Life of Wry

Fall Ball season officially opened today. Wuhoo, wuhoo!

it will likely be Peter’s last fall season of baseball, at least playing with Davis High School… therefore it’s another last….the last first day of Fall Ball season. (I told you this might get weird.)

It was a crazy little scrimmage against Woodland, whom they slaughtered, which was totally expected. The umpire even ended a couple of the innings early because Davis had scored just too, too many runs. We stopped putting the score up on the scoreboard after the first inning–it just wasn’t necessary nor polite–but scorekeepers never really stop keeping score–we have books to keep, after all. Even with truncated innings, we still racked up 25 runs to zip.

Our guys looked really, really great.

Maybe the bigger news, though, was that it was 106-degrees at game time, give or take a degree. I am not kidding. Brutal.

Peter didn’t pitch today, but he did get an at-bat. And… bummer…. he was hit on the first pitch. Got a big bruise right next to his left scapula.  Many hoots from the dugout on that one.

The light got really lovely a little later in the game, this was around 6:30pm:

Here are my boothmates… my scoring mentor Dianna, and our second opinion guy Mark:

About to pass out from the heat, but couldn’t be happier.

And speaking of happy….

Too bad these guys aren’t having any fun. (That might be Eton to the right of Peter, Ray to his left, and he’s probably laughing at something Griffin said.)

With thanks to Wes for another in a fantastic series of candid dugout shots.

Sorry for this photo… not mine, horrible resolution… but I needed it.

So, I’m riding my bike into town this afternoon and pull up behind a guy at the corner of 5th and B, wearing tie-dye and loud sunglasses, on one of these. I actually do not know what it is, so I inquire. The conversation goes like this:

Me: What are you on?

Him: No response. 

Me (a bit louder): So.. what are you on?

Him: LSD!

Him (quickly): I’m kidding. I’M KIDDING, really. It’s a segway without a handle.

Me: That looks like it would be really hard to ride.

Him: Everyone thinks that. I tell them, “Yard by yard, life is hard. Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.”

Me (thinking.. what in the world is he talking about..!?): Meaning…

Him: Look, I didn’t just get on this thing, I had to learn to ride it. 

Me (thinking.. o k a y ..well, yeah, but…): Of course, sure, right.  

Him: I worked at it.

Me: Yes, I’m sure.  

Him: Took a long time to get as good as I am. 

Me: I rode a segway once and thought it was tricky.

Him: Oh! You know segways! You’re probably more of an expert than I am!

Me: I doubt that. I had my most awkward accident ever on a segway. 

Him: How’s that?

Me: I was at a dead stop, fell over, the segway fell on top of me and it was like trying to hang onto a very heavy, out-of-control power tool. It was gnarly. I got all cut up. 

Him: Whoaaa… I need to hear more about this.

Me (weaving left through traffic): This is my turn. I gotta go. Bye.

Handle-less segway man is last seen continuing down B Street waving over his head.

So….

As proof, here are a few shots taken in June 2011. It was Peter’s 13th birthday and he and I took a little road trip to LA to celebrate. The weekend was was so much fun–we stayed in a fancy downtown hotel, went to a Dodger game, walked down Hollywood Boulevard, stumbled upon Capital Records, drove up to Griffith Park Observatory, got a close up view of the Hollywood sign, ate at the Westwood In ‘n Out, attended a couple of family birthday parties. Lots of celebration.

But… segway riding was on the top of his list. So we rented a couple in Santa Monica and rode to Venice. It was great fun.. until it wasn’t.

Here is Peter on his segway before HIS spectacular, and sad, spill going too fast around too tight a corner…. and, darn (!), he was having so much fun, too!  He was so confident and full of 13-year old showboatedness before hitting that patch of sand on the bike path… my heart still aches for him.  He’d SO wanted to ride segways… after the fall, he SO never wanted to ride a segway again:

(But isn’t he sweet here? Looks so safe and benign…)

And here’s me on a segway before my very unspectacular fall:

And me after my sort of comedic battle with what felt like a combo buzzsaw-waterwiggle:

Not really ever planning on riding a segway again, with or without handles.

Posted without comment.

That said, the only thing good about this kind of weather in September is that it’s September, which means it can’t last for too much longer.

Any time now, El Nino.

I’m a little hard pressed to come up with blog post tonight. My excuse: been deep in trip blogging and have run out of steam….

But if you’re so inclined, shoot over to August 7 to see what I’ve been working on this evening!

Meanwhile, on a field not too far from here, a low-energy game of over-25s baseball is being played in the 90-degree heat to a very sparse crowd, sitting in small clusters under limited, late-afternoon shade. Alone in the announcer’s booth sits one Peter Frame, running the boards like a boss.

A bit ago, he texted his mom requesting she bring him a sandwich–footlong steak toasted with provolone, lettuce, tomatoes, extra red onions, banana peppers, chipotle and ranch.

Happy to oblige.

We had dinner tonight at Rick’s wonderful little compound in the foothills–the Flying Fish Mine. I’m sure I’ve heard the story, but I’ve forgotten how it got its name (way, way back when).  In any case, it’s a very sweet, peaceful place among the pines.

Always good to get together with our hiking buddies (minus a few for one reason or another), especially during election season (isn’t it always). Lots of ground covered and lots of political prognosticating. More than fish flew tonight.

If Jerry Brown enters the race for President, you can thank/blame us…. or at least trace it back to predictions proffered over a couple bottles of wine at the Flying Fish Mine.

Dinner was lovely…

The company sparkling…

It was a lovely day for a bike ride. Bike riding, while pleasant enough, is not one of my all-time favorite forms of exercise. But it is turning into a pretty good way to get a much needed cardio workout these days… easy on the hip, as it turns out.

But rather than drift into a sorry discourse on hip issues, how ’bout some nice shots from South Davis…

A bit too dappled to appreciate the charm of this two-story shack along the bike path. I thought if I used the toy camera filter, I could hide the city’s very uncharming 8 1/2×11 flyers-in-sheet-protectors–tacky!–that tell people not to trespass. Sigh.. whattaya gonna do.

Along a fork of the Putah–off to the left–super shady, and while it looks deserted, it was actually full of walkers, runners, bike riders and dog walkers for most of the way. Who ARE all these people… I did not recognize a soul.

Not my usual side of town, I guess.

And finally a nice view south out by the Putah Creek winery. Nice spot…

I should take my car to Honda more often…. nice excuse for a bike ride.

The good news is my mom’s back home, after nearly three days in the hospital. The other good news, I guess, is that she’s as testy and feisty as ever.

Welcome home, mom!

Here’s a picture taken a couple years ago at her favorite spot along the Esplanade. Here’s hoping she gets down to the beach for a nice walk soon!

Somebody asked me about our trip today and it was a chance to reflect in a deeper way about some of the more meaningful aspects of our little adventure.

What’s going to stand out most, especially as time goes on, was the opportunity to spend extended, quality time with Peter. Truly. The definition of quality time: all three of us ready, relaxed and happy, with nothing to do but open our eyes, hearts and minds and let a whole bunch of new and exciting adventures wash over us. And talk about them. And talk about everything else under the sun, including lots of physics and way too much Donald Trump. And eat.

Perfect quality time, right?

From start to finish, Peter was a delight. He was a mature, young adult, ready to experience all kinds of new things, and perfectly happy to be sharing them all with us. In fact, I think he actually enjoyed us. Not a single obnoxious teenage moment. He was a little hard to get up some mornings, and once he threw up all over a shirt I was going to wear, but aside from that, he was extremely fun to be with. He totally, totally rose to the occasion.

Not that it’s a significant measure of adulthood, but he drank coffee with me in the mornings (with cream and sugar). On our last night in Paris, he had his first beer (at least the first that he’ll admit to). He had clear ideas of what he wanted to do and asserted them. He wanted to step out on Kjeragbolten in Norway, he wanted to go to the watch museum in Geneva, he wanted to see a Michaelangelo in the Louvre. Just a few examples, but he had no trouble making his wishes known. No trouble stepping up.

One of my greatest satisfactions was exposing him to European travel. He’s been to Italy, but he was so young. He’s traveled to Brazil and Costa Rica, but again, he was so young, and on those trips distracted and/or insulated by friends and family. Europe is so accessible, so familiar–western–yet different enough to be eye opening and expanding. Far enough away to offer new perspectives. Far enough away to feel far away. Now that he’s nearly an adult, with a whole new global curiosity, he’s coming to understand what travel is about; this trip provided him with some context for future travel. Meeting Leslie and Svein’s smart and pretty daughters and their very cool boyfriends and hearing about all their easy-peasy-drop-of-a-hat trips around the continent, and seeing other young people in train stations, I think gave him a sense that traveling around Europe was something he could do, too. When I suggested it to him before, he was unenthused. Now the opposite.

That alone made the 45 billion dollars we spent on this trip worth it.

And did I mention he was awesome to hang out with? That I enjoyed [just about] every conversation we had? (I did.) One big bonding fest, I’m tellin’ ya.

We’re back home now, and roles and routines are pretty much what they were before we left, but while it’s not exactly measurable, I think he was changed by the experience. I think he expanded, and learned, a ton.

All I could ever want.

Sooooo…. I’ll be blogging the trip, backfilling, posting lots of pictures. Could take a while. In the meantime, here’s a picture taken on our first full day in Norway…..some fjord outside Stavanger on our way to hike to Preikestolen…. (shot over my shoulder, through the window of a moving vehicle)…

…. a hint of things to come.

Because I can’t help myself… because these guys are just. so. damn. cute….

Unless they received two such gizmos, this is the thing we gave them at one of the many showers held before River’s arrival. It’s a round, padded blanket attached to a pair of padded arches which support dangly, colorful padded items one can bat about.

Peter had such a thing–we called it the Dome of Pleasure. It was a very popular item in the rotation… read: held his attention for great gobs of time. We have a ridiculous amount of video of Peter batting those items around, with a look very similar to River’s (and John’s).

Also in the rotation: the Vibromatic (vibrating chair); the Bouncy Swing; the Wind-Up Swinging Chair; the Barcolounger (a portable crib-like unit with a mobile overhead); and something whose nickname I cannot remember, but Peter sat inside it with a 360-degree table surrounding him full of manipulatable items.

Those were definitely funny days.

*John posted this photo to Facebook a couple days ago on his 30th birthday with this caption:

“A 30-year-old can learn a lot from a 30-day-old…Thanks for the birthday wishes. We’ll be chilling in our “pack n’ play” if you need us!”