The Ballgame

I don’t like sports, I’ll be honest. Well…let me clarify. I don’t like watching sports on TV. It feels hollow. Sort of like a scary movie that you watch at home. It can still be a frightening experience, but nothing compares to the moments when you’re holding your breath in a darkened room…..watching a story unfold on a screen three stories high…..feeling like you too could be chopped into little pieces by a masked man.

Then there’s that nanosecond when you think you’ve won. You’ve beat him. Outsmarted him to die another day (sorry I’m a huge James Bond fan). Deep down though you know you’re fish food. Then he strikes…. and your heart leaps out of your chest and you grab the arm of the (hopefully devastatingly handsome) man you’re with….the contact bringing you back to earth.

Watching sports live can sometimes be like that. That’s what I enjoy, the shared emotional experience. The human condition so blatantly displayed. Sounds a lot like life hmmmm? I recently found myself at a game for our local baseball team. What are they called do you ask? Well prepare yourself to be scared again. To be so frightened by the name of our team that Zeus himself would fall from Olympus and the beams of the The Coliseum would tremble. Our local team is called The Flying Squirrels. I know….it’s bad. It’s really bad. And that was actually the best name out of all the ones they considered. I don’t meant to be down on the fellas. I’m sure they’re lovely, talented guys. But yeah…the name sucks.

You realize much later in life what playing sports teaches you when you’re little. Teamwork, practice, triumph, dealing with disappointment. I actually played baseball for a while. In California they didn’t have a girls team so I actually was the only girl on an all-boys team. I wore pink pants to every practice.

Anyway….I was at the game with my great friends Miranda and Jeff. Miranda and I have been friends since 9^th grade Earth Science and she knows every horrible thing about me and still loves me, a miracle within itself. Jeff is really hot so we let him hang around us because it helps our street cred (that’s short for credential…all the kids are saying it these days).

Jeff and Miranda bestowed a great honor on me when they asked me to be their daughter Carolina’s Godmother. I will endeavour to try and teach her something useful about life. I keep thinking they will rescind the offer when they realize this is all of the wisdom I actually have to teach her…

1. How to make the perfect dirty martini.

2. An appreciation for Christopher Guest movies.

3. Never date a man who says the phrase “I work hard and play hard”.

4. Pay attention in math. Your Godmother didn’t and now has to count on her fingers when she adds the tip.

5. I have become death, the destroyer of worlds…..even Oppenheimer paid a price.

Her life will inevitably be a ballgame. She’ll need to learn the rules, but I have no doubt she’ll bend them to her will and take this world by storm. Love you baby girl. 

{ The one's for you Kathy! Although I greatly enjoyed taking the shot. }