Another Satur-dee

Up at six with the alarm, and time to finalize the game's roster for today. The league and the parks authority haven't updated their phone messages about the weather and the fields, so I can't tell the parents anything--typical. Finally they update at 7:00, and the games are on. Time to wake up the The Girl and get her moving. I'm to pick up another player whose Uber-Flake mom never has the time, energy, or parental self-respect to follow-through on anything she signs her kids up for--yes, I'll play Saturday Morning Parent to your child who sadly you don't have time for. Friday it was 30 minutes late to practice and could I please take her to the game on Saturday? This morning it's the call from the mom whether the matches are on? Yes, they are, and five minutes later it's the follow-up--I swear, somehwere inside I knew she was going to call back--call saying that she just won't be coming out today, unless I really need her. Whatever. Nope, I don't really need her. I've got 11 other little girls whose parents care enough to get them to the matches (and practice), so we'll be covered. And the girls who do attend get a greater opportunity to play. No realization how badly she's fucking up her child's life, no sense of how she's shortchanging her child's growth and childhood, cheating her of the things she should be doing and enjoying and building positive future memories upon. No concept of how she's creating a lifetime of anger and resentment, passing on her own private legacy of apathy and adult self-centeredness. No understanding of the selfishness, the concept of sacrifice that a parent has to see, understand, and ultimately accept, if they're going to do a good job of it.

Too bad, too, as the girls won, for the first time this season (three games played now). They played magnificently, as a team, passing, supporting, talking to each other. Great team effort, and a well-earned win. I'm very proud of them.

And back home to get ready for The Boy's match. We show on time, as specified, and as usual are the first ones there. It's five minutes until game time and still there's only 5 boys present (five required to take the playing field). Another two show up after the match has begun. Since I'm refereeing, I have a talk with the nascent bully on our team and tell him he'd better not be pushing, pulling, shoving, or kicking, and I've got his number. He knows exactly what I'm talking about, and the look on his face shows the surprise that I've figured out where he's coming from. Give this kid another three or four years, and he's going to be a discipline problem as well as a threat to the other kids. I'll just do my part now, what little I can, to help him on his way, get him straight, and keep him from turning out to be the aggressive shithead I expect he'll end up being.

And that's because of his folks. Two of the dorkiest, just plain annoying people you could ever meet. Right out of a bad UPN (no wait, that's redundant) comedy sketch. Just short of the SNL classic Whiners. Okay, picture a long-sleeve tie-dye sweatshirt over dress-belted jeans and white tennies, with a full-length London Fog trench coat over the top, and all buttoned up and belted, too. Taking dozens of pictures with both his digital camera and his cell phone. Getting in the way during warm-ups, right in the middle of the field, trying to get his kid to pose Freddy Adu style in mid-kick while everyone else waits for the drill to continued. And no idea that he's being disruptive, none at all. Yeah, that's dad. Grandpa shows up today, and it's more of the same, with whiter hair and that kind of shopping mall back-alley scary white two-day stubble. No jersy on the kid--it's dirty. I wanted to simply say, "So wash it," or "Wear it anyway" or something else common sensical, but it wouldn't do any good. No concept, not even the faintest glimmer of realization that they're out of step. How does the kid play without his uniform? Duh. You think ahead, Mom and Dad. You wash it late on Friday night, or you get your ass out of bed early on Saturday morning to wash and dry it, so your child can blend in, be in uniform, look lik the other kids and not some hapless doofus. Luckily we have a spare, and he gets it. Then problems with the shin guards, no idea how to put them on, all through the game, just clueless. Ugly portents at age 7 of what this kid is going to be for the rest of his life. In a flash sometime around the third quarter, I see this guy at age 38, walking down the hallway at his document archiving firm, two shotgun shell bandoliers across him like a movie Mexican, throwing molotov cocktails into the gray offices off of the main cinderblock corridor, grinning like Vincent D'Onofrio in Fulll Metal Jacket, right there at the end in the graylight latrine.

Finally, the game's on, and all 10 boys on the field are pushing and pulling and kicking at each other like a goddamn MS13 jump-in. I got both teams together and told them before the match I'd have none of it, so about 5 stoppages/lectures and a penalty later, they know I'm watching and the game won't go anywhere if they keep it up. And whaddaya know, the rest of the match goes just fine. The other team kills us, something like 13-0, but they earn it. No cheating, none of that, they were just better, more energetic, well coached, and with a couple of kids playing at a very high level for 6/7 year-olds. And, they didn't have the clutch of open-mouth-breathing nords that we're stuck with. No big deal.

Filled the truck with gas on the way home--$49.53. Damn. Thanks, George Bush and Republican economic progress, you guys have got it going on, eh? Gas wasn't like this during our 8 years with Clinton (the lying sack of shit). We're running out, people, and the folks in power and the folks in control of the pipe know it. We day-to-day meatsacks only starting to get the hint, but when it comes, it's going to be a steel-toe kick to the temple. It's going to happen in my lifetime, and it's going to be ugly. Government-toppling, world economy-shattering ugly.

Then hit a local plant fair hosted by a local historical society and venue. Nice day, with the promised storm threatening, but didn't buy anything. I liked a few of the Japanese maples, but not for the snobbish prices they were asking. I couldn't help but notice the big sign for the local hosta society. Man, don't you know that's one exciting, tear-down-the-walls kind of mobile party army, when they get together and share their love for hostas. Sheesh. I could imagine their meetings as some of the most crushingly polite and quiet and dull things I've ever been to in my life. But then what do I know? I imagined a stealth swining group, the local hosta society getting together for upper-class suburban orgies or someting. Whatever. Then home to mow the lawn, only to be denied at the 2/3 point by the rain. No big deal; I'll finish tomorrow or later this week.

Strangely, I find myself contemplating Sideways as I walk back and forth, round and round, cutting the grass. I have to figure I enjoyed it quite a bit, if I'm still thinking of it. Some aspects I dwell on:

1. Gotta find a way to cut that ultra-lame and forced and yet hugely funny "Rowwrr/Meowww" noise that Thomas Haden Church makes in the restaurant for the double-date with the ladies when Stephanie invites them all back to her place. Need it to be my appointment reminder noise in Outlook.
2. Loved that bit when Miles asks his bud if he's chewing gum.
3. I have to come down on the side that both Miles and Whatshisface/Lowell are pretty much worthless, pathetic fucks, especially Miles. So much anger and intensity in him; no wonder his wimpy and ultimately disappointingly frail and plain wife (I was expecting some kind of wicked hottie) dumped him. He deserved everything he got in the film.
4. Loved the naughty/nasty meat restaurant waitress near the end of the film. Just-right full enough in the body, and she turns out--her character turns out--to be a definitely raunchy piece o ass. Nice tits, nice fully belly, not too bad. The floppy-belly tattooed tow truck husband was scary, though, on a number of flesh-shimmying levels.
5. Does Miles get Mya finally? He doesn't deserve her.

Just done with delicious dinner of spaghetti and our own home-made sauce. Only tonight do I realize that the big Vat O Sauce I made last weekend (and frozen for multiple future meals) didn't have any Italian sausage in it. Had the whole bottle of red wine, 3 entire heads of garlic, peppers, onions, mushrooms, all of the other stuff, but I just plain forgot to put the sausage in that. No, just plain forgot to even buy the sausage. Man. Good stuff, but coulda been better.

Kids bathing now. The Wife is into her second glass of wine, and has already promised me Saturday Evening Fun. I'm psyched. The latest lingerie set has been set out, for some time now, awaiting her use for about two weeks now, so I've got the camera all charged up and ready to go. Looking forward to my own, private, hot MILF action shortly. Sorry, can't post any pictures at all. I've made a promise that I won't, and my word is my bond, plain and simple. Plus, they're mine all mine, I don't want to share them at all, as proud as I am of my hot MILF wife. I'd love to share, but can't.

Tomorrow, dinner with the family and my folks up the road. Should be okay; Grandpa will pay.

Begin The Blogguine

Join the crowd, go with the flow, start a glob, uh, bolg, blog. Yeah, that thing.

Screwed off at work today for the first two hours, making a cutesy spreadsheet outlining the achievementns--and in a few of the rows, non-achievements--of the boys in my Boy Scouts of America group. Little icons and such, neato. Then chased my tail for another six hours trying to find out information about submitting a company proposal to a major Department of Defense agency. Nothing but ringing phones and voice mail. I kept hoping I'd find the phone directory offering "If you'd like to fire a precision-guided munition, press six now . . . press one for Asia, two for Africa . . ." but was disappointed. Left a message, will try to get the One Crucial Guy on Monday, with less than three days to go until contract proposal deadline. One can only hope they'll extend the deadline, again. I'm still surprised they pay me what they do for the work I do. I'm too new to be of use, and hope to be of real use sometime soon, but still can't help feeling guilty, like I'm perpetrating some kind of fraud, for sitting at work, still clueless, reading email and drafting hollow documents and getting paid over $2k/week.

Then home to factory pizza and right back out the door with The Girl to soccer practice and 11 other ping-ping-ping elementary types, all goofing off. I cracked the code on them finally: find a huge practice space, and keep them running, running, running. All they'll think about is catching their breath and getting a drink of water, and the mindless grab-ass will wait until they get home to their little brothers. Gotta put together tomorrow's playing roster now. The little voice inside me is hoping the rain keeps up so the game is canceled, so I can go back to bed, stay at home on a cold n' rainy Saturday morning, get something done at home. We'll see.

Happy to go the 8 minutes to and from practice in the new GMC, with its XM radio. I'll never listen to commercial radio again. I've actually heard Frank Zappa twice in the past week on the jam band/prog station, so I'm there and there's no tuning back. Damn, that little phrase just popped out there, right onto the virtual page with no forethought at all. Gotta remember to email that to XM, with a note to remember me for the royalty checks.

Watched Sideways with The Wife. Okay, but not the laughoutloud comedy I was led to believe it would be. It was somewhat satisfying to see Thomas Hayden Lowell Church get his nose flattened with the motorcycle helmet by that scary-thin girl--Stephanie?--with the lopsided eyes.

Read the mail to discover our state tax folks are slamming us with a bill for taxes we didn't pay. Yeah, you niggling bureaucratic morons, that's because we never owed the tax in the first place. How much work is this going to take me to un-fuck, because you people can't keep accurate records? CEOs are getting $35 million/year in compensation packages, companies are cooking books and lying to both consumers and investors, and you want $4k from me that I don't even legally owe? Amazing.

Got a brochure from Grand Canyon Expeditions (http://www.gcex.com). I can't recommend these guys highly enough. The Wife and I did their 8-day motorized Grand Canyon trip for our honeymoon in 1994, and it was fantastic. A bit spendy, yes, but you get what you pay for, and their performance was absolutely outstanding, in every single way. We're looking to go again, in about five years or so, once The Boy and The Girl are old enough to go and actually appreciate it. Go now and raft the Grand Canyon before the Republicans pave it over.

Bedways is bestways for the oldster.