My Boys

What is it about baseball that keeps us young? That allows men to feel like boys? That creates this bond between father and son? Bryant Gumbel said, "The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love."

I never thought that I would feel that way, but it has this quality of being something bigger, something to be revered. I love going to my son's games, learning the strategy involved, watching these 11-year-old boys turn double plays and steal second and lay down beautiful bunts. I'm afraid it is getting into my blood.

This photo was entered into the I Heart Faces photo challenge

Ink

I have issues. I am willing to admit it. For as long as I can remember, I have loved pens.
I'll backpedal and admit thatI love handwriting, but that didn't start until later in life. My mother forced my 5th grade teacher to give me a failing grade in handwriting because my writing was so atrocious. Fast forward to the 8th grade, when I had an ecentric teacher who made us practice handwriting everyday. And she marked it wrong if it didn't match hers exactly. So, although she was bizarre and intense (really intense) I credit her with improving my handwriting and helping me to love the art of forming letters.
So, why this picture? I took it for a "Collection" theme. These are bottles of fountain pen ink. Yes, you can still buy that stuff. I absolutely love writing with fountain pens. There is something about the liquid ink, the way that there are variations of depth of color in each stroke of the pen, that seem like artwork to me. I especially love it when I use certain papers and the blue lines repel the ink a little bit, giving even more variations in the pen stroke.
If I didn't know it would be completely insane, I'd have even more bottles of this stuff. Yeah, I get ink all over my hands. Sure, the liquid ink smudges easily. Yes, I have ended up with fountain pen ink on my face. But it's all worth it for the handwriting. In this day and age of email and text, we are losing the personal touch of a nice, handwritten note.
And so I treasure my bottles of old-fashioned, impractical, fountain pen ink.

Surprise!

Surprise, indeed. The entry didn't post. whoops.

Learning to get along

Chester has been part of our family for about 10 days now. The introduction of the two cats went much better than I anticipated. We took it slow, over a few days.

At first, there was much hissing (good Lord, cat breath stinks even worse when they hiss.)

Then there were suspicious looks, followed by hissing. But at least it was less hissing.

Then, we moved on to general mistrust and butt-sniffing.

Next, came some not-so-gentle whacks to the head from Einstein. He just needed to remind Chester that this was his house, not Chester's.

Finally, we got to the point, about three days ago, where they were sort-of-playing. We supervised this closely, since Einstein is approximately 7 times Chester's size. There were friendly whacks to the head, hiding and pouncing and more butt-sniffing. I decided it was all going well and left them unsupervised while I got ready for school.

I was alarmed when I heard an unusual noise from Chester. It wasn't pain, it wasn't fear, it was more a cry of indignation. And I found Einstein carrying Chester into the house from the back porch by the scruff.

This is where it stands now. They chase each other and wrestle and play. Einstein tolerates Chester attacking his tail and jumping on his back and kicking him in the face...to a point. Then Einie pins Chester down and bites his scruff. Chester meows a few "Hey! Not fair!" kind of meows and Einstein lets him go and he come right back for more.
The way I figure it, Chester probably deserves what he gets.

But, we are well on our way to friendship. Or at least tolerance.

He's He-ere!

Chester arrived yesterday and we have survived the first night. Keebles slept with him in the guest room and discovered a few things:







1. He likes to bite toes.
2. He is fearless and will jump down off of the bed.
3. He thinks the litterbox is a fun place to play
4. He can just crash and fall asleep in 0.5 seconds
5. Kitty poo smells really bad.

Ten Lessons Learned on Vacation

The top 10 lessons learned on our recent family trip to Chicago, told in my long-winded, rambling style.
1. Sometimes it is worth it to just suck it up and buy the family membership. These times include when it is cold, rainy and the line to get into Shedd Aquarium is so long that the volunteers have to continuously re-route it to keep it off of The Field Museum’s walkways, because it would seem that there’s no love lost between those two establishments. Yes, pay the extra $35 (it’s tax-deductible after all) and wait for 45 minutes in the rain rather than 2 hours.

2. The time for teaching your kid a life-lesson is not on an insanely windy April day when you’ll be sitting in the top row at Wrigley Field, in the shade. That, “Fine, don’t wear your sweatshirt if you think you know best,” will end up costing you $49 for a Cubs blanket because you don’t want your kid to die of hypothermia. It might even cost you $132 for two new sweatshirts if you aren’t careful.

3. A bottle of Visine and a toothbrush will cost you $10 at the corner 7-Eleven. This is closely related to “don’t forget the goggles because hotel pool water is brutal on the eyes.”
4. An empty bar and grille presents the perfect opportunity for teaching your kids proper billiards etiquette.

5. Yes, in fact, they can get more people on that elevator. Just when you think it’s full, they’ll ask you to place backpacks and purses on the floor between your feet and step back. And, no, Mr. Claustrophobic Tourist, the next elevator to the top of the Willis Tower isn’t going to be any less crowded. At least you are only packed in like sardines for just over a minute as you fly to the top of the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

6. Never, ever underestimate the gall of 20-somethings under the influence. Really, I enjoyed watching you and your girlfriend stand there and soulfully grope each other for 10 minutes (even when you couldn’t quite focus on one-another’s eyes.) But I would have rather watched the game. So, when J asked you to sit down and you got all huffy about it, I wasn’t amused. Nor was I amused when you and your buddies started smoking pot. But hey, you were super-cool.
7. Easter Sunday is a great day for visiting the Field Museum. No lines. Good Friday is not such a good time for visiting Shedd Aquarium. See lesson #1.
8. It never hurts to triple check games times. As of Thursday night, it was a 1:05 game. Double-checked Saturday morning at 11:15: Oh, now game time is 12:05? Holy crap! Good thing the subway was just a couple of blocks away.
9. It’s everyone’s birthday at the Rainforest Café! We were there for an hour, and I would guess that there were at least 8 “birthdays” during that time, when the servers came out with the fiery volcano cake (which is not free, by the way.)

10. Remember what appeals to your kids if you are going to drag them all over the place: Man-eating lions? YES! Ancient American civilizations and the fossil record, not so much.

Have I lost my mind? Short answer: Yes.

Or is the universe aligning against me (with me?) I don't know. I can't decide.

Keebles will be nine years old on Monday. (sniff, sniff) Last Saturday night, J and I were folding laundry, plotting the events of the upcoming week, when out of the blue, he says to me, "What if we let Keebles pick out a kitten for her birthday?"

Hold the press. Let's backtrack. J doesn't dislike the cats, but he doesn't really like them either. He puts up with them because he loves me. And I love the cats. And I had pretty much decided that we would be a one-cat family, because I love J and I don't want him to feel like his feelings don't count. Clear as mud?

Back to folding: I looked at J kind of funny and thought perhaps he was being controlled by aliens. And then I thought about how busy we are. So I said, "No. Besides, I don't even know anyone who has kittens right now." End of story.

I took my kids up to my mom and dad's the next day. We went over to get a tour of the "Taj Garage" that my dad is helping his neighbor build. As we were admiring the garage-that-is-bigger-than-my-house, my dad's neighbor says, "Have you seen the kittens?"

I stopped dead in my tracks. And I remembered what I said to J about not knowing anyone who had kittens. And I had to wonder if this was divine intervention.

Long story short: we are now getting a kitten. He'll be coming home in about 10 days. Keebles has named him "Chester" for the cat in the Bunnicula books. She has been researching how to take care of a kitten. She is thrilled. And I am so proud of KJ because I know he wanted to pick one out too, but to his credit, there was no whining. Einstein is his cat anyway, but that's a story for another day.

So, we will shortly be back to two cats. And it feels good. Thanks, J, for being such a good sport.

Tell me this isn't the face of sheer joy.