Wreck League

There comes a point in every “tomboy’s” life when she graduates from the world of competitive sports and enters the next phase of her life…the city rec league. Whether it’s softball, basketball…or even bowling, there’s often a Brett Favre-like inability to know when to hang up the sport-specific shoes. [Eventually…it just gives way to watching Monday night football…but it’s a process.]

So the other night I went to watch one of my friends play in the Over-40 city basketball championships, featuring…every female gym teacher you’ve ever had. [I think the number of knee braces outnumbered the # of knees.] I was especially impressed because the Over-40 championships immediately preceded the Over-80 (!) league championships. Do me a favor…if I’m still trying to play basketball at 80, will you immediately call the Death Panels?

I guess when you reach the Over 40 league…the game is 3-on-3 half-court. And the court at your local grade school gym is not even full size to begin with. One girl managed to play the entire game without moving six inches. Which seemed to match her cardio ambitions pretty well. But just to give you some idea of the brutality involved…the 75 s.f. court is policed by two referees. Honest to god, these girls don’t let the postage-stamp sized court stand in the way of clocking their allotted fouls. [And by fouls…I mean assault.]

They pretty much give up on team uniforms in the Over 40 league as well. Well actually…everyone has on a uniform shirt…they just don’t match. But while the uniforms are all different, the hair styles are the same. You know what I’m talking about…“Over 40” is apparently the Mullet Generation.

Except for my blog-reading friend, of course…she was the shining exception to every mullet, knee brace, foul-giving observation. =)

Bonfire of the....

So last weekend, a group of folks out here in San Diego finally took advantage of our surroundings and had a bonfire at one of the fire pits on the beach. And rather predictably…it provided a little fodder for the blog:

• We did NOT start the raging California wildfires, thank you very much.
• What does it say about our bonfire-attending group that we had to pop the top off a beer bottle with a lime juicer? That’s right…I travel with a group that can juice a bushel of limes beach-side…but don’t have a bottle opener. Who am I hanging with...Frasier and Niles?!
• Something about sitting on the beach watching a bonfire naturally launches a discussion of Gilligan’s Island…I was voted most likely to be Gilligan. Hey! I resemble that remark. [Really?...not the Professor?]
• Are we sure Joe asked his neighbor if we could burn the wood that used to be his back yard shed?
• When you don’t make fires very often…you tend to get a tad exuberant with your fire-making. Like…how-can-we-burn-the-equivalent-of-a-shed’s-worth-of-wood-and-still-be-home-by-9:30 exuberant. [Answer: a whole quart of lighter fluid…don’t tell my roommate Al Gore]
• And when you do hyper-burn three cords of wood…I don’t care how long that coat hanger is…you're going to broil not only that s’more you’re working on…but also your eyebrows and at least the first two layers of your epidermis. You can have a s’more or blister-free skin, but not both.

We plan to do it again when the air quality recovers.

Healther Skelter

Okay - I know the elections are over, but until football season REALLY starts, I'm still playing fantasy Senate cloture with MY free time.

And the topic of the hour seems to be health care. With regards to Obama's health care plan...Sarah Palin called it "evil"....which makes me think it's probably worth voting for sight-unseen. [Sort of like if Paula Abdul calls something "strange" you'd probably run right out and try it.]

I'll be honest, I can't really follow the ins and outs of the plans themselves, but I sure do enjoy the clips of each town-hall meeting/cage match. I've seen a couple of these clips now and I swear...every one of the screaming "questioner"/crackpots bears more than a passing resemblance to George's parents on Seinfeld. Half the time, I can't tell whether these people are screaming about "socialized" medicine killing old people, Obama being born in Kenya or a dinner that didn't qualify for the early bird special. [If I were some of these people, I'd be scared about death panels too.] Honestly, it seems that the medium age of these Yellers is about 82. Which I find ironic since all of these town criers are probably already getting Medicare coverage [the ultimate public option].

I dunno...if I have to pick between Obama's plan or the plan that Frank Costanza is yelling about....

Travel anyone?

I'm posting today from Moline IL. That's right...not quite Iowa, but you can see the corn from my window. Which led me to think about the signs that I may travel too much:

• I know where Moline IL is.
• Forget miles – I've started booking hotel rooms based on their cable package [the NFL channel AND Jon Stewart, I'll take it.]
• You start referring to the dog-sitter as your roommate
• Your dog-sitter, in turn, starts to refer to you & Rita as "Molly's other mommies"
• You have so many Southwest tickets that can finally bribe people into coming to see you [thanks again for that visit Mikee]
• Your girlfriend finds out what town you're in from your blog =)

The Beds Are Jumping

When we last visited the 3 “what-do-you-mean-they’re-not-gay” boys renting my house in Nashville, they were busy remaking my little cottage home into the TKE house. If you need a refresher course, you can check out some of the earlier posts...

As my house is a duplex, yet ANOTHER boy has moved his testosterone into the separate upstairs apartment, ensuring that Lord of the Rings is playing on a continuous loop somewhere in my Nashville house at all times.

It’s been an eventful tenure with these renters. Let’s see…there was the break-in… the downed tree across the driveway…basement flooding…lightening striking….[Is no one else concerned about the escalating expression of nature's wrath here?] But this week…my property manager calls to tell me that the exterminator found BED BUGS in the house. Are. You. Kidding. Me? Think about last time you heard of a friend having bed bugs. That’s right. NEVER. Why? Because your friends wash their sheets….oh….at least every NINE months or so. While not the model of orderliness myself…rarely do I require ORKIN to make my bed.

When told that the exterminator treatments [plural!] were going to cost $180…the tenant insisted that “we don’t have that sort of money”. There’s 3 of you….you don’t have $60 a piece to rid yourself of pestilence?

I'm thinking of posting someone's "bedbug status" on their Facebook page.

Aflutter for Butter

I struggle to eat well on the road as it is…but when I offered to take my New Orleans team to lunch today, I let them pick the place. Which is how I ended up at Copeland’s “New Orleans” chain restaurant. Now look…I love a corn dog as much of the next guy. But a Wednesday-afternoon lunch hardly seems the time for a carbohydrate body wrap.

I knew we were in trouble when we ordered the spinach and artichoke dip (!). Which came with bow-tie pasta (!!)…that had been deep fried in some spicy [read: battered] coating. Should I worry if the veggie-named appetizer comes shaped like a stick of butter??

After the entrée’s were ordered, the unthinkable occurred. The restaurant’s deep fryer…. broke. Gasp! [We got those crunchy little bow-tie pastas in the very nick of time.] Looking around the table, I, for one, prepared for tears. Seriously, you only have ONE fryer for this whole grease-encrusted joint?? What is it – the size of a jacuzzi? Seats four? The restaurant manager tried to tell us the three menu items they could still make sans fryer and I tried to figure out what part of their Cobb Salad depended on ready access to hot oil. There was complete anarchy at table 11 until the manager promised free dessert. Peace through cheesecake.

Luckily, the broken deep fryer panic only lasted about 10 minutes before it was repaired and the order of the universe was restored. Bring on the “Seafood Platter”, which turned out to be a completely monochromatic platter of shrimp, clams, fries and catfish. Yum. My body would just like to know how much longer we are going to ricochet between Rita’s organic squash blossoms and Copeland’s House of Oleo. I kept thinking “I ran a marathon once and I didn’t eat this many carbs during the entire 18 week training season….could you please pass the Crawfish Bread.”

Well…better go - I’ve got left-over cheesecake to eat.

I jinxed myself...

...with that post Friday. Haven't had time to blog since.

In New Orleans today, and should be able to post tomorrow.