Put Me In, Coach

It's happened. I knew it would, eventually, but I didn't expect it would be today. And I didn't expect it would be the mailman.

I have been discovered.

Not whilst sipping a soda like Lana Turner at Schwab's, more like... oh the hubris of even making the comparison... ah what the hell. Like Honus Wagner (greatest shortstop ever for those of you who aren't baseball fans) throwing rocks across a trainyard. Signed on the spot he was. But in my case, it wasn't rocks, it was an actual baseball, and it wasn't a trainyard but instead the sidewalk in front of our house during my near-daily catches with Nathan.

You see... I have some mad baseball skillz that are readily apparent to anyone with eyes and a brain. Or at least to my mailman, who is recruiting more women for his postal service softball team. And damn it, that's good enough for me. When he said "Would you?" I of course said, "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!" In retrospect, I think that scared him a bit, but I'm sure as he reflects on it he'll realize it was simple heartfelt enthusiam and love of the game.

I have dreams - oh, I have dreams. I'll certainly play shortstop, turn double-plays with ease, bat solidly near the middle of the lineup, and be carried off the field on the shoulders of my grateful teammates as I'm unanimously voted MVP after we win the leaugue championship. Pitchers will fear me. Batters will curse my fielding prowess. Players from other teams will try to woo me away (And other teams, if you're reading, let me nip that one in the bud. These people are postal workers. We don't want to piss them off, mmmkay?)

I hope we get uniforms. I'll wear high socks. High socks look SO cool.

The time is at hand. The world... erm... greater Seattle area is ready.

I will... I will rock you.

Happy Bloomsday!

Damn. Yet another year has gone by without me organizing my Bloomsday reading of Ulysses. One of these years, I will put out the call to any Seattle folk who would like to get together to read the book from start to finish. I did it only once, in college, and it was a very cool experience.

That's horribly English major geeky, isn't it?

yes I said yes it is Yes.

Blognnui No More

Someone really needs to update this blog, don't you think?

I see.

I guess since noone else is stepping up to the plate, it's all mine.

I honestly have no good excuse for the lack of time spent here, the lack of time spent writing PERIOD. Are things busy? Yeah, sure, what's new? Has *nothing* of note happened for the last few months? Well of course it has - there's been plenty to write about, several posts started and abandoned. I traveled to Peru, got my own monthly byline, was horrified by a massacre that happened at a house I know and love, watched my Tigers get off to an amazing start. My kids' baseball seasons have come and gone (Nathan's team made it all the way to the championship game before losing in a nailbiter), and we're just one week from the end of their school year. BJ and Tyler won the Amazing Race (TTOW!). My work-life has changed and more changes are on the horizon, my friends are having babies, and I watched a bear eat roadside dandelions at twilight.

Don't even get me started on politics.

So much prime blog fodder, the details now slipping into the muddled soup of the past, the emotions dampened, the edges blurred. Baby, once it's gone it's gone, gone all the way gone.

I saw Peter Mulvey last week at the Tractor, and as always happens with good music, and with Peter's in particular, I felt alive and smarter and desperate to make more of my time here, to create something that means something. I want to travel, to experience new places and people and things. I want to make beautiful things. I want to stop spinning all the time and to be where I am, not where I was or where I want to be.

So with two feet, I jump in here again and promise myself to let go of the guilt of the stories I missed telling. Grab the now and go.

Because these days it's all about the monkeys.

Dance Groundsfolk! Dance!

Dance Groundsfolk! Dance!

Testing blip.tv blogging!

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by monagrrl with a No license (All rights reserved) license.

I Love Being a Mom

Okay, yesterday was the Best. Mother's Day. Ever. The kidlets made me all kinds of sweet cards and pictures, stories and painted rock paper weights. We ate blueberry muffins, listened to the Tiger game (Tigers won! So did the Mariners!), ran a couple of errands and cleaned the garage while Stephen put some insulation in the attic to help keep the upstairs cooler. While manual labor might not sound like a great way to spend Mother's Day, it was exactly what I wanted to do... we've had so little time to spend on the house that all I asked for was a day of it with no complaints from kids that they were BORED.

Later in the day we did all go down to the park and Nathan got back on his bike a year after first removing the training wheels (with marginal success). After some initial stubbornness (on both mother and son's part), he started pedaling and didn't look back. The boy can now ride a bike and I am very proud.

We ended the day with salmon on the grill and a picnic in the backyard. Well, we actually ended the day with baths for two very grimy kids. Slept well, they did.

In keeping with the bike-riding theme, this poem came into my mailbox this morning. Made me predictably weepy.

Learning the Bicycle
by Wyatt Prunty

The older children pedal past
Stable as little gyros, spinning hard
To supper, bath, and bed, until at last
We also quit, silent and tired
Beside the darkening yard where trees
Now shadow up instead of down.
Their predictable lengths can only tease
Her as, head lowered, she walks her bike alone
Somewhere between her wanting to ride
And her certainty she will always fall.
Tomorrow, though I will run behind,
Arms out to catch her, she'll tilt then balance wide
Of my reach, till distance makes her small,
Smaller, beyond the place I stop and know
That to teach her I had to follow
And when she learned I had to let her go.

I'm not sure I needed to know this

But I am sure that I want to share it with you.

My Eyeball Just Fell Out of Its Socket. What should I do?

I found the link to this informative and somewhat squicky article on Literally, A Weblog - a fun place for those of us who include among our pet peeves the boneheaded misuse of words and phrases.

A Lesson Learned

A word of advice, gleaned from piping-fresh first-hand experience.

If you have the opportunity to do any travel by bus in Peru, and you're assigned to seats 1, 2, 3 or 4... ask very nicely whether you might be able to change your seat assignment. It doesn't much matter where, just do yourself a favour and request a higher seat number.

Why, you ask?

Peruvian driving is... how shall I put this? Insane and scary as hell. And if you're in the front row on the top level of a double-decker bus, you get to see the insanity up close and personal. "Safe following distance?" HA! Yield the right of way to pedestrians? HA HA! It is to laugh. Double-yellow means no passing? Thank you for that quaint... suggestion.

So unless you're looking for hours of nail-biting, seat-gripping, laughing-in-the-face-of-certain-death fun... move to the back of the bus.

Waiting...

A quality I find very endearing about myself, as I imagine you do also dear readers, is that I truly believe that I may have been the person to download the billionth song on iTunes. I so firmly believe that things like that can happen that I actually skipped yoga class so that I could be among those attempting to snag the lucky number. I mean - someone did, right? Why not me?

I wonder how long it will take them to notify me? Maybe Steve himself will send the e-mail.

I'll let y'all know.

Musicky Meme

My friend Betsy tagged me with this one and I figured - what the heck?

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. The River Driver - Great Big Sea. My kids have been way into the newest Great Big Sea Album, The Hard and The Easy. It's a collection of traditional Newfoundland tracks, and this one happens to be acapella. Is it a bad thing that my children are going around singing "I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry. Get drunk whenever I want to; get sober by and by"? Nah.

2. Captain Kidd - Great Big Sea. A theme here, no? And can you believe that instead of seeing GBS here in Seattle this weekend, we have to attend the kids school auction. Doh! Haven't told said children; they'd surely rebel.

3. Let 'Em Run - The Bills. Yummy.

4. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane. First heard this on Grey's Anatomy and immediately downloaded it from iTunes. It's a great little pop tune, hits all my buttons no matter how many times I listen to it.

5. Does He Love You? - Rilo Kiley. My dear blackwingedboy introduced me to RK, and I thank him muchly for it.

6. Snoopy vs. The Red Baron - Royal Guardsmen. Holy crap, this is an earworm. I accompanied Nathan on a school field trip a couple of weeks ago to see "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown." He asked some questions about Snoopy's nemesis, and I pulled this one up for him to listen to. And he does. Over. And over. And thus, so do we.

7. Imogen Heap - Headlock. I'm loving Imogen. I first became aware of her as the singer of "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia" on the Six Feet Under soundtrack and so liked her voice that I went looking for more.

Well that was fun! Now who to tag (and who might actually take me up on it)... let's try JBo, Lora, Toast, SandraDee, Ms. Boo, AP, and Anne. That should provide a nice variety. If you take me up on it, link back here so I'm sure to see what you have to say!

Modern Classic, Revisited

Another grey rainy day + post-traumatic rejection funk + normal dark sense of humour = LOVE this

Sleepless In Seattle Trailer re-cut as a horror movie

Revel. Enjoy.