The End of Innocence: A Visit to Yankee Stadium

Life holds a lot of surprises for our children. For the most part we understand that our job is to teach them the ropes – which sometimes cause callouses and often outright burns.

Its a rare situation that gets my mother-hen-back-up and, honestly, my mothering style has been to point my children (gently) in the right direction, give them the tools and allow them to fashion the life and direction they sense is right for them. I’m more apt to complain loudly about a slammed door when I am trying to sleep at night than a major life mis-step.

I’ve made my own mis-steps over the years .

The sorts of things that make me mad are the not fair or just stupid things like the time the field hockey coach was forcing my daughter to run lap after lap even though she was complaining of pain.

It turned out my daughter had a hairline fracture.

Or when she was complaining that it was hard to breath (and still had to run laps). Turned out she had exercise induced asthma.

Or when my son and a friend were mugged for their Halloween candy.

But I didn’t try to find the older kids mother.

Basically I don’t like it when my kids are doing something especially good (They are pretty good kids anyway), or are especially excited about something, only to be left feeling angry, confused or disillusioned. Its going to happen. It does happen but sometimes it really shouldn’t.

I know my son’s year in Uganda ended innocence in a way though he expected some of the conditions there, couldn’t have imagined the rest. The experience changed him forever.

His experience with a well known (highly secure) airline during his recent trip to Israel and Jordan with a college friend could have done it but again, it wasn’t completely a surprise (they take great offense about the visiting Jordan thing). That said he came back with some astounding pictures of the Middle East.

No. The incident that has me wanting to call people with influence and yell in their ear is this.

Day before yesterday one of my son’s friends called with an extra Red Sox / Yankees ticket. My son is a huge fan – even made sure to watch the games over the internet when he was attending school in New Mexico. He was incredibly excited (If you are either a Red Sox or a Yankees fan you understand this). The match up is a big deal. He canceled a dentist appointment to go. I think that was one excuse even the dentist office would accept.

They left for New York late in the morning wearing Red Sox hats and shirts.

From what I understand, shortly after finding bleacher seats and having what seemed to them like a friendly “We are fine with you cheering for your team and we will cheer for ours” conversation with the Yankees fans that surrounded them they went for drinks. Upon returning they were met by Yankee Stadium security personnel who, using very unfriendly and fairly nasty language, told them they would have to leave.

You have to understand that they had only been there for about a half hour, had spent quite a lot of their hard earned money to attend, and at no time were told why they were being ejected. My son is still mystified and spent a good portion of yesterday feeling very angry as well.

Now to be clear – I don’t think this should happen at any stadium to any fans. I am not singling out the Yankees but I am singling out Yankee Stadium personnel. It seems as though there should be a more reasonable process (first) so at least sports fans know why they are ejected.

I am not usually the cynical type but this smacks more to me of rotten behavior on the part of the other teams fans and poor follow up on the part of the security folks.

If you learn that not everyone can be reasoned with and that people can be especially,randomly cruel while trying to enjoy a baseball game on a beautiful summer afternoon – when do you learn that there are some things that are just about fun and sharing a common bond?

Do those things exist anymore?

I mean – this is baseball! Its supposed to be the pastime that proves to us that sportsmanship and good clean fun are alive and well in America.

Are they?

What is a Blog?

Since I started this blog more than a few of my family and friends have asked me what is a blog.? Generally the question comes from friends and family as anyone who finds my blog on their own already has some idea.

Now I don’t mind the question at all except when it is asked by someone who thinks they have the answer. This usually means they really don’t want to hear what you have to say in response but I digress.

However. Answering the question “What is a blog” is a bit like answering “What is a book?”. Because really, both a book and a blog are a means of delivering communications or information. What the blog is depends entirely on the content.

This is not actually my personal diary writ large and public though there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, Samuel Pepys Diary, written in the 17th century, is now online looking for all the world like a blog though I can’t imagine he ever foresaw anything like it.

This particular blog is meant to be more magazine/periodical/essay-like. Hopefully by talking about my experiences I will touch a chord of recognition in others. I have found that this medium allows for building a community of friends in a way no other (writing) medium does.

Its about life after 50.

I have found that you start to get smarter about life after 50 which is a good thing. You’ll need all your smarts to negotiate the things you suddenly have to pay attention to that you never bothered with before.

The Paradoxical Commandments

It isn’t that I am too lazy to write today. It really isn’t. It started with a camera.

Last week I bought a really nice video camera for my new business. I don’t plan to use it for anything special. I have a business relationship with a highly talented and successful videographer that my clients who need professional video will be referred to. This is really to cover those businesses with a low budget who need a quick and inexpensive solution and whose clients can forgive production values that are less than stellar.

To learn how to use this camera I threw myself into a project creating a video for the Historic Commissions I’m on. Of course they don’t know I’m doing it – that will be our surprise.

In the process of editing video, creating interstitial clips, writing titles, laying in audio I realized that my computer HD can be eaten up pretty quickly.

Of course I have an external drive but there were only 4GB left on it. I’ve been spending a good portion of the morning cleaning it off so I can have some space to work with. Its a bit like cleaning the cellar, attic or garage. Its painful to throw away stuff that I am sure I will need sometime in the future. Even the software I backed up that dates back to Windows 98. . .

In the process I found this.
I have saved it for a long time. I’m sure it arrived in an email at one point. I know if I put this up on my blog and share it with you I can delete it from my hard drive. It will be put to far better use here. And I’ll see it more often myself.

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Kent M. Keith

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest ideas. Think big anyway.
7. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
8. People really need help, but may attack you if you do help them. Help them anyway.
9. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
10. Give the world the best that you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

My Summer Dinner Party To-Do List

Last weekend we had a few people over for dinner. It’s been a really long time – we have a lot of outstanding obligations. . .

So I started a To-Do list – in my head. My list may not be, probably isn’t, the same as yours but I thought I’d share it anyway.

Triage dictates that I start with the emergency repairs first so here goes:

• Bathe the Dog – My dog was pretty smelly so if I didn’t wash him he would be a pretty unwelcome party guest. Not that he has ever been welcome – he has that small dog personality – but the dog bath helps. Besides we get to watch him be a whirling dervish for a while as, temporarily the whole world becomes his towel.
• Mow the lawn. In the winter or any other time of year most dinners are served inside. This was an outside on-the-deck affair so instead of cleaning the house to make everything fit for guests I was mowing the lawn and hiding the sad -sent-for-special-nursing plants. (Special tip – I hid them behind the really healthy specimens). Oh, take the yellow dead leaves off too. I spent some long overdue time weeding and dead heading (at least the close-up stuff). This dinner started at 7pm so I didn’t think anyone was going to stroll out and get up close and personal with the garden . . .
• Clean the bathrooms. Even an outside party will require this – unless you have outhouses and I am assuming you don’t. Make sure you have plenty of toilet paper, soap and clean hand towels.
• Having decided on the menu days ago – I’m just that way – I now head to the market. The main dish was supposed to be – at my husbands request – filet mignon. You have to be willing to change at the last minute in case the market doesn’t have what you are looking for.  Such was the case last weekend so we “settled” on Angus sirloin which stands up to grilling better anyway. Of course thats a lot of meat. These days the amount is hard to judge. We have tons left over. . .
• The rest of the food and cooking. Honestly, It has been such a long time since we entertained. I had a lot of recipes saved up that I wanted to make. The theme (ha ha ha) was international to accommodate the crab hor doeuvres served in baked won ton shells, the mozzarella, cherry tomato and basil salad (we had to use the bounty from the garden -yum) – the Thai wraps I planned -but didn’t end up making- and the special honey, almond, saffron panna cotta recipe I tore out of Martha Stewart Living a while ago. I made a regular green salad (with nice light lettuces, herbed goat cheese, cucumbers from our garden and blueberries.) Oh – bread and potato salad made with red potatoes.
• Send husband out to play golf. (or whatever). I can’t stress this enough. He was extra useful in the morning though making sure the grill was filled up with gas, the outdoor speakers (yes you read that right) were in working order and clean. They were perhaps working too well and I actually considered cutting the wires (must have been those pesky mice) to save the neighbors eardrums. Mine too though I’d never admit that.
• Ok. The panna cotta thing. Any time I make a dessert that requires a technique I haven’t used before I make extra – and also – have a Plan B. My plan B was fruit salad (watermelon, strawberries, blueberries with snips of fresh mint from the garden) and sherbet on the side. Plan A was panna cotta with same fruit salad on the side. I made the panna cotta and after 4 hours unmolded one by placing the container in hot water briefly (too briefly) so it unmolded firmly – good but I thought perhaps the real thing should be dipped in hot water a bit longer so the presentation would be as advertised.

Turns out the Panna Cotta should be bathed in hot water longer than the first time but shorter than the second time. Well it tasted pretty good anyway.

The mosquitoes also ate well that evening. They have their own To-Do list.

The Amazing New Golf Ball Trick

I think I have finally figured out a way to put my lost golf balls to good use. Now any of you who might have read my previous golf posts know that losing golf balls is probably my greatest golf skill. This can get pretty expensive.

This morning however I woke up with what might be a brilliant plan. I know I’m not the first  – but it is new to me. The email newsletter from the online golf ball store in my inbox probably was a contributor but I’ve been receiving those almost daily for a few years.

If I put my business name and website address on my golf balls then losing them could be a method of advertising. No one who finds a golf ball is going to let it go to waste. At minimum it will get the business name out there and at best the random person might even look my website up out of curiosity.

Lost golf balls can pass through a lot of hands in their lifetime so there are more opportunities to get my business name out there than you could ever imagine.

And the best part? Unless some smartypants accountant out there tells me this isn’t ok I think that makes my golf balls a business expense (big grin).

note: You might assume that this post was an excuse to put the golfballs.com link on my site but believe me that was an afterthought. Honest!

Thinking of my Mother, Artist, Gardener.

My mother died over a decade ago. I think of her often. She was an artist in spirit and in talent – attended Rhode Island School of Design and over the many decades of her adult life painted amazingly beautiful canvases almost in secret. When she died, of lung cancer, we didn’t have a typical funeral. My stepfather fetched her many paintings out of closets, had all of the walls painted so the paintings would display properly and after a few months – in the spring – held a small art exhibit/opening, a remembrance sort of wine and cheese party.

Everyone within traveling distance who had cared about my mother or her work were in attendance and the event seemed to fit my mother more than more traditional memorials.

During the later stages of her illness when she wasn’t quite herself (or was she?) she decided she would like to be composted. Clearly ahead of her time.

I don’t have much of my mother’s work. Thats a subject I don’t care to delve into too deeply as it involves a number of people I care about – quite apart from my mother – but art is a bit like a folded paper boat that you set on a stream – it can end up anywhere.

I just hope it has found safe harbor.

The reason I was thinking about my mother today was dinner. I have a small kitchen garden that includes the East Coast basics – tomatoes, basil, zucchini, green beans, peppers and a number of herbs. (a few other things but they aren’t important).

I decided to pick dinner from my garden (most of dinner came from the Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes). I can still remember my mother and I talking excitedly -always in January- about the new garden catalogs and especially remember when Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes were an amazing breakthrough. We especially liked the Shepard’s Garden Seed catalog with the wonderful illustrations, recipes and heirloom varieties. There is a Sweet 1000 tomato now but I still grow the 100. I always will.

My mother is gone and so is the original Shepards’ Garden Seed catalog (but it lives on in spirit as Cooks Garden).

I think of my mother every time I pick a cherry tomato and it is a good thing because there are a lot of them. It allows me to remember a lot.

Motivation

The question of how to motivate myself to do things has generally boiled down to a pretty simple principle. If it is something I enjoy I want to do it. If it isn’t I don’t.

The best way I’ve found to deal with this moral failing of mine is to choose my life path so that, for instance, my job is something I love to do. If it wasn’t I’d be calling in sick all the time and taking mental health days. Of course now that would mean calling myself and I would know I was lying.

I’ve managed to keep up my 2 mile walk, however, all summer long. I do this first thing in the morning and it is far nicer than my winter trips to the local YMCA. Amazingly even the rainy days have not had rain at 6am which is when I go out for my walk so I’ve only missed about three walks since May.

And today marks my 10 pound weight loss by the way!

What sparked this post could have been my 10 pound loss but it wasn’t. Last evening I was going through my saved recipes looking for good summer dinner party stuff and came across a page I had torn out of a magazine. I don’t even know which one but it doesn’t matter because the pertinent part was in an advertisement.

Here is a quote I saved in response to the question “What keeps you motivated?” the context was exercise.

“I tell myself that it’s like going to the bank and depositing strength and tranquility for tomorrow. It’s the simplest thing to do that people just miss. They don’t realize how empowered you can be when you take 30 minutes to invest in yourself no matter what the world is throwing at you.”

-Gina Tognoni, actress

How Far can You Take $100 or Small Town Budgets

I’ve intentionally tried to be pretty anonymous on this blog – allows me to be honest – so I hope I am not stomping on some sort of oath in the following post.

I’ll be kicked out of several Town Commissions on my can if I am.

Awareness is probably one of the major ways-to-solve-problems out there and here is something of which almost no one is aware.

The Town Budget.

Now almost anyone, if asked, would prioritize Police, Firemen, School and Library above most other things. (Ok, from experience I’ve discovered the last two are – or can be considered – dispensable). (???)

Now if you are the type who would prefer to hire your own security personnel (who do double duty watching your personal property for potential fire) If you consider home schooling (in addition to the other options just mentioned) your schooling option of choice. (I have nothing against home schooling I’m just taking these in tandem) and think reading real books, studying where people can help you, researching old stuff that Google can’t access is just too antique for words – don’t read on.

This is about a sense of community and a long range view.

Which brings me to this. In cash strapped towns everywhere important endeavors are given budgets of $100 annually. This wont even cover postage for the mailings critical for communication.

In our town there is a real possibility that the local library may be closed. This is the sort of thing (and I am a computer geek) that I wouldn’t have imagined possible in civilized society.

To make things worse – important historical artifacts are housed in this library. They require constant climate control and vigilance. I am amazed to find that the $100 (which wouldn’t even have covered my former weekly commuter costs) is considered a reasonable annual budget for important works.

Lucky for the town – the Commission membership delves regularly into their own pockets.

Lucky for the town.

Wishing for Things that Depend on Time Passing. The Upside and Downside.

Waiting for exciting things that only happen at a certain time of year. We used to wait for birthdays until we reached a certain age. One of the things I wait for all year is the Casa Blanca Lilies to bloom. They are – dare I say – the most spectacular flower in my garden. I don’t usually grow spectacular, my taste running more to flowers that play well with others and are good fighters against bugs and disease. You know, cottage garden flowers.

Not so with Casa Blanca Lilies which bowled me over once. I have been forever a fan. So I wait for these to bloom – they are the only flowers I am willing to throw nasty things at to get rid of the things that may attack them. Ok, so maybe I do this with the occasional rose as well.

Today, for the first time, they opened and are fabulous.

Today was also a big day for my children (pretty much grown up offspring). My daughter, after many years of school and a Masters degree is moving into her first, non-student, real-world, apartment. As she puts it, “I’ll probably have this address longer than any address I’ve had in years”. She’s really excited and I know she’s been checking out all the offerings Crate and Barrel and IKEA have. I think, will I get her back for Thanksgiving? Also I think, I am so excited for her.

My son, the adventurer, left for Israel and Jordan today. He has former classmates in both countries and won’t be your typical tourist. He is too thoughtful curious and unafraid of things he should fear for that so I worry.

Below is the world traveler in Uganda a few years ago. He was only 18 in Uganda. He contracted Malaria (even with the anti-malaria pills) right around Christmas time that year. The small rural clinic gave him his medicine in a paper bag. The medicine included Valium because “Westerners get nervous when they get Malaria.” He’s fine now but can’t ever give blood.

If I had ever worn an apron regularly I would be feeling the apron strings unravel. I would be cutting up the apron to make patches for the quilts they would have to warm their adventurous, adult toes.