oh those summer nights

Bedtime tonight. Paige is sporting a new haircut (thanks to Sally Scissors... anthropomorphizing cutting implements is the only way to get the hair out of her face. I'll do what it takes; I'm just that kind of mom.)

I remember my mom giving me popsicles on sticky summer nights like tonight... and while Paige was chowing down on this one, I had to capture the moment. It's been a total ladies' night... and I have to say, I think it's good for the soul to just hang out at home with your progeny every now and again.

And who doesn't love Scooby-Doo macaroni and cheese for dinner. Really?

Take me out.

so, how did you spend your tuesday afternoon? I'm getting my baseball on. And my sunburn. And a bellyfull of Summit. Ah, the summer life is good.

mmm mmm good.

Palm-sized strawberries make me smile.

I'm sorry.

So sorry.

So many wonderful (good and not-as-good) things to think on and write about and ponder, and I haven't written about a one of them.

I was under the impression I'd get less busy as a former grad student. Harumph, that didn't work at all.

Can I apologize by way of a short list?
(of course I can. My faithful 3 readers, you'll let me get away with that, right?)

Things I Have Learned Since Graduation

• Families, like the people they produce, are unique and wonderful.
• I think they way you are celebrated as you exit your life says a whole lot about who you were throughout.
• Small towns aren't where I want to live (necessarily), but they aren't anything to be scared of.
• It's damned hard to find a car everyone likes.
• I am a perfect fit for my new neighborhood.
• Even in the midst of a self-image crisis, being able to give away my old clothese to someone who needs them makes me feel like a beautiful goddess.
• You can always be busier. It's the slowing down that's hard.
• I am cursed to never grow decent rosemary.
• But I make a mean rhubarb custard (I am a killer meringue baker.)!
• Just when I think I'm not very strong, I prove it to myself otherwise.
• I'm doing a good job at work.
• I've got someone I realized I'm going to miss terribly this fall.
• But I also see that life takes you where you need to go, and it makes me excited.
• My daughter is going to learn how to read someday soon.
• When you build your life as a house of cards, it will fall down. It was only the illusion of grandeur to begin with.

Scandalous.

I (sorta) fear I was the girl having so-much-fun up front at the Tapes and Tapes show Sunday at Grand Old Day, that I might have annoyed you. I was having fun; but if I was overexuberant...

well, can you blame me, really? I had at my disposal:

• My dear friends
• Gin from a jam jar (OK, it was gin and tonic in Jana's water bottle. Drank from her purse. Even if it was a messenger bag.)
• Excellent Twin Cities music
• Warmth (read: humidity)
• Mild newbie successes at Guitar Hero
• Beer
• Sunburn
• A big fat stogie
• Anne's headband
• Jana's sunglasses
• Sass
• Corn dogs and husk-roasted corn on the cob
• A stolen cheese curd
• Flipflops (my powerwalking shoe of choice)
• A bazillion other happy Grand Old Day go-ers
• Basset Hound sightings
• Dreams of a band called Dudes with Boobs (Joel playing drums on that one)

Summer's here, kids. Make it scandalous, make it fun. Just make it memorable.

Dirty Velour, is turning me on.

on this fine Thursday....

...my iPod is currently spinning a Melodious Owl song that makes me want to drink gin and tonics and get crazy-dancing at the t-rock (which I'm going to recovering from in a weeks' time, anyhoo.)

...my mind wanders into the realm of sewing skirts, and I bless the blog world for providing me with myriad patterns and tutorials.

...I am potentially kicking ass and taking names on my to-do list.

...There are 3 separate brews going in my basement, which I'm really excited about. And bottles of the last batch the DTs whipped up in April are priming in a dark corner as I type. Should be ready 'round Father's Day. Have I mentioned how much I dig on the way my house smells after we've been brewing all night?

...I'm in desperate search for a cheap used 10-speed roadbike.

...I anxiously anticipate a weekend of patio-loafing, St. Paul style, biking to Buffy, farmer's-marketing, beer-festivaling, and Grand-Old-Day sunburn and wandering. Sigh. Life is good.

life, death, and professional baseball

2007's Major League Baseball Opening Day draws ever-nearer.

I just received word I have tickets for the July 18th game vs. the Tigers and the September 21st game against the White Sox, both in amazing seats at the Dome. And while I'd rather be drinking sub-standard beer and eating too many hot dogs, sitting on hard bleacher seats and letting the summer sun beat down on my freckled shoulders, I'll take my baseball any way I can get it.

Tickets for the Home Opener in 2 weeks (Really! Just 2 short weeks!), as well as a mid-season battle and tickets for the last home-stand of the season (we close in Boston at the end of September... wish I had unlimited time, energy and money for baseball roadtrips...) have got me thinking about everything I love about baseball.

• Aforementioned junk food: giant all-beef hot dogs smothered in mustard and sauerkraut and relish and ketchup and onions, sub-standard and overpriced (but somehow still delicious) ice-cold beer, sucking the salt off peanut shells til my lips chap, warm kettlecorn in a giant bag you buy as you walk inside the ballpark.
• Wandering around the plaza before the game. Soaking up sun, my city, my neighbors. Listening to street music. Buying overpriced snacks.
• Getting my hands on a program in order to keep score. I used to do stats for our baseball team in high school. I love the art of keeping score, inexplicably.
• The ebb and flow of the game. I love the lull of a long at-bat; the mix of ennui and anticipation, knowing that the next swing of the bat could mean a riveting homerun or a deflating strikeout.
• Trying my very best to out-ump the umpire calling pitches at home plate. I don't know how many times I have screamed: Are you blind? That was obviously low and inside! He doesn't tuck his knees inside his cleats, you incompetent old fart!
• The jumbo-tron. Yup, I'm a geek, but I love peoplewatching (everywhere, not just the baseball game), and the jumbo-tron at the Dome is a kitchy, yet effective, method. I love the strange deformo-thing they do. And the kissing cam. And when they catch a baby sleeping, or a little kid tweaking, or an old lady knitting.
• Speaking of the jumbo-tron, I love the baseball game announcements. You know, the "thanks to Acme corp for having their summer picnic here" thing. And the birthdays, and anniversaries... always so embarrassing (and by embarrassing, I mean hilarious). Oooh, and then there's the classic (insert my best girly-swoon here) baseball-game-proposal. Yah, yah, I know there's the risk of "Ohmigod I'm going to propose on the Jumbotron what if she says no", thing, but that's why I love it. I LOVE IT. I think it's absurd and wonderful, and potentially (at the risk of being accused of using hyperbole), my all-time favorite proposal methodology. (I realize this makes me sound like I've propsed to several people in my life. Which would be both strange and entirely false. Ah well.)
• Dodging crap for 9 innings: foul balls, spilled beer, renegade nachos.
• Singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. There's nothing I don't love about the 7th inning stretch.
• The insta-communities that pop up over the course of a game. Inherently, you strike up a conversation with the people around you - and especially if it's a close or fast-moving game, by the 9th inning you have a new best friend and you are screaming incoherent chants together with your baseball cap turned inside out and backwards. You will in all likelihood never see these people again (unless you all are season ticketholders), but for those few innings, you are a family.

Take me out to the ballgame, baby. I can hardly wait.