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Karen Fayeth

Opening Day

And so, the 2009 baseball season is underway.

The major leaguers started early in the week.

But that’s not where I’m at.

I’m talkin’ about one lowly Single A.

Yeah baby.

The San Jose Giants kicked off their 142 game season in the Pacific Coast League with their home opener last night.

It was, perhaps, one of the strangest baseball encounters I’ve ever experienced.

And I’ve seen some weird sh*t.

To start with, the weather was was, what the indelicate call “pissing rain”. The not quite raining, not quite not. Just…dribbling.

For my home-squirrels in the 505/575 who come from a place where, when it rains, it means it, this phenomenon may not make sense to you.

Imagine those misters they have at Hooters. Only as big as the sky, unrelenting, and without the desert dryness to evaporate that water.

Close enough.

So it was Hooters misting all night long…and cold…and not very baseball-y weather.

Pretty much, the not really capacity crowd thinned out over the course of the game, leaving only the die hards to carry it to the end.

Which would be both me and The Good Man.

We stepped under cover for the third and fourth innings to indulge in bbq-sauce-up-to-your-ears tasty ribs and came out of there recharged and ready.
When you’ve endured several hours of cold soaking rain, it does something to your brain.

So as most people left, and us weirdos starting losing our minds, it got really fun.

Best moment will take some backstory.

Every game, the San Jose announcer designates a player on the opposing team as the “beer batter”. If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, then beer is half price for the next half inning.

Needless to say, people cheer pretty damn hard for a strikeout.

Usually, they end the beer batter promotion in the sixth inning.

So, round about the seventh inning last night…we, the looneys in the crowd decided to dub that same opposing batter the hot chocolate batter (it was freaking cold!). Cheering went up. Someone yelled, “C’mon, daddy needs marshmallows!”

That damn beer hot chocolate batter would NOT just take a swing. Poor sport.

And then, for some reason, in the eighth inning, the announcer played the usual beer batter song and dubbed the guy the ‘apple juice batter of the game, as sponsored by Martinelli’s’. I don’t know if that was a legit promotion, but then all of us started hollering for our apple juice.

As the beer batter stood at the plate, we screamed “aaaaaaaple juuuuuice!” Damnit if that guy just wouldn’t strike out for us! No, he kept foulin’ ’em off! So I yelled “I’ll share mine with you!” No, he wasn’t to be swayed. I even offered to *give* him my apple juice. Considering I was sitting in the third row behind the plate in a nearly empty stadium, I KNOW he heard my offer.

But no, instead of sipping my apple juice, b–tard hit a rope out to center.

A cold soaked to the bone crowd couldn’t even get an apple juice. That ain’t right.

But damn did we have fun!

And yes, the Albuquerque Dukes pennant is still painted on the wall at Muni Stadium and I touched it for luck, like usual! Worked too! We won 7-1!

Tonight, I think I’ll stick to the couch and a blanket and my feline (who I’ve finally forgiven) and baseball on the television.

But I may be prompted to yell “aaaaaaapple juuuuuuuice” at a hitter who needs to strike out. : shrug :

The irony! Oh the irony!

In response to reports that Lindsay Lohan wants to buy the rights to her life and play her in a movie, Stevie Nicks replies:

“Over my dead body…She needs to stop doing drugs and get a grip. Then maybe we’ll talk.”

Oh hooo heee hooo har har har Ms. Nicks! YOU saying that someone needs to get off drugs and get a grip?

Do you, perhaps, recall the seventies and your time with Fleetwood Mac?

No…I suppose you don’t.

Source.

I am SO clever!

Been acting all healthy lately (past couple months). Eating good. Exercising too. Had a visit to my doctor early this week and she wants to get a full blood panel (haven’t done that in a few years).

This week I exercised super hard. Ate pretty good. Feeling good. Blood pressure low. Blood sugar great.

I’m expecting knockout low cholesterol numbers.

Then I went in this morning around 9:30 and gave the blood.

Taking care of me.

So what did I have for lunch today?

Nachos.

: shakes head :

You can make a person almost 40, but you can’t make ’em be a grownup! At least not for very long.

The face of a criminal

Behold the face of the unrepentant criminal!

Last night, after giving kibble to the rabble rouser, I took a glass from the cabinet where we keep dishes, poured some soy milk, and went to the other room to enjoy the cold glass. I suppose I didn’t firmly close the cabinet door…fine.

Several minutes later, I heard some clanking noises from the kitchen and said to The Good Man, “what’s she into now?”

He said, “we didn’t leave any dishes on the counter, so I can’t imagine…”

I got up and went into the kitchen.

The Feline had made her way into the cabinet where the dishes are kept and was prowling around in there. When I barked, “get down!” as I do when she’s somewhere she ought not to be, she wigged out.

And in her haste to comply and quickly extricate her anything-but-lithe form from the shelves, she managed to shove the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and crashing, shattering to the floor.

She then scampered off a good distance, then stopped to lick her paw as though to say, “what?”

I found myself…mad. Really mad. Not kick the cat mad (in no way at all), but mad.

The Good Man rightfully reminded me that she’s a pet, you can’t reason with her like a child, that being mad is fine but really comes to no good end, that this is just what this particular feline does.

Sure. Didn’t help. I was still mad.

Not mad enough I didn’t let her sleep on top of me, like usual, but still, this morning…I’m peeved.

I’m probably more peeved at myself for leaving the door open than anything.

I once had a therapist say that being mad was more about yourself that it is about the person (feline) you are mad at.

So. Breathe in. Breathe out.

*sigh* So I guess this weekend we’ll set out into the world to buy a new set of bowls. Ain’t gonna be no soup in our house for a while!

Liar, liar, pants on fire

I have this friend. One of my best friends, actually, who is this little tiny bit of nuthin’. 90lbs soaking wet. She’s the sort of golden retrieverish person that will get up in the morning and go to spin class before breakfast, take an intense yoga lesson at lunch, and then go wind surfing for dinner.

She fancies ten hours bike rides. Yeah. That kind of gal.

But recently, at age 43, she’s found herself (happily) pregnant for the first time, and is very superstitious about this baby, so is, in her words, taking it easy.

Over dinner a few weeks back, my friend told me about this place she has been going hiking. “Oh, it’s great. They have a paved walking path, and it only has a few rolling hills. It’s great! I’ve been walking it a few times a week!”

Well, hey! To me, her elephantine friend who has been hitting the treadmill with vigor lately, “a few rolling hills” didn’t sound so bad!

Sunday I set out for The Dish, the landmark walking path on the campus of Stanford University.

Ok, fabulous. I got a much coveted parking spot, strapped on my shoes and off I went. The Good Man was up in SF with friends, so I was alone in this 3.7 mile mission.

I stopped by the ranger’s shack and he gave me a map, talked me through the path and off I went. Just to get to the trail, you have to walk up a large hill. Neato.

And so I get to the top of that first hill. Once there, you have to choose if you want to go clockwise or counterclockwise.

I looked to my left (to go clockwise). There was another steep hill. I looked to the right (to go counterclockwise) and there was a gradual decline. Hmm. So I decided I wanted to take the big hill at the first part of the walk while I still had energy, so I turned to the left and started walking.

And began gasping, sweating, became good friends with my heart beating out of my chest. I had to stop and put hands on knees multiple times (an elderly hunched backed woman strolled past me) and my lungs burned. Oh how they burned.

This was not a rolling hill. Neither was the next one. Or the next. Or the next several, actually.

Ok, fair enough, it was a beautiful walk. I saw deer, many ground squirrels, and a red tail hawk.

I did manage to actually complete the walk. I scaled the last uphill before leaving and had worked myself into quite a sweaty, panting froth.

So, of course, I rewarded myself for a job well done by eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Oh well. I’m less golden retriever and more couch hound.

____________________

Isn’t that a pretty flower? I took a photo of it while lying on the ground crying out for dear mercy and sweet mother oxygen.