June 2005 Archives

My older son, A-, has provided me with a new definition of irony.

Last night, he and some buddies decided to head up to Camden Yards to watch the Baltimore Orioles take on the New York Yankees. A big motivator was that last night was "Wendy's Night" at the ball park. Anyone with a receipt from Wendy's got in for free.

Or so he thought.

Turns out there was only a limited number of Wendy's tickets and by the time he got to the stadium, they were all gone. So he had to pay for his ticket. And once he got to his seat, it began to rain. After sitting there for two hours, the umps called the game. The game got rained out. He went to Camden Yards thinking he'd get to watch the O's play the Yankees for free only to end up paying for a ticket to a game that got rained out.

God has such a sense of humor.
K-

I've had enough Tom Cruise for a while.

Enough about his love life (who the hell is Katie Holmes?), enough about his belief in aliens, enough about his non-belief in psychiatry. As an actor I don't dislike him. I liked him in Minority Report and loved him in Collateral. But as a guy on a promotional tour, I've heard and seen just about everything I care to. He's just not interesting enough that I really care what he thinks about anything.

Sheesh... I'm all worked up. Someone get me a paxil.
K-

Yesterday morning I was running a few errands preparing for a Saturday night cook-out. One of my stops included the grocery store. As I entered, I heard a bird singing, loud and clear. When I heard it a second time, I knew immediately it was a song sparrow singing. And there perched on the track lighting above two big bins of melons and grapes sat a song sparrow singing its heart out. It was one of the strangest things I've seen and heard in a long time.

The produce guy said he flew in store a couple of days ago and decided to stay.

I've seen wild birds in stores before but they've always been house sparrows flying around inside Home Depot. Song sparrows singing in supermarkets is a first. Birds sing to attract mates or mark breeding and feeding territories. I'm guessing there weren't any female birds in the store.

I wonder why he wasn't over in the bird food aisle?
K-

My father was cremated when he died in 2002. At the time, it was my mother's intention to bury the remains in a family burial plot we have in Delaware. She looked into all the details of arranging a marker, getting the hole opened up, and having a priest pronounce the final words. It took her a while but about 4 months after his death, things looked to be on-track for his April burial.

Two weeks before his planned burial my mother called me from Michigan and said, "I can't go through with it. I just can't do it. I know I should bury your father but I've decided it's going to be up to you and your brother to bury the two of us together after I'm gone."

That time has arrived.

On Sunday - just like she promised - we get to put both Mother and Dad in the ground. And I'm not looking forward to it. I've managed to avoid thinking much about the whole event but the finality of it begins to intrude. It's not a little unsettling. Some friends and family will be here this weekend for support and I expect, with the exception of the time we are actually at the cemetery, that we'll have good times as we share some laughs and reminiscences. But I'm not looking forward to this weekend at all.

I can't wait for Monday.
K-

Grilled steaks are a Father's Day tradition in my house. I like Delmonicos. I get them at the local butchers shop where, as their sign indicates, the meat is quite fresh.

Grilled, fresh killed, Elmer.... mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm.

"There... that one. No, the one next to him. No... not that one. Behind him. The one with the white face. Yes, him. That one. I'll take 4 lbs of him."

K-

When I lived in Michigan, lo, these many years ago, you could count on occasions when the hot humid air would be displaced by a cool, Canadian air mass. During those brief respites, the humidity drops, daytime highs are in the low 70s, night time lows are in the 50s, and you get the best sleeps you can imagine. That doesn't happen too often in Maryland. In fact, it happens about once a summer. And when it does, you feel like a million bucks.

Today is the day.

This morning I woke up to find sunny skies and lower humidity. Jerry and Millie (my nesting bluebirds who I'm now convinced are not Fred and Ethel) are scurrying around tending the 4 eggs in their nest box, hummingbirds are stopping by my feeders, foxes are trotting through the backyard, and everything - with the exception that George Bush is still president - seems right with the world.

Father's Day is before me, which means I get to cook me up whatever I want (New York strips in all likelihood), I can drink beer with only a minimum of baleful looks and tongue clicks, and the young'uns will at least pretend I'm not a complete idiot. I've even heard rumors that something is "planned" for Sunday.

Happy Friday.
K-

P.S. You'll get a virtual ice cream if you can tell me which immortal TV-Land couple also had a Jerry and Millie as their neighbors. Two scoops if you can tell me their last name. And no Googling!

I'm down in southern Maryland for a 3-day meeting. (Actually the meeting is at a Navy base just across the Potomac River in Virginia. I'm only staying in southern Maryland.) Coming off the base today I stopped at a traffic light. There in front of me sat a guy on his Harley. It was sunny today, which made it an ideal day to ride a bike to work. He looked the part, too. Leather vest with his motorcycle club insignia, boots, black helmet. Because it was excruciatingly hot, he had a sweatband tied around his head underneath his helmet.

As I sat there waiting for the light to change, I noticed his sweatband wasn't the typical bandanna. No, this biker had class. It was his tie. Evidently, the guy had worn a tie to work and needed something to keep the sweat out of his eyes on the way home. He even retained the knot he so carefully tied in the morning. Only this time the ends of the tie peaked out from underneath his helmet.

Salvatore Ferragamo would be so proud.
K-

The University of Michigan won the NCAA softball national championship last night when the Wolverines defeated the UCLA Bruins 4-1 in the Women's College World Series. I would just like give a hail-fellow-well-met congratulations to all of the women. Special recognition ought to go to UofM pitcher Jennie Ritter who pitched 7 games in 7 days. I watched the clinching game on ESPN. I discovered that not only do the women spit just like their male counterparts but that, unlike me, they don't throw like girls.

I'll be honest. I haven't paid much attention to the softball program at Michigan, what with football and all. Turns out their program (which only started in 1978, the year that I graduated) is pretty good. No, make that very good. They've been to the NCAA softball tournament like 9 times. This year they prevented perennial softball powerhouse UCLA from making a 3-peat. Michigan is the first softball team ever to come from east of the Mississippi and win the WCWS. The football team should be so good.

Alumni always feel so smug and self-satisfied whenever one of their alma mater's teams does well. I'm no different; it's like I had something to do with it. But the championship gave me a not-so-small lift today. Thank you, ladies. So as baseball immortal Mel Allen probably would have said...

Now how about that!
K-

Back in December, during a period of winter blues, I posted a picture of Salma Hayek on my blog to help cheer me up. At the time it certainly worked.

Recently I noticed a huge spike in hits to my site. I was getting 40, 50, 100 hits per day. And they were coming - they still come - from everywhere around the globe. I became unnerved; threatened even. Why were all these people coming to my site? It had never happened before.

After a little detective work I found they were all hitting on Salma. (Pun intended.)

Somehow, through the Byzantine rating system that only Google understands, the ranking for that one entry of mine had pushed its way near the top of the Google image search. Guys searching for Salma were coming to my site to find her. But why? I mean, the picture isn't special. (Well, it is if you're a Salma fan.) But it's one that's all over the web. What made my posting of this one picture so special to Google? In any event, I found the extra attention I was receiving a bit unseemly so I've deleted the post and removed the picture from my site.

All those guys coming to me because of my connection to Salma. This is the closest I've ever come to feeling like a pimp.
K-

Some guy from Spain beat some guy from Argentina in the French Open tennis tournament. Who in America could possibly care? You? No? How about you? Not you either? Then you. Do you care? No?

Professional tennis and professional skiing are two sports that are simply not worth paying attention to. They're just not important.
K-

My place of employment is large. Oftentimes there are meetings involving people from outside. So we put up little directional signs along the road out front to direct people to the correct auditorium, conference room, or building.

Today on my way into work, this was the sign I saw posted:

JHU Libary Conference

I'm not making this up. That's what it said: "JHU Libary Conference".

Do you think the sign-maker was playing a joke? I can only hope.
K-