Alliteration in the end

Poplar trees are on my mind today. They have swayed into and out of my life from the very beginning. I grew up on Poplar Street, named for the row of the stately trees that lined, that still line the street across from my childhood home. We used to play street ball on the quiet road and the poplars factored into the ground rules that only kids can customize. A ball hit into the poplars was in play if and when it came back to earth. Outs were routinely recorded, and balls occasionally lost, getting stuck high up the unclimbable trees. If a ball came out of the tree and was then lost in the thick carpet of ivy that lay below, the play was called dead. A ground rule double. A ball hit into, or over the comparatively busy cross street was an automatic home run. Even then we knew better than to run into the road. We painted bases, a pitching rubber, and a home plate with batter's box on the street. They lasted for something on the order of twenty years, vanishing only when the city installed new sewers and tore up the asphalt. That was some serious paint. When agreement on the outcome of a particular play could not be reached, we usually opted for the classic "do-over" rather than taking our bat, or our ball, and going home. Don't get me wrong Dear Reader. We were kids and our sportsmanship wasn't all that refined. Fights sometimes broke out and games ended abruptly. We'd play until dark, or until called for dinner. During the long days of summer, we could resume a particular game after eating, or the next morning if darkness became too much for our young eyes. I also remember one time we had a babysitter while my parents went out. We were horrible. I mean really, really bad. Long before my parents returned, we knew we were going to get spankings. The babysitter told us so. In an utterly brilliant parenting move, my dad sent me and my brothers to the poplars to select our own switches. Oh the terror! I don't remember getting whipped, and I think I would. The psychological punishment of scanning those trees for my own switch was quite enough trauma. Thank you very much. Now my sister and her family live in that house. The trees are still there, reaching for the sun and the stars, even after being topped more than once over the years. A friend has recently been engaged in mortal battle with a poplar tree. Even though this particular poplar is dead and poses dangers that only dead poplars can pose, I still pity the poor poplar.

Lost in translation

Are gift cards nothing more than crutches for the unimaginative? One might think so, but I beg to differ Dear Reader. I recently received a thank you card for the gift card I had given a friend for her wedding. I admit that I had initially opted for the gift card because I didn't really want to go on a scavenger hunt at Target looking for fluorescent rubber spatulas or whatever else was on the registry list. (Is that redundant?) The gift card was on the list. Plus, as I recall, there was a game on television that I had an interest in seeing, so my son, who was going to the mall anyway, could simply pick up a $20 gift card for me. (I'll come clean: there are not many, if any, baseball games I do not have an interest in seeing.) I rationalized my decision. To go with the gift card, not about watching the game. I am not in denial about my love of baseball. I know I have a problem. Knowing that most of the items on the registry were in the $20-$50 range, I considered that the newlyweds would certainly get more than one gift card, and could combine them to buy something really nice. And, it was on the list. Maybe people, not necessarily my friend, but other people, put gift cards on wish lists hoping for gift cards, so they don't get stuff they really don't want. I am remembering a pair of slippers I received for Christmas when I was a kid. Everybody has been the recipient of something unwanted. And everybody has given something to somebody that was unwanted. Why not simply ask for cash? Well, that Dear Reader, would be crass. Gift cards, it seems to me, prevent hurt feelings. The giving and receiving of gifts should not be a stressful event. Now, go to your German-English dictionary and look up "Gift." In the German section, not the English. We already know what gift means in English. At least we know the literal meaning, if not the symbolic. OK, so you don't have your German-English dictionary close at hand? I'll give it to you. Das Gift means poison, toxin, virus, venom; or, colloquially, Der Gift, means virulence, malice, fury. English is a Germanic language, and we can see that in this instance. Clearly.

Tag! You're it, incidentally

"Toujours l'audace." George C. Scott playing George S. Patton quoting Napoleon Bonaparte. Oui! Toujours! I apologize Dear Reader for not writing sooner. I'd like to say that I am playing a game of chicken with the author of "incidentally" seeing which of us can go the longest without posting something. Anything. But I am not engaged in such a struggle. If I were, I would at this time be losing. The truth is that I have been a bit busy. Busy with work. Busy with Special Olympics. Busy with my son. Busy baking a chipotle pepper cheescake. And I have been feeling a bit lazy as well. Who am I kidding? There are only a few days left in the regular season and I have been watching a lot of baseball. Maybe too much. No. That's not possible. I am currently snugly entrenched in second place, or as I have heard it called, the best of the losers. There is still a chance, just a chance, that I could catch the leader of the fantasy league. I saw a shooting star this morning from the bus stop and thought it might bring me luck today, and my players would perform like never before in their careers. On my breaks I walked along the rows of parking meters looking for pennies for some additional luck. Baseball people are fairly superstitious. None of it seems to be working though. So I decided to cave in and write something. Or as it is turning out, nothing. So many words to say so very little, if anything at all. I apologize for wasting your time, Dear Reader.

Just another tired denouement

"Reflections on elevated topics are beyond me," wrote the superfluous Chulkaturin in his diary. Yeah. Me too. So, instead of discussions about large deviations for three dimensional supercritical percolation, I talk about cereal. A retired former co-worker observed the other day that I write about cereal a lot. Then she added that she has bookmarked this blog. A little flattered that I have at least one loyal reader, I couldn't help dwelling on the word "bookmarked." I have been bookmarked. Not violated, just bookmarked. Something akin to spiritual personal ornamentation. Ritual scarring of the psyche. Cool! I have emerged from the physical manifestation of the quest for emphatic individualization with just two tattoos, which are usually concealed by shirt sleeves; a double septum piercing, in which I no longer wear rings; ten ear piercings, five in each ear, fallow holes all, for now. The only jewelry I wear these days are two small hoops in my traguses, or is it "tragi?" I had a code of conduct governing my piercings. Only cartilage. Only body parts that are normally exposed. And only piercings I could, and would do myself, with a safety pin. During our last visit, my teenage son asked me if I'd take him to get a mohawk. I told him I had one over twenty-five years ago and maybe he should consider something a little more original. It's been done to death. In the end, I said I would take him to the barber, if he brought written permission from his mother. I am a punker at heart, although I was listening to ABBA today. I just like to get lost in a groove and throw the keys away. Everything is derivative.

Will there be cereal?

As those of you who know me, or as those of you who have seen my profile know, Special Olympics holds a very special place in my heart and in my life. I have been coaching softball and basketball for over a decade, and just began my fifth year as a bowling coach. I have been the Volunteer Manager for about three years now, the Local Program Coordinator for about nine months, and have recently conducted an aquatics coach certification clinic in my new role as Coach Education Coordinator. I also play on a Unified Sports softball team, the Gummi Bears, which is composed of athletes with intellectual disabilities, and people without disabilities. I like to say that the Unified Partners, as we are called, just haven't been diagnosed...yet. I served as a bowling coach at the 2003 Special Olympics World Games held in Dublin, Ireland, and as Oregon's bowling coach at the inaugural Special Olympics USA National Games held this past July in Ames, Iowa. I began this blog to learn how to "do a blog" in the event that my application for the 2007 Special Olympics World Games was successful, so I could keep in touch. Only minutes ago I learned that I have been selected as a bowling coach for those games, to be held next October, in Shanghai, China. Needless to say, I am thrilled to the marrow! What the hell, here's a few more!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keyword search: Libary

I was plowing through a list of first-time author headings in the library catalog, listening to a cover of "Moon over Marin" by the French post-punk band Les Thugs, when an entry caught my eye. "Well known woman of intrigue." That certainly beats the hell out of the listless "Anonymous." I was again struck, as the guitar chords crashed between my ears, that I love my job. You see dear reader, I like to organize stuff. Books, records, recipes, pictures, baseball cards, bookmarks, even, dare I mention it, metadata. I have always done this. It is nice to be a cataloger where I get paid to vent this compulsion of mine. It allows me to let go, just a bit, of organizing everything in my apartment. And cataloging it. Not entirely mind you. I do have lists of DVDs, CDs and LPs, sortable by title, artist or year of release. (Live albums are entered under the year of the performance.) My record albums are, as of this writing, organized chronologically. That will probably change the next time I watch High Fidelity. Back to my job. I get to organize information so that it can be useful to people. I create metadata describing archival baseball photographs and documents from university presidential papers. I catalog books, in many languages, including Russian, which was what I studied in college. I catalog maps, which is just cool. I verify the forms of authors' names so all works by a given individual index correctly. I get to go looking for problems, then fix them so it appears that they never happened. Do you have any inkling dear reader, of how many typographical errors appear in library catalogs? I really do love my job. This morning I passed by a couple of co-workers who were discussing paydays. I offered that if you really love your job, everyday is payday. Or maybe it's just the Prozac kicking in. I was politely asked to leave. Now, I'm going to publish this post, print it and put it in the binder with all the other Pedestrian Subjunctives I've posted. I'll catalog that later. Catalog it with impunity. Maybe. I don't have to.

Raskolnikov and his mouse

There's this guy in my fantasy baseball league. He started out as just one of the owners, then became the acting commissioner when the commissioner would be on vacation or otherwise unavailable to perform his duties. This year he is the co-commissioner. There never was an attempt to seek consensus among the other owners. It just happened. In itself it's really not a big deal. It's not even a little deal. He does host the draft and provide the food for all of us. Last year, using his position, he approved a trade ahead of the voting deadline, that had been objected to by at least two other owners. It would not have been an issue, except that he was one of the parties involved in the trade. The commissioner rolled his eyes and had a talk with him. Something about ethics I hope. Then, on April 9 of this year, he made a roster move after the daily transaction deadline. How? He used the commissioner's password access. He cheated! The pitcher he activated went on to throw a gem of a game. Well, transactions performed with the commissioner's password show up in red. One need only browse through a few screens of names and positions. What should I have done? I mulled my options for a couple weeks and finally settled on bringing it to the commissioner's attention. Eyes were rolled, again. He would have a talk, again, with the co-commissioner. I can only assume that the conversation took place, but nothing has been posted to the league's message board. Such as an apology and a promise to never do anything like it again. When he pointed his mouse and clicked, was he thinking "I can get away with this."? Or maybe, "No one will notice." Well, someone did. And someone has let several of the other owners in on the transgression. We are still waiting to see what, if anything will be done. My guess, if forced to hazard one, would be that at the end of the season, the statistics will be evaluated to see if the final outcome would have been different had the co-commissioner not cheated. They may not alter the final standings. No harm, no foul. A victimless crime, not worthy of prosecution. It is not prosecution that I, and other owners want. It is an apology. A simple "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Not rationalization that the particular game in question hadn't started. Other owners do not have that access. Rules are rules, and despite my anarchist tendencies, fantasy baseball rules are sacred. But who am I kidding? This is really just symptomatic of the moral and ethical decay we face in our society, particularly among those in positions of trust and power, whether elected fairly or not. The cover-up worthy of Haldeman and Ehrlichman. But the illegal transaction might affect the final standings. Then what?

Short enough for you?

Did you post anything? Well, not lately. Almost two weeks. I can't force it. I need inspiration. I don't want to feel obligated to write. I want to want to write. Believe me dear reader when I tell you that I have been thinking about it. I have also been busy. Pracrastinating as well. The imperative mood haunts me. The associated exclamation marks prick at my soul, a bit deeper with each passing day that I fail to write anything. An anarchist at heart, I see rules and expectations as things to be flouted. This is not to say that I ignore rules, or good suggestions for that matter. Don't play in traffic! Don't run with scissors! Do not pass go! Do not collect $200! Don't pick at it! Don't eat the yellow snow! Don't touch the tentacles! And sit up straight! All sound ideas. There's no point in asking, you'll get no reply. This is going to pinch a little. Because I said so!