Month: March 2024

  • ODDS and ENDS: Playlists, Sports with the Kid, and Playing Pretend

    (When you stop believing…)

    I used to take making mix tapes, mix cd’s and playlists, very seriously. And on the flip side of that, I really treasured receiving mix tapes from friends. There is a shoe box of mine, packed away in our storage space, that contains a mix tape from my high school girlfriend, which is still the most eclectic collection of music I have ever been gifted. Having made mixes for close to thirty years, I admit that there are a handful of songs that appear on nearly every iteration I create. I have landed in a playlist rut, one of my own making, as you can only mix songs you’ve listened to, and if you aren’t adding material to the source to draw from, variety becomes stagnant. I should go back to listening to albums all the way through again.

    The kid wants to watch sports with me this weekend. College basketball would be the obvious choice, but you’d be wrong. She wants to watch soccer. She recently join a team and now wants to submerge herself in as much soccer as possible. The truth is I’ll take any extra time with the kid. I just need to find out if a women’s league is playing Saturday.

    I’m 47 and sometimes I still pretend that I’m in a rock band.

  • Making Brackets

    I don’t follow college basketball. Most years I couldn’t name a single college player, but this season I do know who Caitlin Clark is. Even though basketball is my family’s sport, I never was a huge fan, and I’m an awful player.

    But I do love March Madness, the NCAA Tournament, the whole thing. As I am writing this, I have the BYU v Duquesne game on; it’s halftime. For like a month, in my head, I am a basketball expert – I know everything! I understand the pick n’ roll, trap defense, what adjustments teams need to make at halftime.

    (Working from my bed this afternoon)

    Making my brackets is what really pulls me into this time of year. Yes, I did say brackets. I make a couple of them because the ESPN app is easy to use. The first one is my legitimate bracket where I do try to pick as many winners as possible. Then I do a fun one where I just pick stuff randomly. This year I added an all underdog bracket, and then I did an all top ranked bracket; I just wanted to see which bracket would do better.

    What I do miss is being in an office at this time of year. Mind you, I worked in theatre and arts organization offices so there weren’t many sports fans to begin with, but there were a handful of us. We few would make brackets, put them up at our desks, and help each other cover so we could watch games at our desks or in the break room. It was a fun time of year to getting away with not working.

  • Going to the Doctor

    This morning, my wife had a small procedure done to relieve the back pain she’s been experiencing for the last two months. I escorted her to the doctor’s office for the shot, and I did absolutely nothing, other than be her support spouse, helping her relax and be calm. Hopefully, the pain will go on its way, and she can start to return to the life style she is used to.

    And as I sat outside of the exam room, reading and waiting for my wife the emerge in a better state, it became apparent to me that we had entered a new stage in our lives together; accompanying each other to the doctor.

    Outside of when my wife was pregnant, as I wanted to be there for all of those appointments and experience the sonograms and updates on our child’s in utero development, we did involve the other with our health appointments. Before, going to see the doctor had been a solo experience; a chore to be done and not meant to burden the other partner because nothing bad was going to happen – it was all routine.

    Now, we are in the age of being nervous of what might happen, or I need help getting home after, or I need you there when I find out the result.

  • What Were the 80’s Like?

    When my daughter asks the wife and I, “What were the 80’s like?” we show her this video.

  • Day’s Going Sideways

    Oh, this day has been fighting very hard to slip out of my control and get me either to give up, or go in another, more angry, direction. But I have been pushing back.

    The main culprits are credit card and insurance payments, those bastard brothers who have caused many heated phone calls to call centers looking for explanations. In both of these cases, the phone center people were very nice, and actually did help me. The credit card people refunded a charge no questions asked, but it will take three days to hit my account. The insurance will take fifteen days before they will be authorized to refund the account. Both issues were resolved (I’ll believe it when the money hits our account) but I am left wondering if this is just an example of “threshold of tolerance” polices – you know, when a company makes getting what you want such an annoying burden, that you give up rather than follow through.

    But, I’m not letting this shit on my day, damn it!

    I got chores, and errands, and pick-ups, and phone calls, and blog posts, and journaling, and hopefully starting a second draft of this story, and then homework, making dinner, dog walking, and I’m sure there is something else in there I’m forgetting…