Game Day

Saturday is game day for Kailey and Kyra, and we were up early for Kailey's 8:00 a.m. softball game followed by Kyra's at 10:00. Of course it would be WAY too convenient for both games to be in the same location, but I'm not complaining (that much) because I was at least able to take in most of both games.

Kailey had a heckuva game in the Blue (balls) Bandits' 2-1 loss to the Red Monkeys...yes, they lost to a bunch of monkeys. The Bandits were up 1-0 in the third inning when the Monkeys caught our second baseman napping with runners on second and third. Both runners scored and the Bandits were not able to make up the defecit. Kailey went 1 for 2 at the plate and scored the lone Blue Bandit run. In her second at bat, she lined a shot right back to the pitcher, who, by sheer luck, stuck out her glove and caught it. BOO. She had no plays on the field, but still paid attention for most of the game, even though there was plenty of dirt to play with. Way to go, Kailey!

I had to leave Kailey's game early to get Kyra to her game, with, of course, a Starbucks run in between. Kyra plays for the Purple (nurples) Pixies. As you can see, our league has a fondness for colors and alliteration when it comes to selecting team names. Kyra had a great game as well, but I have no idea who won the game. She plays on a T-ball team where there are no winners or losers, where everyone hits in an inning, and where, by the end of the game, everyone knows your name because most everyone has had a great laugh watching these little girls learn the ins and outs of softball. It's just plain fun to scream "RUN" at the top of your lungs whenever the kid hits a trickler and then stands there admiring her work. The batter takes off towards first, holding her shorts so they don't end up around her ankles while EVERY SINGLE player on the field flocks to the ball like a pack of wild hyenas on a fresh kill. By the time the ball is thrown the ball to first, the batter has been standing on the base for about ten minutes. The parents then cheer as though the kid just hit a home run or performed a diving, backhanded grab followed by a searing throw to first that barely nabs the runner. But the really cool thing is that the parents cheer for all the kids, regardless of team. We just want to see them all succeed.

Kyra had some good hits off the tee, but even more impressive was her field play. She played the pitcher position in the first inning, and, as you can imagine, most of the hits come that way. She cleanly fielded everything that was hit to, and she followed those up with good throws to first base. She, like Kailey, did a great job of paying attention to the game, with no noticeable bug-chasing, dirt-diving, or nose-picking. Hey, your standards have to start somewhere. Great job, Kyra! I'm proud of my girls and can't wait until the next game day!

Losing My Faith in Humanity

Or perhaps I should say "lost", because people can really suck sometimes. Diane called me at work tonight at the tail end of the 5:00 newscast. I told her I'd call her back, wondering what would make her call me when she knew I was in a newscast. When I called her back twenty minutes later, after getting sidetracked by a couple of projects, I found out. "I think I lost my debit card," she confessed. Not good. She used it to buy coffee on her way into work this morning, and when she went to retrieve it sometime this afternoon, she couldn't find it. I told her I'd look into it and hung up. I was upset, but I also knew my getting mad wasn't going to help the situation, so I kept my mouth shut.

I logged on to our banking website to check on recent/pending transactions and found a mysterious one from today for $18.77. No merchant was listed, only an address. I wrote down the address and called Diane back, and she confirmed once again that the only money she spent today was the few dollars for coffee. At least it was Starbucks. I put on my detective hat, the Sherlock Holmes one where you can't figure out which side is the front and which is the back, and did a reverse address search online. The $18.77 had been spent at a Safeway grocery store on the other side of Tucson, a store that neither Diane or I have ever stepped foot in. Great. Then I called the bank and cancelled our debit cards. WTF!!!

Diane doesn't know if she left her card at Starbuck's or if it fell out of her wallet, but that doesn't matter to me. Mistakes happen. I know because I'm the King of them. But what's happened to human freakin' dignity? When did ours become such an opportunistic society, where people think they have the right to take advantage of others' misfortune? Just because I see a debit card lying on the ground doesn't give me free reign to a shopping spree! And it really pisses me off! Right now the damage is only $18.77, but I can guaran-frickin-tee the total will go up tomorrow when merchants have had a day to post their transactions. That's when the real damage will be done. I'm sure we won't be liable for all of it since I canceled the card in a timely manner (I hope), but that's not the point. These jerks will probably get off scot-free, and that pisses me off, too! I could rant on and on, but I'm going to stop here before I break a blood vessel in my head and seize right here on the floor.

I just wish people didn't suck so often.

A Little DAY Reading

When I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a huge Stephen King fan. I got this from my Mom, and everything of his she read, she passed down to me: Carrie, Salem's Lot, Cujo, Firestarter, The Shining, Pet Sematary, Misery, The Stand (my personal favorite), It (a close second), and various short stories of his. I stopped reading Stephen King for subliminal reasons back in college. During the winter of my freshman year at the University of Illinois, I read It, a story about a sewer-dwelling monster that manifest itself as a clown and lured kids to their deaths..."down here, they all float"...and it scared the hell out of me. The U of I has a series of steam tunnels linked to several steam vents peppered throughout the campus. I would walk home to my dorm in the wee hours of the morning after an evening of study in the library or in a classroom on campus, and have to pass several of these steam vents, all the while keeping a wary eye out for Pennywise the clown. After finishing the book, I guess I decided to take a break from Mr. King. Yes, I am that big of a wuss.

Last year, Diane and I were perusing the bargain table at Barnes & Noble when I came across King's "On Writing", his book about, well, writing. The book was priced right, something like $4.99 for a hard cover (apparently not too many people are interested in taking writing tips from Mr. King), and after thumbing through it and seeing that a good portion of it contained a mini-autobiography, I bought it. I was interested in discovering what went on in that demented mind of his. I wasn't disappointed. I breezed through the autobiographical section, then stalled during the "tools of the trade". I put the book down for a couple of months only to pick it back up and finish it about a month ago.

Although Stephen King is probably not the first person you'd think to go to for a lesson on writing, there's no denying that he's had a long, successful and lucrative career, and is therefore worth listening to. His no-nonsense approach to writing was refreshing and inspiring, and it was interesting to see him use his works as examples of his approach to writing.

On completing "On Writing", I decided it was time to end my Stephen King break for real and pick up one of his newer novels, and so I did. I was on a Target run one afternoon where I saw what I believe is his newest novel, Cell. Without any clue of what it was about, I grabbed it along with a couple of other books (John Berendt's City of Falling Angels and David Sedaris' Naked, both great reads), and headed for the checkout lanes. It seems like I can never get out of Target without dropping at least $100, but that's neither here nor there.

Yesterday afternoon, I started reading Cell after I dropped Kyra off at school, where I soon discovered that it is King's contribution to the "zombie" genre of horror stories. On October 1st at 3:00 pm of an unknown year, every user of a cell phone gets their minds turned to mush which causes them to go on a maniacal, homicidal rampage. By page 8, the people of Boston are attacking and chewing on each other, cars are crashing, planes are blowing up, and mass chaos ensues. The city of Boston is burning to the ground. Wide eyed, oh he just knifed that guy in the throat, I kept turning the pages because I needed to see what these people were going to do and how the crap they were going to get out of Boston. But I eventually had to put the book down because it was time to get the girls from school.

I returned to my book after we put the girls to bed. Diane had some work scheduling she needed to do on the computer, so I plopped down in our big comfy chair and began to read. The wind was howling last night and it beat upon the house as I read. Then the lights in the family room began to flicker. Did I mention that I'm a big wuss? Suddenly, the book that I had been able to read with little problem in the daylight had become much more sinister in the night. Our heroes were hunkered in the lobby of a hotel as night was falling and they kept hearing loud thumps from the floor above. Coincidentally, I kept hearing loud thumps from outside, and then the lights behind me began to flicker. I began looking nervously over my shoulder until finally I decided that perhaps I should should give Cell a rest and just flip on the TV.

I wandered into the den where Diane was working instead. "He he he," I laughed nervously, "Perhaps that book is a good DAY book." Diane shot me a pathetic look. "These are not your normal, arms in the air, shuffle your feet zombies," I explained, trying to defend my honor and what was left of my masculinity. "These are quick, frickin' zombies that..." I rushed across the room, grabbed her shoulders, and began nibbling on her neck. She usually doesn't mind this routine except that this time the Hannibal Lecter, fava bean "pht pht pht pht" noise I made kind of freaked her out.

"Maybe you shouldn't read that book at all," she suggested, wild-eyed. Not a chance. I have to know what's going to happen, but I'll have to rebuild my tolerance for King. I'll start during the days for now and ease my way back into nights. But there's still one thing that's haunting me now. If I was nervous about the steam tunnels on the U of I campus twenty years ago, what the hell am I going to have to go through, what courage will I need to summon, to answer my cell phone every time it rings?

Building a Case for Worst Father of the Year

Recently, we've been having issues involving Kailey's decision making abilities when it comes to resolving conflict with her younger sister. Forsaking our constant reminders to "use her words" to settle issues, Kailey has chosen instead to pummel the crap out of Kyra, or at least that's what you'd think when you hear Kyra's horrified yowls from the other room. In reality, Kailey merely pushed, hit or kicked her out of frustration, but Kyra is such a sensitive soul that Kailey may as well have danced on her face. Still, pushing, hitting or kicking is not acceptable, and Diane and I set a course to put all such activity to an end.

Six months ago I seemed to find a solution. Time outs weren't working, and my spanking her for hitting her sister seemed to be a little inconsistent. One afternoon, totally exhausted after putting Kailey into time out for the umpteenth time for hitting her sister, I decided to give the "eye for an eye" solution a try. "The next time you hit your sister," I explained, "Your sister gets to hit you. Do you understand? Your sister gets a free shot. Then you'll know how it feels." Now I understand that there's inconsistency here as well, but at least it seemed more appropriate than me hitting her. I also explained to Kyra that it did not give her free reign to hit back; she was only to hit Kailey when I TOLD her to. Yeah, right. I was hoping that the mere threat would scare Kailey out of her hitting mode, and for a while, it did. But one day Kailey decided to test my threats, and I finally had to call her bluff. I called Kyra over after Kailey hit her in the arm and told her to hit Kailey back. Kyra is such a sweet girl that her idea of "hitting" was to give her a love tap on the arm. Kailey fell on the floor wailing and wrything in pain as though she had just taken a right hook to the kisser. Problem solved. After that, Kailey "used her words" or consulted Diane or me when Kyra was bugging her.

Last week though, Kailey relapsed into her old behavior and forced my hand to return to the "eye for an eye" technique (Super Nanny would be so proud). Yesterday after enduring two time outs and two threats of Kyra's retaliation, Kailey finally forced my hand. She had just kicked Kyra in the hand right in front of me, and I asked her if she wanted Kyra to kick her back. Kailey cast a defiant gaze at me. "Do you want Kyra to kick you?" I repeated, hoping she would back down. She didn't and gave me a nod. "OK, Kyra. Come here."

Now I was envisioning the love tap Kyra gave Kailey six months ago, but Kyra had apparently had enough of Kailey's bullying. Kailey was stretched out on her back across the chair and ottoman. Kyra walked up to her and, in a flash reminiscent of a ninja warrior, drew her leg up to her head and karate kicked down directly into Kailey's stomach. WHAM!! Kailey doubled over and started bawling.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed, mortified. "Kyra, she kicked you IN THE HAND!!"

"You told me to kick her," she rationalized.

I had, indeed, told her to kick Kailey with no instruction as to where or how hard. She had me dead to rights. I sent her over to the couch and turned my attention to Kailey. Huge wet tears rolled down her face, and I suddenly felt like the world's biggest jerk. She was crying freely and I was surprised that Kyra's abdominal blow hadn't knocked the wind out of her. Kailey calmed down after a minute and I realized that the whole incident looked and sounded worse than it really was. It was at this point that I started laughing uncontrollably, which DID worsen the situation. It sent a mixed message to Kyra, who joined in my laughter, and to Kailey, who began crying harder. I collected myself and explained to the girls that there would be no more hitting, kicking, or pushing of any kind. They were also told not to tell their mother of this incident or they would be shipped to Siberia.

I later confessed my stupidity to Diane, and we agreed that if this didn't teach Kailey her lesson, nothing will. I know I learned mine: always give detailed instruction to a six year-old who is poised and ready to exact revenge upon her older sister.

A $50 Toy Vs. a 70¢ Balloon

The balloon will win out every single stinkin', frickin' time. Diane gave me a task to fulfill on my way home from work for Kailey's birthday party on Wednesday: pick up some balloons. I stopped by a party store where they had a whole wall-full of balloons to choose from. It was a little overwhelming. I stood there staring at the wall for about ten minutes before someone came over and asked a really stupid question, "Do you need some balloons?" No, I'm making a mental sketch of every freakin' balloon on your wall so I can go home and construct exact duplicates in an attempt to avoid paying the exorbitant prices you people charge for a mylar balloon. Did I say that? No. I simply responded, "Yes, please."

"Are you having your party within the next eight hours?" she asked. I shot her a puzzled look. "The regular balloons only last eight hours after being inflated," she explained. Allll-righty then. I assured her that we would be partying as soon as I got home, roughly twenty minutes after she fulfilled my order. Satisfied, she scooted behind the counter and began rounding up balloons.

I bit the bullet and bought one of their $13 mylar balloons, an enormous heart-shaped "Happy Birthday" balloon that had four smaller stars branching off of it, along with a dozen regular ones of varying colors. The balloon lady filled them up while I settled the bill, and I went on my less-than-merry way. These party people are running a racket, and they know it. They also know that I'll be back to pay their ridiculous prices because they understand that the look on my child's face once she sees their balloons will make my suddenly lighter wallet worth while. And they're right. Kailey was ecstatic when she saw me walk through the door with my posse of balloons in tow.

We tied the balloons to her chair and proceeded with the birthday festivities: lunch, cake, and presents. Presents. The kid made a quite a haul in that department: dolls, art stuff, outdoor play gear, electronic gadget toys...enough stuff to keep her busy for a month. They did keep her busy for the day. But on Thursday, one guess as to what captivated her attention. Balloons.

True to the balloon lady's prediction, the regular ones wilted overnight. The girls cut the strings off of them and proceeded to bump and kick and swat them all over the house...for hours. It was maddening. What was worse is that they then had the audacity to argue over one balloon. And of course all of this happened while I tried to take a nap (I'm not lazy...I worked the early morning shift and had been up since 3:30). "THERE'S TWELVE BALLOONS AND I'LL BREAK EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM IF YOU CAN'T STOP FIGHTING OVER THE PEARLED BLUE ONE!!!" I threatened. They normally ignore my idle threats, but I must have sounded really angry because they relented...for about twenty minutes. Then, like a dog returns to its vomit, they returned to their folly. It's been a long couple of days.

The good thing about balloons is that they don't last long. By tomorrow they will have deflated enough that they'll need to be thrown away. Hopefully, Kailey will then return to play with the gifts we bought with our hard-earned money. If she doesn't they'll sit in her closet and collect dust with all of her other forgotten toys only to be remembered several years from now when we try to give them away to Goodwill or The Salvation Army. Then Kailey will petition and plead like mad to keep them. The headaches will begin all over again, all because of a 70 cent balloon.