroom. See, I had gone to L’Occitane for a little hand lotion and on the way home, it occurred to me that I should survey my ablutions.  I couldn’t survey my ablutions without also going through the other items in the nightmare that was the bathroom cabinet.  Want to see the results?

Sporksforall:  Sure.

That’s the L’Occitane lotion in the silver tube.  Here’s a close-up of the lotion/hair/tooth shelf.

Pretty nice, huh?

Sporksforall:  Yes, because I saw the before on that, and whew.

Sporks:  I know.  Emboldened by my success, when Teresa and I went out last night to Target, I bought two shoes hanging things for my closet.  They’re AMAZING!

Sporksforall:  Really, you’re going to talk about hanging shoe things as if no one ever used or thought of them before?  Really?  Look on ebay.  They have ones from before you were born.

Sporks:  Whatever.  You want to look?   Seriously, look!

Sporksforall:  I admit it looks nice, but come on, it’s not like you’re the first to discover closet organization.  I mean, The Container Store has been around for a while, now.  Remember when you went to it before going off to college?  That was a WHILE ago.

Sporks:  Ok, ok, I know.  But it’s like the woman I heard on NPR the other day talking about how she had discovered how centrifugal force works.  Just because someone else discovered it before she did, doesn’t mean she didn’t also discover it.  Do you see how happy that woman on the main page of the Container Store website looks?  She’s feeling what I’m feeling.

Sporksforall:  Ya huh.

Sporks:  Oh, hey, you know what I got at REI last night?  It’s not organization-related…

Sporksforall:  What?

Sporks:  A new spork!  It’s made of aircraft alloy and has a darling little carabiner.

Sporksforall:  Nice.  Hey–what’s the red spot on the package?

Sporks:  Blood.  I cut my hand trying to get the cute little carabiner off the package.  But, guess what?  I managed to fix myself up really quickly and efficiently.  Wanna see how?

The first aid shelf!

Sporksforall:  Ok, ok, good for you.  You got yourself all set up.

Sporks:  Well, not really.  The worst job I saved for last.

Sporksforall:  That’s pretty horrifying.  Maybe you should get back to work.

Sporks:  In due time, in due time.  I should probably go now–there’s something productive to be done.

Sporksforall:  Ok, thanks for checking in.  Hope to see you soon.

Sporks:  2009 will be a better blogging year, I think.  Now that my shoes have slots of their own, I’ll have all kinds of time.  Take care.

Sporksforall:  You too.  Hey, want to talk more about rancid oil?

Sporks:  Probably not.

Sporksforall:  Oh well, just trying to work from strength to strength.

Sporks:  Yep.  Let’s work on nene feet more then.

Sporksforall:  Sounds like a plan.

____________________________________________________________________

Sporks:  Psst, Sporksforall–want to see the after?

Sporksforall:  (Sigh) Sure.

Hey, that is pretty good.

Sporks:  Thanks.  Oh, and a tip (we should all channel our inner-weese every so often…)  keep your extra bicycle tubes inside (lower left).  They’ll last longer if the temperature is more controlled.

Sporksforall:  I’d care about that if I had the ability to ride a bicycle.

So, it’s been a bit.  And I got married.  And I have a new job which is interim and I’m hoping will be permanent in a couple of months.  It’s really hard and I work a lot and am tired a lot.

Also, We got our yard done and lots of work on the interior of the house.  Did I mention we got married?  Oh, and then there’s that whole election bidness in a couple of days.  No on 8, k?

But, friends, I’m here for a short while today to speak about a grocery store.  Yes sir.  Yes ma’am.  All those other things, they take time and thought and care.  This is just about happy in the ‘hood.

I’m not the first to notice.  Sandra Tsing Loh, who I would probably follow into the fiery pits of hell should she ask, noticed. Twice.

I don’t know where Loh lives in the part of the Valley she refers to as “The Nuys” to give it new cache.  But I’m close to Fresh and Easy.  Remarkably close.

Today, my spouse slash wife (of two weeks) slash partner (of fourteen years) and I went there.  Oh it is a bright place.  With Jam.  And chips that taste like Doritos.  Except, and here is the clincher, they’re SPINACH and ARTICHOKE kinda-Doritos.  Maybe I should have told you to sit down before I told you that.

It occupies a space that used to be a Ralphs.  Not a good Ralphs.  just a ralphs.  It’s not any longer.  Soy milk.  Fresh fruit.  Teeny pies.

It may not be love, but color me intrigued.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

Fresh and Easy

It’s a neighborhood market.  In my neighborhood.  My my.

Hugs and kisses and lots of foons,

Sporks.

As I sat down to write this post Biscuit threw up in the other room. It was the yellow frothy kind of dog vomit. Many years ago, when I had just taken “companionship” of my first dog (as an adult) an older friend assured me that, “yellow frothy dog vomit wasn’t anything to worry about.” While that may be true in the abstract, I could have lived without it tonight.

I’ve been away from the blog for a while, though my sporks-based Wall-E review has kept sporksforall humming along. Very much like Wall-E himself.

I don’t know if I’ll return to faithful blogging through aught eight. I want to, but life gets in the way of sporks.

I’ve started a new (interim-again!) job as of two days ago. Four years ago when my boss hired me to be the interim thing that I’m now the permanent thing, I got sick. So sick that during the networking event with the University President, I stayed in my hotel room at the Marriott with fever and chills.

This year we did our slog/sling through the South early. I came back and have managed to get a massive cold (including fever and chills) and a nice case of laryngitis. Did I mention that my new job requires talking? It does. And I just don’t sound right

I mentioned to my boss that I had been sick the last time she gave me an interim job. She said, “I remember. Maybe this job change thing is more stressful than you think.” Could be, indeed. Also stressful is travel. And bombardment.

My favorite day of the “sling” is always the day Honey and I escape to the closest Spanish Moss draped city. Our usual escape is Charleston, but this year we went to Savannah.

As my few (and loyal!) readers know, I like me a National Park and will take a National Monument in a pinch. Thus, did I drag Honey to Fort Pulaski on Tybee Island.

Not brushed up on the Civil War of late? Here’s what happened. Fort Pulaski was started in 1829 to protect Savannah. (Tybee Island is 15 miles from Savannah). Savannah has always been an important port/city to Georgia and is one of the oldest cities in the Southeast. Note, please, that its importance is in no way related to Paula Dean.

Anyway, this being the 19th century and engineering being what it was, not to mention it’s bloody hot in the South in the summer, they didn’t so much finish the damn thing by 1860. South Carolina (a mere fifty miles away) seceded from the Union in January of 1861. Georgia followed suit and the governor ordered the occupation of the fort. The state then gave it the Confederacy. How kind. Lessee–”we’ll take this from the gumment (that’s how you say it) and give it to this other gumment. Yep.”

Righto, so in April of 1861, the War starts in earnest (you knew that right? April 1861 to April 1865) and the Naval blockade of Southern ports began.

Here’s the thing about Pulaski. The folks who built it: they thought it was invincible.

By November 1861, the Federals were encamped at Hilton Head and the Confederates got worried about that and abandoned land forces on Tybee EXCEPT for those at Pulaski. Whoopsie.

The Federals marched onto Tybee. The Confederates in Pulaski though they were safe. The guns of the day only went a mile and Pulaski is more than a mile from Tybee. The Union fellows, though, they had this new gun. Those Federals, always with the new guns. Must have been that industry infrastructure. They shot up the fort. Seemed like they might get to the powder magazine. 30 hours into the siege of the invincible fort, the Confederates surrendered.

The National Park Service notes, “Today the fort serves not only as a memorial to the valor and dedication of those connected with its construction, bombardment, and defense, but in a larger sense as a history lesson on the elusiveness of invincibility.”

I hope you can see that I get it. Not invincible.

I did survive that week and may yet survive my cold, my laryngitis, my new job, and my own vulnerabilities. I am certain, though, as certain as I can be, that invincibility eludes me. And I’ve never run very fast. Mofo needs to slow down and shows no sign of it.

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