Life of Wry

I’m a little short on subject matter for the day, blogly speaking.  I could use a picture I took tonight at the annual Little League District 64 9-10 Tournament, at which I was a scorekeeper (no surprise), and how cool it was because, after all these years, they’ve built a deluxe, permanent booth for the scorekeepers and announcers behind the plate on the west field, but that would be a baseball picture, and I thought maybe I’d give it a rest.

Here it is anyway:

The real thing to notice about this shot is the size of those players.  Cute.  (That would be Dixon v. Vacaville Central… take you back?)

Instead, I’m going to run with a shot of Jim’s handiwork… the mount mentioned in yesterday’s post, the one he built out of a branch from the front yard sycamore tree, on which will hang Peter’s new guitar.

So… here is the before:

Here is the after, after relocating a couple mountain photos:

And here is a close-up.  Clever guy.

I realize it’s a bit hard to appreciate… the room was dark and boosting the light in my very sophisticated iPhone-based photo-editing program didn’t really help the image much.  But there it is.

And yeah, I really did just blog about a guitar mount.  Desperado here at twenty-to-midnight.

Milestone birthday today.

I just think the world of this young man.  Here is a snap shot of who he is, as of June 24, 2014

He’s a nice guy.

He’s very into music. 

He still enjoys playing baseball.

He has a bunch of long-standing, great friends. 

School’s not too bad. 

He’s driving.

He’s okay hanging out with us (when that happens).

He’s independent, confident and comfortable with himself.

He loves to hike, loves to climb mountains, loves the Sierra.

Acne’s fading, braces are coming off soon. 

As I write this, he’s working on a Pink Floyd song. 

Here are some birthday shots:

We had dinner at the Buckhorn in Winters. Jim and I had fish dishes, Peter had ribs, a petite filet wrapped with bacon and some deep fried prawns. And some thin onion rings. And root beer. And their special birthday ice cream cake. (Lordy.)

Peter was behind the wheel; it was a lovely drive:

We came home for dessert (round two for some of us):

This year, Peter wanted a coconut cream pie, which I made this afternoon and finished just before we took off for Winters. First time I’ve ever made one of these. Picked a recipe called the Triple-Threat CC Pie which won a prize at somebody’s state fair. They say.

Here you can see the custard part (coconut milk, whole milk, sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, coconut extract, butter, vanilla, and toasted coconut). And in the background you can see the crust… a basic crust with pieces of toasted coconut embedded.  The top layer was whipped cream with added vanilla and I sprinkled over the very top more toasted coconut and shaved white chocolate. It turned out quite okay, if you like that sort of pie.

Here what it looked like in the end:

So, anyway, we each had a piece and then it was time for presents. Peter got birthday cards and birthday money from grandma, uncles, aunts, etc. From us, he got a t-shirt with a representation of the standard model something we learned about in that documentary about the Higgs Boson particle (Particle Fever) that we saw on Jim’s birthday and Peter loved; a planner (what organizationally-challenged high school junior doesn’t need one of those?); and mount that Jim made out of a branch from Peter’s sycamore tree (the tree we planted in our front yard when Peter was born and which was initially fertilized by Peter’s placenta.. uh, yeah).  After he opened that, and politely said, “Cool,” Jim said, “Wait, did we forget one?” and looks at me, and I go, “Oh, yeah, there’s one other, I’ll go get it,” and I go away and come back with a big box that seems a lot more promising and Peter opens it and it has a guitar in it. Aren’t we just the funniest parents?  So here’s that:

The sycamore branch mount will go somewhere on a wall in Peter’s room so the guitar will be at the ready any time. That is very cool, no?

All in all, a nice birthday for our great kid:

Mom isn’t feeling well and we’re all a little worried. Her COPD’s been in a steady state for a few good years now… little ups and downs, but mostly she’s able, through medication, to keep all her systems in balance… a very, very delicate balance.  But, if she gets a bug, it’s a big deal because that throws things off. She’s got the constitution of… I don’t know what… but she’s amazingly strong. Over her lifetime, she just never got sick.  I’m not kidding, she’s got an amazing immune system. I always say that had she not smoked, she’d have lived to be 110. I have no doubt.

So, yeah, she’s got a bug of some sort and it’s hit her hard. Her weakness is scaring her and she’s feeling down and defeated. But, she’s a strong and feisty one, and I’m guessing she’ll get to the other side of this latest bout. 

I am grateful for Matty and Chris who are handing things locally, as I sit here 425 miles away unable to do much, and Jay’s in Thailand able to do even less. 

So… this picture. I don’t think it’s mine… I think it may be one Jay took on his last visit. I can see it’s taken on the beach in front of Aunt Ellie and Uncle Bud’s house, so was probably this past Spring, or maybe as long ago as last Fall.  Not bad for 85. Nobody would believe that’s her hair, but it is–still thick, still dyed. 

Anyway. Thinking about her a lot today.  Go mom, and don’t be sad! You can do this. 

Ya know… ?  I try to find other things to talk about.. I do.  But right now? It’s baseball, so forgive me… or don’t… I must post another baseball photo.  This one comes courtesy of Wes Young (thanks, Wes!), and was taken today in Napa.

What I love about it: check out the elevations!  Man… when did Peter become the tallest guy on the mound? Or anywhere? But here, and I don’t think it’s the terrain, he towers. Looks like a pretty fun mound visit, no?  Lot of smiles. 

(Today’s Junior Legion infield: Peter (3rd), Mason (catcher), Chris (short), Gabe (pitcher), coach Jaret, Max (2nd) and Ray (1st)) 

What a lovely, lovely morning it was. We left Davis very early and in sweatshirts.. it was that cool. Picked up Solly, coffee for the road, and arrived with lots of time to spare. The boys hung out in the parking lot waiting for the others to show up. While waiting, they played Quiz-Up on Peter’s phone. Quiz-Up is an app that connects you to others worldwide who log in to play a 6-question quiz on just about any topic you can imagine. You choose a topic, they connect you with someone else who at that very moment has also chosen that topic (there is always someone, amazingly enough) and you both answer the six multiple choice questions. The one who gets the most correct answers wins. Game over. On to the next topic and set of questions. It’s kinda mind blowing. And fun. 

Anyway, they did that:

And bonus: they won 5-4 (the baseball game, that is). Not elegantly… Peter had one of Davis’ two errors (his was costly)… but it was a fun and gorgeous day for baseball. 

Men at Work:

Post game field care. This always warms my heart… mostly because we can’t really get Peter to do much in the way of manual labor at home…. or, I should say, we haven’t demanded it of him.  But the coaches do.  And he complies. Reasonably happily.

Men Working Things Out.

Peter and Solly, rakes in hand, gave third base a good work over. They were deep in conversation the whole time. Working it out.

Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite New Yorker cartoons:

(And man, don’t you just love the internet? I saw this in a New Yorker magazine about 30 years ago. I loved it. I cut it out. I kept it. It’s somewhere. I went to Google, typed “Men Working Things Out”, New Yorker cartoon, and up this popped, #1. Saved image to my desktop and uploaded to WordPress. All in about 20 seconds. Kuh razy.)

This cracked me up.

With Peter playing on two baseball teams this summer, a day hardly goes by when he isn’t playing in a baseball game, or having some kind of team practice. So, what does he do when he’s got some down time?

He’s carrying a bucket of balls, two bats, and a rubber T across the street to practice hitting. By himself. After spending a good part of the day with the varsity team at the Dustin Pedroia Summer Classic Baseball Tournament in Woodland. Tomorrow, a double header with the Junior Legion team.

They all put in this kind of time. They either love baseball or are extremely motivated. Or both. They all amaze me.

I snuck this photo as Jim and I were heading downtown for dinner and movie. Slackers. 

… get much better than this.

As summer baseball goes, anyway.  I’ve written about Clark Field in Woodland before… as it turns out, my Post 77 Boys blog post is one of the most read in my whole Life of Wry blog-o-verse… which has more to do with search engines and search queries and the fact there are a whole lot of people in the world interested in the American Legion baseball league, and less about my little ol’ blog post…. but here’s a link to it anyway, The Post 77 Boys from June 15, 2011.

So tonight? The summer varsity squad played under the lights on a warm (though not nearly as warm as the night I described three years ago), windless evening, on a field as beautiful and lush as the one I described back then. Only this time, Peter wasn’t the bat boy, he was the pitcher. And while not the biggest guy on the field, he wasn’t the shrimpy guy he was back then, either.

It was fun (very fun), he pitched well (quite well), and he gets to pitch again for the team next week. We might call that living to pitch (yet) another tournament.

Jim took some pictures. I like the effect through the heavy duty chain link fence.

A couple weeks ago, with Ruben’s help, we removed the last of the tangelo tree from our front yard. We are going to plant another, smaller, tree, but are waiting until the fall. In the meantime, we decided today to plant some summer grub.

From the front, here is our temporary garden patch:

And here it is from the path:

And this is what we got: 1) one regular red tomato, 2) one yellow cherry tomato, 3) two eggplants, 4) two different zucchinis, 5) one habanero chili pepper, 6) one serrano chili pepper, 7) one anaheim chili pepper, 8) two basils.

Eleven things.

But you know what really killed my back today? This stupid thing:

I finally decided it was time to clear the weeds that are growing in our sidewalk cracks. We are definitely bringing the neighborhood down with these weeds… we are looking very low-rent here at 609. Which is ridiculous for all the work Frances and I put into the yard… so.. I went at it.  But those guys are deep and hard to get. Other people probably use Round Up or a torch or something. I’m using this wonderful claw-on-a-stick that Jim made for this purpose. And it’s so clever, I think I’ll have him finish the job… because the above is as far as I got.  It’s all muddy because my other great idea was to soak the weeds so the dirt would soften and the weeds would come out easier.  I think all I did was provide water for the weeds so they’ll propagate more readily.

Anyway…

As a side note: I was so spent after my 4+ hours out there, I retreated to the backyard hammock and lay there for about three hours. The hammock’s nearly a daily thing so far this summer and I’m getting it down: I lay a camping pad over the hammock for softness, put a pillow down for my head (that was today’s new addition), set up a short stool next to me for my book, iPad, iPhone and something to drink.  I’ve rigged a rope between the hammock and a nearby tree which I use to get optimal swing. Then… I alternate activities: play Spider on my iPad while listening to music on my iPhone, or check Facebook on either device while listening to music, or read, or make calls, or text people. All while swinging in the shade. One of these days, I’ll be successful with the nap thing. Probably not ’til I’m 80. But I’ll keep working at it.

I was so happy, I about cried.

Took a drive on Pleasants Valley Road this evening with Peter. Heard all about today’s baseball practice, the car he’d get if he could get any car, his opinion of students who strategically pad their academic resumes with faux community service projects, and his theories on the proper way to brake a vehicle.

Among many other things.

Monkeyed around with some photo FX (monkeyed around, get it?):

What dad wouldn’t be happy with a son like that? And what son wouldn’t be happy with a dad like that? I’m totally biased, of course, but I think they both struck gold.