Life of Wry

I don’t know. I’m at a loss.

I read, first thing in the morning yesterday, the story about the shooting in Charleston. But then, before getting even a moment to find out what happened, and still dealing with the after effects of a bad headache, had to mobilize for a morning baseball game, and then an afternoon game, and then had a whole bunch of stuff to do to catch up, and by then we were at the end of the day and I hadn’t heard word one about the murders. I called my mom to check in and we talked about it. She’d been watching coverage all day and was weepily despondent.

I’ll tell you this. As she nears the end of her life, I can say with certainty–and she knows it too–she’s not going to see any movement toward any positive change in her lifetime. We’ve gone mad and there is no fucking fix on the horizon.

The Charleston church murders are a double whammy: it’s unleashed hate and deep, sick racism, and it’s also a gun issue.

People are killing beautiful people. That is what’s happening. And we don’t care enough as a society to do anything about it. We could. But we don’t. Can’t, won’t. I don’t know. NRA. Money. Power. Votes.

We’d surely have addressed the gun issue if we, as a country, had cared enough after the massacre of 20 little kids in their classroom.

The majority of people don’t care enough about race or guns.  A facebook friend named Janet said it well:

“So far we tolerate it, otherwise we would have changed something. We are all in this together. Either the flag waving, foot stomping, gun toting, racist masses are a majority and hold the power, or they are a minority and we are weak. Feeling pessimistic.”

I agree and am feeling the pessimism. Not expecting movement in my lifetime, either.

People are writing all over the internet very eloquently about race. Glad for that. This is a conversation that needs to be going on everywhere all the time until everyone gets it. Including me, everyone. All of us. With our kids.

Especially our kids. Kids don’t start life hating. They don’t know from race. They are warm hearted creatures there for the loving. There for the molding. In our culture, they learn racism. The haters teach their kids to hate. It’s perpetuated in the culture in overt and subtle ways. It’s not going away until we see this and talk about it and institute it. And un-institute it (like removing confederate flags for one obvious example).

People are writing about this, which is good, of course. I’m also supposing it falls on deaf ears (the fox followers of the world). You’re either an open hearted, loving person who cares about people of all colors, countries and causes, or you’re a dick. And if you’re the latter, no amount of eloquence and common decency is going to compel you.

I’m just disgusted. Sorry.

I’m beyond disgusted about a short clip I saw of a fox interview (don’t ask), in which they wrung their hands over the horrible events of Wednesday night, but wagged their fingers at viewers, cautioning them not listen to those who would characterize this as a hate crime. This is not a race issue, they said. It’s an attack on Christians.  Christianity under siege again. This trio, sitting on a couch together in sexy clothes, then went on to say the pastor should have had a gun. We should be relaxing gun laws so law abiding people can have guns on hand to protect themselves.

What do you do with that? People believe this. People I love believe this. I have a family member who believes everyone should have a gun. Not the right to have a gun, but should have one and carry it to protect themselves.

Imagine that scenario.

I can feel physically ill at the very idea that somebody around me is concealing a gun (never mind everybody). The instability factor is everywhere. Emotional humans are a fact of humanhood. Emotional humans and guns do not mix with good results. One sporting event or one instance of road rage is all the evidence you need. Giving people killing capacity at their finger tips is nothing but insanity. You’ll never, ever convince me that civil society can ever happen when people are carrying guns. It’s laughable (cryable more like). 

And I don’t know what all the candidates are saying right now.. can only imagine what the two Ricks are saying… but Jeb Bush was quick to go on record saying he wasn’t sure the shooting was racially motivated. Now that, folks, is a total lack of moral leadership. He, like Hillary I’m sorry to say, proceeds with tender-footed caution on absolutely every issue and is totally beholden to his handlers to fully vet, based on polls, every publicly-stated opinion on any subject that ever comes out of his mouth. Do I like pie? Can’t even respond human to human to the murder of nine black people sitting quietly in a bible study by a self-proclaimed white supremacist.  Has to carefully craft each and every statement in response and ensure his base is not offended. Too bad his base is so stupid. 

Hardly the candidates’ fault, I guess; it’s politics today..it’s what you have to do to get elected? We are doomed. 

There is no hope for this country. We are in denial about race. We are soul crushingly stupid when it comes to guns. And our leaders can’t have opinions that aren’t market tested.

We are seriously doomed. 

Summer can be so disorienting. This was a normal Thursday on most people’s calendars. On ours, it was a two-location baseball tournament day, which made it feel like anything but a weekday.

No pics from today’s first day of the Dustin Pedroia Summer Classic.  I will say it was a good day for the boys of summer… two wins.  Peter was the winning pitcher in game one against Franklin. He and Ryan Holgate handled their duties well, but the bigger story was the offense with 11 runs on 10 hits! Final score 11-6.  Ryan Bell, Ray Young and Reed Hessl combined for a solid win (9-3) in the second game against Folsom. Our batters slammed 10 more hits in this game. See? As I mentioned before, I think we’re going to have a much better hitting team this year. Should be fun.

The tournament continues for us on Saturday. Stay tuned.

Okay.  So I got nuthin’ else. Being Thursday, how about a few summer throwback photos… let me dig here….

Okay:

Starting with the baseball theme…one from about six years ago..subbing on someone else’s travel team:

Then, let’s go with a beach theme.. a few from random visits over the early years. This one with Chenoa in 2001 (3 years old):

This is one from 2003 (5 years old):

And this one’s from 2002 (4 years old):

I really hate to be a complainer. But ..

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

Not feeling like a good sport today. Spent the whole day laying low, willing a nasty headache away. I didn’t will very well; it’s still banging on the walls inside my head, though with slightly less intensity than earlier.

I’m not even certain it’s a real migraine because I’m short a few of the classic symptoms, but I definitely have others of them… so maybe.  I don’t care. It hurts. When I get these, they’re two day affairs, though far more manageable the second day.

Blah blah blah… don’t wanna talk about it. Makes me want to cry. Hate missing out on a gorgeous day.

I did walk to the coop today; even migraine sufferers gotta eat figs and sushi. This is what the world looked like through the haze:

Walking through the Senior Center, across the Civic Center field:

Then down 7th (I just liked the way this tree looked):

And looking south down..maybe E or D:

My favorite neighborhood to be in on a very hot day…

Today’s busy day is not going to tie itself into a tidy bow. Usually I can, but today I can’t find a simple theme–at least not a unique one. So….   how’s about a few cool pictures, and we can call it good.

Began the process to renew Peter’s passport today. Good thing we checked the date on his passport last night to find it had expired, and good thing there is still time to get a new one before we leave in seven weeks, and good thing there’s such a thing as an expedited application process.

I think he’s on to me…

(Right? Who takes a picture of their kid getting his picture taken?)

Picked up our car from Center City with its brand new head gasket and a whole bunch of other engine-related things otherwise too difficult to get to unless you remove the engine completely from the car. That was $3300 worth of fun. Driving home from the gas station, sat in the Richard’s Blvd underpass. I always find this view coming into downtown a little thrilling:

In the late afternoon heat, sat in a narrow swath of shade at the very top of the bleachers at Sac City College, scrambling to catch up on game data… a tedious process if you’re transitioning from your fall-back paper-based system to your vastly-preferable digital-based system mid-game, but that’s why god invented Dianna:

It was not a great day for the Blue Devils. Davis managed only two hits–not great–and committed four yucky, costly errors. The coaches, in full summer assessment mode, gave six pitchers an inning apiece… with very mixed results. Peter faced only three batters today (hurray!) in his inning and thankfully did just fine. In the end, it was the Eastin Cats 10 and Davis 2…ugly. Here is a post-game confab between Peter and his coach… sketching out the pitching strategy for this weekend’s tournament.

Sac City’s a nice place. They even have artful gates:

Never, not once in my whole life, have I ever regretted a time I rose early in the morning. Not only do I love being up at the crack of dawn, I make it my intention more days than I could ever, ever count. It sort of mystifies me, this thing about loving to be up early, wanting to be up early, planning to be up early, and yet going to bed so late that actually getting up early becomes utterly unrealistic.

Weirdo.

It wasn’t hugely early that we took off to return a rental car this morning (7:00am), but it seemed all early-ish when we drove home because we took the river road from West Sac to Woodland to Davis (in order to avoid a gnarly, snarly traffic jam along westbound I-80), and something about the light on the river and the long shadows cast along the crop rows made it seem just so rural and early and …. sigh.

I just loved it.

My camera did that out-of-focus thing again (note, it cannot possibly be operator error) (which is absolutely is), but I’m posting these anyway, just for the gist of the ear-ligh mornin’ light:

The Sacramento River, Yolo County side:

The latest trend in sunflower fields.. you’ve noticed this, right?  Planting some rows with flowers that bloom before the others so there are these startling yellow stripes radiating toward the horizon as you drive past them?

And wow… the sunflowers are blooming all over the place. It is so pretty.

I’m getting up early tomorrow.

Don’t know if I mentioned it…  but our car blew a gasket, as they say. An expensive gasket. A head gasket. Maybe there are other gaskets? In any case, it’s looking like this right about now…

That’s the engine. Other of its parts are neatly arrayed on the floor just to the right of this shot. I went by to see it in the shop last Friday on the way down to San Jose (and to fetch stadium chairs).

We are Hoffman people, but Hoffman doesn’t do this kind of repair, so told us to go to Center City.

Here’s what’s great about that: Center City’s Honda expert is Rick. Rick is the dad of one of Peter’s teammates Tyler Mortensen (star pitching phenom, number one pitcher this past year in the Delta League, first team Delta league, honorable mention on the all-Metro team.  As a freshman. Remember that name.)  Because both of our boys were playing in the baseball tournament in San Jose, we spent the weekend with Rick and, among many other things, talked a lot about our car.

What are the chances of that?

We are confident it’s in good hands! Still going to cost $3000, though.

In the meantime, I’ve been getting to drive this:

Love my Honda CRV, but I have really enjoyed zipping around in this (it’s a Golf). Will be sad to see it go.

Also on the subject of series of tubes… and just because I took a pic…

This is a great Thai noodle salad I made a few weeks ago. Wish I’d not forgotten it was in the fridge. Here’s a close up:

I spoke a lot about the Mitty tournament yesterday, so today… just some pics.

First, courtesy of Wes Young (thanks, Wes)… (literally candidly shot straight through that green wind barrier cloth, but to fantastic effect, I think):

This is why I’m glad Peter’s playing baseball.

Peter has emphasized, over and over, that he is happy to be a pitcher-only. I grieve over the loss of his playing a position, the loss of at bats, the loss of seeing him play in every game…  but he is not grieving this. He is having a ball. So, I’m adjusting. And appreciating the lack of stress at games.

Especially because he laughs a lot.

Pictured above: Mort, Peter, Ray, Ryan, mystery player and Dan.

They played today at Mitty. In their first game, they faced another powerhouse LA team, West Ranch, and lost 5-2.

They played Pleasant Grove, our old buddies, in their second game. We play PG all the time; they’re in our league, they are a solid team and today we had a lot to prove, having lost embarrassingly to them last week in the Yuba City Wooden Bat tournament!

We beat them decisively, crushingly, 15-5. Seventeen hits. It was explosive. Here’s a great picture Wes took after the game.  Solly, Peter, Danny, Ray.

Solly and Danny are both appropriately filthy. Solly’s highlight today was a blistering triple that drove in a run in the second game, and Danny, besides going 1 for 3 in both games and doing a lot of dirty sliding, had the pitching outing of his life (in the first game), according to his mom. Impressive day!

Peter and Ray both got to hit in the PG game, which was extremely fun for them. Peter drove in a run on a ground out to second, and Ray got to first on an error. Good job pitcher-only’s!

Another treat: Tim (travel ball coach) was in the area and dropped in to see his boys. Tim grew up on the peninsula and played all these teams when he was in high school (St. Francis?). He’s long out of school (played for both Loyola Marymount and UCD), but still follows all these teams.

Seven former Crush players now play on the DHS varsity team. In addition to Gabe, Ray, Solly, Peter and Danny, above, Pierce and Mason are Crush alumni. Speaks impressively for Crush… and Tim.

So, that was that. Snapped this picture at an iced tea stop before heading back.

Summer time for varsity baseball players means lots of summer tournaments–which means happy parents.

So far, so enjoyable!

This weekend, we (Peter) participated in our second Mitty tournament… Mitty being a large, somewhat prestigious annual summer invitational hosted by Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. It draws twenty three of the best teams in the state, many private schools from the peninsula. It includes some of the better schools from our neck of the woods, and even a handful of very elite-ish schools from southern California.  I say elite-ish like I don’t really want to admit it, but most of these schools are expensive, private catholic schools that place a huge emphasis on their sports programs. It’s a lot about money and privilege. They recruit in order to be competitive.. and they fleld amazing teams.

We benefit from some exceptional competition.

Friday’s games were held at Christian Valley High School. Lordy. From high atop a hill, the Silicon Valley looked absolutely gorgeous–mountains all around, downtown San Jose visible in the distance looking like the Emerald City. It was very hot, but we had a steady breeze and were under shade structures, so not bad at all. For us. The boys on the artificial turf… another level of sizzling.

My Aunt Joy came over from Pleasanton for the game, which was so sweet and wonderful. Rare has any family member on either side ever seen Peter play, so it was very nice to have her there. What’s more, having been a PE teacher and coach in this area her entire career, she knew a thing or two about the schools we were facing–and was impressed.

Peter was the starting pitcher in the first game against De La Salle (a private catholic high school in Concord) and went four innings. After spending his first day of summer swimming and carousing all day with friends and staying out way too late, he woke up with a cold and sounded pretty miserable. I worried about him, forgetting he’s 16 and nothing seems to slow him down.

They lost the game 10-5–five of those were Peter’s–but it wasn’t as horrible, defensively, as it sounds. Peter and Ray both had respectable outings (Tyler had an uncharacteristically tough day), and we only had one error, but, offensively, we were only able to muster two hits (and had we not had some hit batters and timely walks, we’d not have gotten as many runs as we did).  Anyway…

I, of course, think Peter and Ray pitched like champs, especially in that heat, especially against that team.

I had my hands full watching him, keeping up with the score book, and trying to be an attentive niece at the same time, so I didn’t manage to get any good shots of this school, the view, or the game… but this gives you a little idea…

In the second game, we lost a close one to Harvard Westlake (4-3)–a powerhouse private school from LA. We out-hit them in that game and had a perfect chance at the end to go ahead, but… baseball.

I think this year’s team is going to be a much bigger hitting team than last year’s.

The best thing about away tournaments is the hotel time and team bonding. Dan brought 18 down for this tournament (only 15 stayed overnight) and they hung out a lot at the pool, traveled in a huge pack to a nearby restaurant for dinner (some of us parents peeled off and went elsewhere) and just got a chance to get to know one another better. It’s a new blend of players and I think that this year’s seniors (our boys) are a lot more amenable to fraternizing with the incoming players (which ought to make for a stronger team culture).

So, day one, Mitty. FUN.

… and….  thatsalotta baseball talk.

On a slightly different topic…. how precious have hotels gotten?

This one nestles your shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer and soap in a bed of rocks.

Yes it does.

Nice to have friends in fertile places.

This plum haul comes courtesy of Gen and Terry, women of the land, laboradoodle breeders extraordinaire, and such good buddies they’ll make a point to swing by our house to drop produce off when they’re in town. Plumb kind of them.

So, it must be summer:

Fresh picked fruit dripping wet on the counters, temperatures in the high nineties today (102 tomorrow), a thin film of sweat all over, bare feet, shorts, Peter at a pool party for his first day of freedom, baseball tournament starts tomorrow in San Jose. We don’t have to wonder whether homework’s being done. We don’t have to nag about early morning get ups and imminent tardies.

We have entered kick back season.

happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappy

(Reed’s dad snuck this picture… Peter, Jacob, Reed, Daniel.)

One more thing of note, not related to above, but a something that might open a lot of summer activity doors for gimps, here:  I got a cortisone shot in my hip this afternoon. At long last (5 months into this). It hurt, but I breathed as instructed. At this point, all I’m going to say is: jury’s out. I’ll report back in a couple days. When it was really numb earlier, I was optimistic. Now feel dubious, but not giving up.

Very lazy day catching back up, trying to coax a couple of injured body parts back to full mobility. It’s been warm, muggy and overcast, but pleasant enough.

It was also Peter’s last day of school! He is now officially a high school senior and ecstatic about it. There is just nothing like a last day of school. He was content to sit with me on the couch (well, he lay, I sat) and talk about it (which I really loved).

He had a physics final and an American literature final today.  He’s hoping (and expecting) to hang on to the grades he went into these two finals with–an A in physics and a B in english. This is in contrast to two of his other classes, which he brought up to A’s from B’s (barely, but made it) with excellent scores on his finals. He is definitely the master of the A-. He has made an art out of pulling rabbits out of hats. This mama hopes he’s learned his lesson and will apply himself earlier in the semester next time, but I’m not holding my breath.

The conversation was fun though… maybe, he said, having really studied hard for a couple of his finals this time, he thought perhaps he was getting the hang of this studying thing, and he expects that this will serve him well in college, when he doesn’t think he’ll get away with slacking (good, good..). He wanted to tell me about the problems on the physics final that were challenging (if it meant staying on the couch with him longer, I was all ears). I did okay on one of them. I wouldn’t have expected to remember much from my physics class (at UCD), but I did. Um, yay me. I saw my decrepit physics professor at the Food Coop the other day. He seemed old back in 1978.. I was a bit surprised to even recognize him. (He certainly did not know me.)

All the talk of grades and effort reminded me of the joke Jim told at dinner last night. A mom (might as well be a Davis mom) has two kids. One is her star–self-motivated, studies long and hard, earns perfect scores, concert master in the orchestra, president of numerous clubs, wins awards and academic scholarships, valedictorian. The other is a slack off–does no more and no less than what it takes to get the highest grade in all his classes.

~~

Anyway… in honor of being home, some pictures I took last week while walking around the neighborhood talking to my mom on the phone, as I do.

It was a pretty sky day (unlike today’s)…

The flowers at the Borton’s were their usual lovely. One of my inspirations for a split rail in our front yard (not to mention we had a split rail front fence growing up, which is still there):

One of their casually tended rose bushes…

And a close up…