Weekend

 Tommy loves baseball, and this is his year. He drafted up to THE BIG LEAGUES and his hitting has turned a corner. This stand up double is the result of weeks of hustle and heart by this boy of mine who absolutely loves this game. And, wouldn't you know, once that door is opened......he has hits and rbis coming out of his ears. Thank you, Baseball, he needed that.

Chi-town

The spring was a very difficult time for me. My amazing and beloved grandma's steep illness and death in May brought one of the most difficult school year's I've ever experienced to a halting and bitter close. I needed the summer to regroup and recoup. I wasn't at all sure that I would be teaching this fall, or at least, I wasn't at all sure it would be at this school, or in this district. It was an impossible situation, and I certainly didn't see this fall coming together any better than the way the spring ended.

It would be nearly impossible to explain the violence exhibited by a great portion of my students last school year. Their stories are not my stories to tell; let me just state emphatically that the kind of chaotic lives that result in 8 year olds who attack adults on campus, stand on kids' necks and try to stab them with a ruler, try to hang themselves in a garage, respond to every interaction with anger and physical aggression....it's not something I wish on anyone, let alone little kids who are still forming. You expect a handful of "behavior problems" in any class of 33. But this? This was not that. Promise. I'm not prone to hyperbole when it comes to children, either. I don't exaggerate or feel sorry for myself; I'm not out to win the Pity Olympics for What I Had To Deal With This Year. I say it with total humility and great sadness, that I don't know how much of a positive impact I was able to have, overall, when I was so worn down and so overwhelmed by the day-to-dayness of those four walls.

All that to say! I tiptoed into this summer and had several great adventures and many quiet days. I can't share them all here, of course, but I few stand out in my mind. Today's is an awesome adventure in Chicago during the last week of June. I went for work as a consultant for the non-profit organization that I work with that works with teachers on improving math instruction. I worked with an amazing group of about 80 K-8 teachers, administrators, and coaches. And I worked with one of my favorite colleagues.

It was my first visit to Chicago, and I totally and completely fell in love. I've not spent much time at all in the midwest, to be honest. Drove through it twice in my life for cross-country trips. Flew over to get to New York and the East Coast. But really? The Rockies to the Appalachians....kind of a mystery to me. Overall impression: incredibly friendly people, insane amounts of steakhouses, and Chicago is a beautiful, fun city.

I'm so spoiled to be from San Francisco, which I happen to think (with some bias) is the most beautiful, vibrant, exciting, and fun city in the country. But I have to say, Chicago was amazing. I spent two days there by myself after the rest of my colleagues went home (long story) and I fell in love.

You better believe I was going to Wrigley, no matter what! But, unbelievably, the Giants

were on a roadtrip to play the Cubbies that week! So Wednesday found us down in

Wrigley Town. It was everything you've heard, and more. It was so rowdy, and cozy, and amazing.

A "W" would have been better, I won't lie, but we got to hear the Cubbie's Song and yes,

I admit, we were humming right along on the way out. : )

 The architectural river tour is amazing. HIGHLY recommend if you get down out that way.

The Willis Tower used to the Sear Tower. There are new observation decks made completely of glass, floor, walls, ceiling. It was an amazing experience to walk out "into thin air" and hover over

downtown Chicago. Even more amazing to watch people freak out about it. Holy cow. Watching grown men and women crawl on the glass floors of the balconies? Surreal.

 I'm not a shopper (understatement) but I walked all the way down Michigan Avenue, just for people

watching purposes, and ended up down at Grant Park, the Art Institute museum, and the outdoor festival of Taste, where I sweated it out with thousands of my closest strangers, and ate ice cream

and spinach stuffed pizza. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

 The river that runs through the city. It's so charming there!

 I stopped to knit under The Bean in Memorial Park.

It's possible that my fabulous two days in Chicago was more attributable to the quiet of my hotel room, (where I read, soaked in a hot tub, and generally thought deep thoughts), or to the quiet dinners at Xoco and Luxe and the Greek food and the deep dish pizzas....

Maybe, afterall, I just needed a few days where I was "Mia" instead of "mama" or "maestra". A nice little palette cleanser to the end of the school year!

First!

While Tommy's baseball season has been underway for several weeks now, Scotty's very first T-Ball practice was this Saturday.  (In an unprecedented stroke of luck, the boys have the EXACT same practice schedule this season, and the practices are all at the same field!  SHUT.  UP.)

He was so excited to wear all his new fancy equipment ~ for about 5 whole minutes!

What's that son?  You'd like me to hold your helmet?

Questions from the morning:

"Does my teacher know I have baseball today?"
"Is Uncle Moose going to be my coach?"
"Can I be on Tommy's team?"

 We're calling this his "star maker move".  Tommy never played at this age (5); he started baseball during "coach pitch" (I think he was 8!) so I was kind of shocked at how...incompetent...the really young ones seemed.  He would literally stand like this, frozen and planted, and wait for a ball to plop into his glove!  And you know what?  It actually worked a few times!

 Coach Dylan:  "Okay, where is first base?"  I mean, we're talking basics! 

He loved it!

Class Act

These last couple of weeks have been all about the Giants' Post Season.  Tommy and I have spent many, many, many evenings watching the games.  It's hard for me to set still for that long, so we have to keep busy.

 I have been finishing up (whew!  almost done!) the applique flowers that I started...um....last spring?  At least?  I've finished the purple set, the orange set, the red set, and the blue set.  I have one and a half of the yellow set done.  (There are three in each set).

 

I was originally thinking to make them into a quilt, but oh-my-good-god, that is so not happening.  So I think they'll be used in a variety of projects over the next couple of months.  Some things, I can picture exactly what they will be, and how they will be finished.  Other things are fuzzier.  Still others are yet to be conceived.  It should be interesting!

 Tommy stays busy right along side me.  He tends to get lost in his play, but I can do both at the same time.  Which means that he would pop up prairie dog style every time I cheered or grumbled.  It reminds me of growing up with my dad, who always had The Game on the radio, low, in the background...we'd be talking about something, and every once in a while he would whoop or yell, and it would scare the crap out of me.  I swear to you, the radio was barely above a whisper, but he always had one ear on it.  Even when the rest of us were oblivious.

I am so happy that Our Giants won.  But truly, I am NEARLY AS happy at the sportsmanship and class shown by both the Giants and the Texas Rangers.  The Rangers ~ from the coaches to the players to the fans ~ are a real class act.  I'm sure there were overzealous fans on both sides (beer + testosterone can be a tricky combination) but I have mostly heard some amazing things.  I heard that the Rangers organization let the Giants fans onto the field after the game to celebrate with the players!  I heard that the fans welcomed the Giants fans into their stadium!  And, despite a few polite but pointed signs re:  Huff Daddy's Rally Thong (ahem, did you really think Texas would approve?!?) there was none of the  apparent vitriol that the Phillies fans exhibited (Really?  "Fix your teeth"?  I sort of thought "Hippie Freak" was funny ~ especially since the hippie was whoopin' you ~ but the personal attacks, just....no.)  And I love that Washington just handed it to our Pitchers in the sweetest, most relaxed way.  I don't know much about the AL, but I kind of have a soft spot for Texas at the moment.  It doesn't hurt that I wish only the best for Bengie.  

I'm feeling so generous toward our rivals, in fact, that I'm even hoping for a speedy recovery for both the Dallas-based announcer and Josh Hamilton who were both nearly apoplectic that fans were smoking pot..."fifty feet away from the cops!!!"  Welcome to San Francisco, guys.  I can't believe that's news to anyone, but in the spirit of our new friendship, I offer the sincere hope that you'll not hold it against our city.

WooooooHoooooooooo!

Giants win the series!  Giants win the series!

I love our misfits and castoffs, I love this team, I love this game! 

Happy Dia de los Muertos!

I have a random day off from work today (*cough* furlough *cough*) which happily coincides with a field trip Tommy's class is taking to a local museum.  So I get to go, which is always super fun!  Tommy's class entered an exhibit in their Dia de los Muertos display, and this will be the first time I've seen it.  I'll make it over to Oakland where my grandma and grandpa are buried, and I'll visit their graves and add flowers and clean up the area.   I love traditions!

Speaking of which, a very special tradition started around here in the last couple of years.  It involves spending the two or three days before Halloween trying on every costume in the dress up boxes!

 We saw a parade of pirates, jedis, super heros, and warriors for the entire weekend.  I was curious how they would actually end up on Halloween!  Tommy eventually went as a gladiator, and Scotty went as Optimus Prime from the Transformers.  We headed over to the Harris Family's new house in an upscale neighborhood in Oakland. 

 We had a blast, watching the Giants game (and getting updates at every house along the way!) while also cheering them on with a portable radio (what can I say?  We're fans!) and the kids scored full-sized candy bars from many of the houses.  What the what?  It was a shocking turn of events for all four sets of parents that were chaperoning our troupe of marauders.  Why, back in the day, we got raisins and mini snickers!  Good times.

I had my own kind of haul over the weekend....I've started clearing out the gardens as the chill in the air is taking longer and longer to dissipate each day.  I brought in the last of the eggplants (that would be about 2 dozen, by the way!) as well as a couple of squash and thanks to a heat wave earlier this month, I also got the last two cucumbers, and two bell peppers.  I'm only through two tomato plants (I'll get through the other tomato plants today) but I already have a nice pile of red tomatoes and a hojillion green ones.  I think we may be eating fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving before all is said and done! 

Hopefully, all these vitamin-rich homegrown veggies will counterbalance two buckets of candy.  Oh wait.  Am I supposed to care about the sugar?  I think I am supposed to let my kids pick two pieces and chuck the rest, is that right?  Ah, well.  I'm going to leave that to the good parents.  We'll be here, on a sugar high, eating tomatoes.

Don't Stop!

I have been soooooooo busy this week, trying to get the Giants through this playoff series!  It's exhausting.  LOL

My cousin (love love love his wife's blog, and both of them!) took Tommy to the game on Tuesday.  Oh, my, he's been on cloud nine!  What a ball he had, a real once in a lifetime experience with, I swear to you, one of his favorite people in the world.  I love that picture of those two, if you click through to this baseball entry!  Moose (or Uncle Moose, as Tommy calls him :) is a HUGE fan, and I was so hoping that they would clinch last night, just for him, because he was at all three home games, but that's not how it worked out.

Like I told Tommy, though, don't stop believing!

I have the marketing department working on finding the camera battery charger, so hopefully life will get back to normal in these parts soon enough!  Of course, here's what constitutes "normal" around here.

Tommy:  Mom!  Scotty said p...h....e.....n....u.....s.
Me:  [Confusion, slowly] Fennus?
Tommy:  [Arches eyebrows and points, discretely, to his crotch]
Me:  Oh, he...he... [helpless laughter, manage to finally squeak out...]  That's okay, honey, that's what he's supposed to say.

Am now wondering what Tommy calls his penis, and hoping whatever it is does not turn out to be an arrestable offense.

Weekend Freakout

Apropos of nothing, I found this picture when my iPhone synced with my Mac Book.  It was taken at the Lego Store when we went to DisneyLand in August (how could it be that it's already been two months?!?!) and it makes me crazy happy.

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It's been a weekend of extremes around here...

The Giants game was SO FUN on Saturday and SO NOT FUN on Sunday.

It was sunny and breezy on Saturday and cold and dreary on Sunday.

Saturday was a whirlwind of activity between farm visits and lunch with friends, errands, a visit with a dear friend for most of the evening and a late-night grocery store run.  Sunday was a nothin' doin' day, with the first fire of the season and whole lot of cozy-ing up around The Shire.

 Typical of this nutty weather, for the week before our drizzly Sunday, we had near-record setting highs.  Each morning, I would get up early and hang a load of wash on the line.  When I got home, everything was plenty dry, so Scotty and I would remove everything and start over again the next day.  I needed a refresher of clothes pins last weekend, so I chose to stop by a local hardware store, instead of a Target, to pick up a package.  I need a clothes pin bag.  I really do.  I keep them in a bucket that hangs on a hook on the back fence, and that's the reason why I needed new clothespins...the bucket pools water whenever there's precipitation, then the wood gets moldy or the springs get rusty or the whatever gets however and then, next thing you know, I'm down to a small handful of working pins.

 This cute and simple pin bag was at the local hardware store.  It was only $5.00 so the price was definitely right.  A little too right, if you know what I mean?  So I flipped it around and, sure enough, made in china was stamped on the back.

I started to wonder:  where, exactly, would I be able to purchase something like this that wouldn't have come from China?  How do I show my monetary support for products that come from fair trade practices, support local economies, and don't come with the social and ethical burden of being made in countries unhindered by child labor laws or environmental protections?

I went home and decided to just make one myself.  I used one of Scotty's old shirts, and basically just sewed up the bottom.  Nothing could have been easier.  Also?  It turns out?  It was free, which is actually cheaper than even $5.00.  And I love it, I do.  But I also recognize that I'm no closer to solving my original dilemma.

This turn to cold, fall weather, reminds me that our family needs a slipper refresher.  I found some adorable slippers at Satch and Sol and The Boys and I will get some (nothing there for Erik though...so sad!) and you know what?  I will pay about $100 for the slippers.  I guess if I went to Wal Mart I could get three pairs of slippers for less than half that.  But I can afford it, in the sense that I have the money, but the real trick is that it's how I choose to spend what money I have.  Since I'm going to spend twice as much on these slippers, I'm not also going to have money to buy...what?  I'm not sure.  But whatever it is, I don't need it.

So.  Now.   I need to get rain coats and boots for the boys, and Scotty really wants an umbrella.  

And who can blame him?!  That's fun, right there.  But I find it so distressing that I can't even find these items made (locally) (in my state) (okay, I give up, anywhere in the country) even though I am ready and willing to pay 3 times what their cheap import counterparts command. 

I'm going to go wash my face and lie down.  Somebody fix this while I'm gone.  Thanks.

Laurel's Kitchen :: Canneloni

Perhaps the most ambitious LK "project" I have taken on to date was the homemade canneloni.  It's funny...when we redid the kitchen, we got this amazing oven with the 6-burner stove.  The price was inflated by an additional 30% when we had to purchase the industrial-strength hood with the enlarged outtake tube...and when I questioned the need for this (speaking with my checkbook, of course), I was told that it was a safety "thing", because if I had all six burners going at the same time, a regular hood and fan would not be able to pull the heat off fast enough to be safe.  I thanked the sales rep for the information, and when Erik and I got back in the car, I laughed and said, "Yeah right!  When would that ever happen?  It's not like we're a restaurant!"  Well, I will say for the record, I was very close to using all six burners at once with this meal preparation.  It was steamy, my friends.

Part of it was that there was so much going on!  I need to steam the fresh spinach, make the tomato sauce, boil the water, make the cream sauce, and make the ricotta filling.

Just for Brit, I even used my pestle and mortar to prep the thyme and oregano.  Because she loves that.  :P

Frankly, it was all an awful lot of work.  But, I can say, that both the cream sauce and the tomato sauce could be made any time (and in bulk, because both are used in many of the recipes, with small additions for adjustments) and I will also announce, prematurely, that it was fantastic and well worth every moment, pot, and spoon that it took to make it.  Seriously yummy.  Anyway, I've kept a container of each at the ready in the refer over the last couple of weeks, and it works well.

 One little snag?  My whole wheat dough was an epic fail.  It's that brick-like mound in the background.  It was...not good.  I blame the whole wheat flour I had on hand...after this, I replaced it (I think it was too old?) and I haven't had this problem since.

I'm nothing if not flexible, though, so I quickly scratched the offending dough and made a batch of (even more offensive?) white flour dough.  I quickly rolled it out (my little table has a handy drawer that holds several of my kitchen secrets for success...the thrifted wooden rolling pin...a brush for egg white application...and, barely visible, a tube of lipstick.  So I look good, baking.) and it was very satisfying to use the pizza dough cutter to zip-zip-zip it into perfect little rectangles!

When I was young (college, I guess) and first started making my own pasta doughs, I would always get frustrated that it would stick together in the boiling water.  My great aunt Angie did some troubleshooting and let me know that "our people" add a bit of olive oil to the boiling water to remedy that problem.  Laurel's Kitchen mentions the same tip, so in case you don't have a Venetian auntie to set you straight, there is still hope.

Okay.  Homestretch!  All ten little canneloni 'burritos' fit snugly into a 9x13 casserole dish.  (Those are Laurel's whole wheat breadsticks in the far background, and that's an awesome reusable produce bag in the near background.)  And, honesty here:  It's not too early to pop open a bottle of wine and take a little breather.  You've been on your feet for a while at this point!

Now.  Now you can officially sit down and enjoy an amazing dinner with your family.  Everyone loved it!  This version of the cream sauce has a pinch of nutmeg, and it's brilliant. 

I've featured the canneloni incidentally, when I wrote about picnics at the baseball field.  I think it was even better as leftovers...or, at least, as good as leftovers!

Pictures are Better than Bullets, But...

A busy weekend, in bullets, because I didn't take a single picture.  Unheard of.

• The last baseball game!  In fitting fashion to the typical little league game, it was absolutely freezing and windy that day at the middle school on the mountain.  It probably would have been around 90 degrees if I had forgotten my sun hat, but seeing as how I had my hat and a jean skirt...freezing it was.  Oh, wait.  Why am I complaining?  Because it's my last chance, for  a while, I guess!  Tommy had a great year.  He learned so much, he loves it so much, and we are so proud of him.
• Straight to a birthday party for Tommy's best friend.  He and I stayed until after 9 o'clock.  Don't let it end!  :)
• Early Sunday morning walk with dear sweet Linda.  It was a gorgeous sunny, spring morning and we walked the lake and then had tea at a nearby Starbucks, sitting on the patio, and just enjoying each other's company and catching up.  I am so grateful for our Sunday mornings!
• Straight home in time to see my family off to a picnic they were attending...leaving me alone in my house for the first time in...who-can-remember-when?!?  But how could I enjoy it when my sweet neighbor Bev was laboriously moving buckets of dirt from her driveway to around the back of the house to her new garden beds?  Well, I couldn't.  She's been at it for days, and I was only too happy to spend less than hour finishing it off with her.  Many hands make light work, and she's always so quick to offer help and a smile...how could I resist?
• Spent a few hours cleaning the garage (holy!) and then took Tommy to a local park where the amazing Mr. Phil (who runs the after school program at Scotty's school) had organized an informal dodge ball tournament.
• Then...Lost, people!  I haven't watched the series at all, but Erik is obsessed, so I got the kids bathed, read to, and in bed...with prejudice...then I headed into the garage to do some laundry and more cleaning up, and stayed out of his way.  

Have you ever played dodge ball?  Oh, my.  It is a total blast!!!  The kids LOVED it and it's so fun and inclusive the way Mr. Phil does it.  I guess I had a vision of little kids or weaker kids getting ganged up on and pelted, but it's nothing like that.   It's fast and, during the Parents versus Kids round, I can tell you for a fact that it's a work out.  It was close....hard to say who won that particular round, with 8 parents on one side and 15 or so kids on the other.  I guess you'd have to call it for The Kids, though, since, officially, they immediately jumped in to play the next Kid-vs-Kid round, while all we adults sprawled on the grass, nursing our scrapes and bruises, and catching our breath.   Ahem.

During this Time of Baseball, we spend 3 hours at a Saturday game, 2 hours at a Sunday practice, and 3 hours at weekday-evening game.  That, my friends, is a lot of baseball!  Tommy usually plays left field, so we set up just at the end of the safety fence (since we do have a little one who doesn't understand the "heads up!" command of the errant foul ball).


The weekday game is particularly tricky.  I get off work, pick up Tommy, get him dressed, drop him off at warm-up by 4:30, run and pick up Scotty, head back to the game which starts by 5:30, and wrangle The Monster solo until Erik arrives, directly after getting off work, sometime around 6:00.  We have been running around so much, and working all day, so dinner was nonexistent.

I was already making sure that I had snacks-on-hand and at least a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Tommy, so it was an inevitable conclusion that I would begin to pack a generous picnic for every game.  At 2 hours long and 20 minutes long, virtually every game crosses over some meal! 

Scotty usually makes "dessert" (which consists of flour, sugar, and chocolate chips mixed together with cornmeal ~ what I can say, he's working from whatever he finds in the jars on the counter) and I take leftovers and make a real dinner...no sammies, which now that I'm writing this seems like the obvious choice!  Instead, for this particular picnic, I put together canneloni, green salads, and homemade bread.  We eat like kings, basically, out of a basket and on the ground. 

It turns out, some of my favorite times have been with the three of us wadded up on a blanket, cheering on Our Boy.

(I noticed a diet Pepsi on the blanket above, and it reminds me that I've stopped drinking it.  Seriously.  People of earth, do you realize what this means?  I don't drink coffee, so diet Pepsi was IT.  I literally drank between 6 and 12 each day.  I know, right?!?  Crazy.  It was really my last vice, and now it's gone.  Farewell, diet Pepsi, I will miss you.  But I will carry on.  Just like when I gave up cigarettes in 1994, getting too drunk to stand in 1996, and high fructose corn syrup in 2010.  What can I say, my path to health has been a long one.  I'll give up sniffing glue next year, what do you say?  The truth is, I don't quit things lightly...I typically drop it like it's hot and never look back.)

Thank You, Matt!

"Character, Courage, Loyalty."
Little League Motto

As a Baseball Mom, I often get discouraged.  I feel bad when Tommy misses the big play in Left field, or when he strikes out at the plate.  I am often too hot.  Or too cold.  Or trying to watch the game and keep Scotty out of harm's way at the same time.

  Here's "Gandalf", as Erik calls him, with one of his many sticks.  

Fortunately for us,this pretty much keeps him entertained for a couple of hours.

But there is another side to this whole baseball thing, too.  For every time I wince and my heart breaks for Tommy, there is another time that my heart fills with pride for him, too.  He does plenty that makes me happy for him ~ he makes The Great Play with a diving catch, or I am amazed by his eye (he really knows hw to keep his eye on that ball!).  But I feel so much pride for him because of the way he behaves when he doesn't do those things.  I love it when he chases down a ball that just tips out of his glove, the way he pretends to catch, throw, or hit the ball when he's playing left field (always with his head in the game, even when not much is happening out there!), the way he keeps his head up and hurries back to the dugout after a strikeout, and I love it when he really plays his position by backing up the third baseman or calling out where the next play is ("second base!" while waving two fingers).  

Tommy checks the line-up.

This weekend, I finally had those same feelings of pride for the little league experience in general.  You always hear about (and I often experience) the overly enthusiastic parents (ahem) the overly aggressive coaches (oh my) or the under qualified teen-aged umpires (cough).  Each of these things makes me hold my breath for a moment.

At Saturday's game, we only had 8 players.  We have 12 players on the roster, but two were scheduled to be out for conflicting schedules and two were no shows.  You don't have to forfeit with 8 players, but it isn't that fun, either.  You basically have to play with no center fielder, and left and right have to run like bunnies to keep up with the action.  


But you know what happened?  There was a boy from the opposite team who played with our boys the whole game.  He was good, too!  He played center field, first base, and third base.  He hit too.  He had serious hustle and he played just as hard for us as he would have for his team.  His own coaches and teammates cheered for him when he got a base hit (the first base coach gave him a little fist bump as he took his spot :) and Tommy's teammates gave him a 2-4-6-8-who-do-we-appreciate style "thank you Matt!" at the end of the game.

I have to say.  The whole experience went a long way toward creating the kind of good will necessary to get me through a whole season of hard benches.

Batter up!

I'm still new to the whole Little League culture.  I admit that, in my mind, it feels excessive to be doing a midweek and a weekend practice.  They've been holding practices now for about a month!   That's early even for Spring Training!  (I love his concentration here.  He loves this game.) 

It's so much more serious this year.  Last year was coach pitch, and it was mostly about learning the basics, and a lot of  'attaboys' for not much at all, if you want to know the truth.  This year is already significantly different.  A lot of shouting, actually.  "Where's the play?!?" and "Throw it to second!  Throw it to second!  Come ON!!"  or, randomly from the kids' perspectives, "Hold the ball!!!  NonoNOnoNOOOO! Don't throw it to first!!!!"




There's always a group of dads, ready to do pitch practice (oh, how they all want to be a pitcher!) or batting tutelage or to provide gentle reminders about where to play third or how to back second base.  I always bring a mitt, so we can play catch.  Tommy loves to play catch!  

I wasn't so sure about the increased pressure that I perceived, but Tommy is responding well, taking it oh-so-seriously, and I love that he loves it.  I also love baseball, and I like having a partner in crime for $1 nights at the A's games, or to take in a Giants game on a summer day.  But even more than that, I think it's so important for him to find things he's good at, and to stick with them.  I'm still hopeful that he'll go with math, but baseball is good for now, too!

Stitch and Pitch ~ Light

The Giants made it home to AT&T Park on Monday night just in time, as their on-the-road win-lose ratio has been nothing short of depressing. Bring on that big bat, Garko!

But always, it's Lincecum (whom I cannot discuss without yelling "Timmmmmm-eeeeeee", so you've been warned) who makes me smile. He's just so original. Not many pitchers in this day-and-age who can (or will) go 9 innings. 15 strikeouts in a full game. Be still my heart! I read somewhere, when he first came on, that he doesn't even ice after games. His dad is an engineer, and has always been his pitching coach. Even through college, which is unheard of! That kid's going to be pitching when he's fifty! Awesome.

Monday night's game was also the Stitch and Pitch game. I wanted to go! But, as it does, life got in the way, and I had a house full of kids at the first pitch. So, after I got everybody to their respective homes/beds, I made my own Stitch and Pitch.





I worked on some crochet and some applique, watched the game in high def, and I didn't have to take the train into the city, pack my work basket and a blanket, or eat my weight in red rope licorice and cotton candy. I also didn't get see Lincecum (Timmmmm-eeeeeeeee!) on the mound, watch our win (finally!) or sit with all the other nerds.



That's it! Next year, I'm going for sure!