Little Web Gem

I don’t really get off by bragging on my kids much regardless of how smart or beautiful they are — and they are, but my kid made the sweetest unassisted triple play in little league tonight that I just need to, uh, document it in, uh, perpetuity on my blog.

The situation: bases loaded, no out. The boy was playing 3rd base. The batter hit a pop-up right to him about 5 feet off the bag toward the pitcher’s mound. He caught it and noticed the kid on third took off for home, so he stepped on 3rd base to double him off. The runner on 2nd took off for third and didn’t have the presence of mind to get back to 2nd after the ball was caught so the boy tagged him at 3rd base for the unassisted triple play.

Honestly, the boy didn’t really even realize what he was doing; it all just kind of fell into his lap. But it was a stunning play that killed a rally. The crowd went wild (all 15 of us parents) and his teammates mobbed him by the bench when they came off the field.

After the game, the coaches award a game ball to the player who had the greatest impact on the game. It was no contest who deserved this one, and to make it better one of his coaches pulled the actual ball he made the play with out of the game for the game ball award and wrote the date, the team name, the boy’s name, and “unassisted triple play” on it. That was really cool. I have to admit the boy’s coaches might not be the greatest team of little league baseball minds ever assembled but they’re all really nice guys. And none of them play up their own kids over all others, which is something you don’t see much in youth sports.

I didn’t think my kid would even like baseball let alone be good at it, but he’s shown an ability to play that I never expected. He likes football more, but he’s better at baseball and you can’t tell he’s only in his first year compared with some of the other kids on the team who’ve been playing for 2 or 3 years.

Some kids bloom late, I guess.

Published at May 13, 2008 in General. 4 Comments

End Life Liability

I have an uncle who is nearing the end of his life. He’s been losing his mind for some time, and it appears his body is failing to cooperate now. It was so bad last week that my aunt was told to gather the family because this was probably it and the next 48 hours would be critical. Miraculously, he came through and he’s out of imminent danger. His mind, on the other hand, is deteriorating rapidly and he can no longer be left alone, especially at night.

Because his body is recovering, the consensus is to discharge him from the hospital and send him to a nursing home. My aunt has been fighting cancer herself for years and she’s not really up to the task of taking care of an old man suffering from dementia/alzheimer’s full-time.

So my aunt went to check her insurance. It will pay 30 days in a nursing home for my uncle. After that, all costs have to be paid through his assets and after that’s all gone he’ll be able to stay using Medicare or Medicaid.

Obviously, my aunt is freaking out. Assets being their bank accounts and home and all that. They’ve lived in their house for probably 35 years and she has no desire to give it up, especially if it’s just to pay for my uncle’s nursing home care.

Now she’s in the position of huddling with a lawyer and figuring out how to hastily take my uncle’s name off all of their assets to game the system and get him straight through to Medicare (or Medicaid; I get confused which is applicable) so she can still have an independent life even if he no longer can.

I can’t stop thinking about how fucked up this whole thing is. My aunt and uncle are not rich. They’re solidly middle class and have spent their entire lives building their nest egg slowly, all the while carrying insurance and paying all their premiums and doing whatever they’re supposed to in order to be responsible for their present and their future. And now that could be all gone in a flash.

Even worse, my uncle’s son (from his first marriage), who lionizes his father and treats him like a god, admitted that it would have been best for my uncle to have not recovered from his critical time last week because of all the trouble it’s going to cause my aunt now that my uncle is sticking around a while.

Managed health care is a nightmare and it’s a shame that it is so soulless when it comes to taking care of people as they approach end of life.

More reason to hope that when I go I go quickly.

Published at May 12, 2008 in General. 2 Comments

Animals Across Borders

We all know Baltimore has big problems, with kids in schools just out of control beating up teachers and breaking in over weekends, attempting to sexually assault people in the building and just going around with a complete lack of character and morals. We have a mayor who says “so sad, too bad” when yet another school employee is attacked in a school and a schools CEO who begs off by saying he can’t just blanket schools with security because he can’t guess where and when problems might pop up. And in the end, nothing happens to the kids who cause problems and they become even more emboldened because they know they can do what they want without consequence. So the schools become even more dangerous. It’s really scary. That’s why I’m glad I live in the county. For now. Lord knows city bullshit gets exported out to us before too long.

While city teachers and administrators (rightly) contend that nothing will ever get better until these little animals learn how to act human at home, we have parents out in the county thinking their shit doesn’t stink because they have it all together when it comes to child rearing.

I was in the local Target yesterday getting a prescription filled (yay drugs!) and some privileged white woman was in there pushing her privileged brat of a kid around in a buggy (”buggy” is West Bumfuckian for “shopping cart”). The kid was a girl and had to be 10. She was sitting in the big part of the buggy and taking up all the space.

While pushing her around, the mom was totally berating her daughter for some shenanigans the girl pulled in school. When she wasn’t busy talking on her cell phone. Or checking out the sandals on display in the store.

So here you have some bitch disciplining her kid in a Target while shopping and talking to whomever on her phone. Way to get your point across.

The sad thing is that woman probably went to bed last night praising the shit out of herself for the job she’s doing with her daughter. And her daughter might be ok and may turn out to be fine.

But based on the example set by this woman, and knowing that bad examples blow up into poor practice as time goes by, what are the odds that the daughter’s kids turn out pretty shitty based on the examples the mother is setting now? Pretty high I’d say.

In a generation when privileged white county kids act just as horrific as the savage kids in the city do now, I wonder where the fingers are going to point.

Published at May 8, 2008 in General. 1 Comment

Asstastic Olympical Maneuvers

Yes, it is a rare double posting day here on the ranch.

I am back and mostly recovered from my first ever colonoscopy. All I can really say about it is when they wheeled me into the O.R. I asked the nurse to not let the doctor violate me too harshly. She laughed! Bitch! Then the anesthesia whatever said she was giving me something to make me relax and the next thing I knew I was in the recovery room with someone hovering over me and asking me if I wanted a ginger ale. I hate ginger ale, but I said yes. It was delicious.

A few moments later a nurse noted my pulse rate, which was hovering between 48 and 52, and asked if I was a runner. I said I was and that I ran a half marathon a couple days ago. I don’t think she believed me! Bitch! Then the doctor came in and showed me pictures of the inside of my colon and said there were some places that weren’t all the way cleaned out, implying as though I fudged my prep a little. Fuckin douche. I did everything I was supposed to. It’s not my fault my fecal matter is as tough as the rest of me.

Then he was gone and some nurse removed my I.V., told me to get dressed, and after I did she told me I could go home and get something to eat (thank god), but to not eat anything too heavy.

Upon leaving, stop #1 was Five Guys. It was delicious.

And now I’m home. The End.

Published at May 6, 2008 in General. 5 Comments

Support My Ass

I’d like to tell all the people who’ve begged me for money in the name of some dumb thing they believe in or are supporting lately — and it’s been shockingly many — to go fuck themselves. That includes the broad who sent the email out to 200 people talking about what a challenge it was for her to prepare for some dumb walking thing this past weekend where she was going to be walking 26 miles over two days or something and that it was “so worth it” because it was for such a good cause and that I should have given her money because she’s such a good person to have taken on such a task for something she has such belief in. I was like, you know what dumbass? That’s not shit. Run a marathon with one leg for fun if you want to impress me. Go walk your sorry able-bodied ass around a lake all weekend and act like you’re sacrificing yourself because you think you’re so great, but do it without my money.

Everywhere I turn people are expecting me or asking me to support them for doing something for some special cause. Fuck that. You know what I do when I want to support a cause/charity/anything? I support it directly. Stop making it seem like everyone is an unthinking, uncaring shitbag but you and we all need you to tell us what’s good and what we should believe in and where we should send our charity. I’m a grown-up. I can figure that shit out for myself.

And if I want to keep my money and my support closer to home, that’s my business and my right too. Fucking ass cracks.

Only in America can people make something like helping others or giving to a charity all about them.

Published at May 6, 2008 in General. 7 Comments