Baseball Game!!

I love baseball. As my friend Kathy said, "Sometimes baseball is just what the doctor ordered." Here's what happened at the Astros game tonight:

* I ate a hot dog. Normally I go with the chili cheese dog, but this time I went with mustard, ketchup, and relish. Delicious!

* I was still hungry, so I got some nachos, too. I didn't eat the whole thing, just a third.

* I had a beer and half. One Miller Lite and one Bud Lite. They both tasted pretty bad.

* There were two 24-year-old girls sitting behind Kathy and me, complaining for 3 innings about how their boyfriends who are studying for the BAR EXAM aren't paying enough attention to them. They made me a little embarassed to be a woman. They spent the next 3 innings complaining about how they don't get enough respect at work. Then they left. THANK GOD.

* The pitcher, Moehler, whom I don't know, pitched 8 2/3 innings. It was FANTASTIC. He let two guys get on base in the 9th, and they pulled him out after his 100th pitch. We gave him a standing ovation when he left the mound.

* I saw Lance Berkman hit the ball into the pitcher's stomach. I'm not saying that's something I want to see every day, but holy moly -- I can't believe Arroyo was able to breathe!

* And then Arroyo hit Berkman. Bad pitcher. Bad.

* Which is ok, because Carlos Lee came up and hit a home run. With the bases loaded. In baseball parlance, we call that a GRAND SLAM. FREAKING AWESOME!!!

* Astros won, 6-2.

I know they're not great, but I love them anyway.

Skirmish

On my flight back from DC last week, there was a skirmish. With the charge for baggage these days, there's even more competition than ever to get bags in the overhead compartment. It means that it's even more of a douchebag move than ever to put all of your bags in the overhead when you have a seat in front of you.

I was in the second row of coach, and a woman sitting across the aisle in the first row (we'll call her Lady A) started freaking out. Apparently, the woman sitting in the aisle seat of my half row (we'll call her Lady B) took Lady A's bag out, because she felt like it belonged under the seat in front of its owner. (In Catherineland, sitting in the bulkhead row is the only excuse for putting everything in the overhead). Lady A started yelling about it and how expensive her bag was and asked to talk to a flight attendant, who offered to find her a customer service representative. Lady B continued to act as if she'd done nothing wrong, and then started complaining of back pain. The customer service agent took Lady A out to the jetway, and Lady B started whining that she hadn't done anything wrong and that there wasn't enough room for her bag.

The sour-faced lady who sat in front of Lady B apparently had had enough, because she turned around and said, "What you did was EXCEPTIONALLY rude. EXCEPTIONALLY." And then she stormed out to the jetway as well. Lady B mocked the "exceptionally" so the guy across the aisle from her also started to rebuke her. And then Lady B started with the, "I'm tired and don't feel well, and I'm just trying to make room for my bag."

The guy sitting between us tried to reason with her. And that's when I put my earplugs in.

I consider putting all of your bags in the overhead to be a cardinal sin (it's only the 1,349th time I've written about it here), but holy moly, MOVING someone's bag OUT of the overhead compartment to make room for yours, and then WHINING when you get called out on it? That takes some serious moxie. Where do these people come from???

"Where?" Update

Ok, on the heels of the previous post, here's my travel schedule:

August 4-5: NYC (work)
August 7-19: Australia (work)
August 19-22: DC (work)
August 23-31: ITALY (NOT WORK!!!)
September 2-5: NEW ORLEANS (NOT WORK! Well, I'll have to do some work, but I'm not traveling for work, if that makes sense.)
September 7-9: Dallas (work)
September 9-12: Silicon Valley (work)
September 16-19: NYC (work, but I'm also going to Yankee Stadium one evening)
September 23-24: NYC (work)
September 29-October 4: San Francisco (work)

I am insane for scheduling that trip to Italy.

All I Ever Wanted

Oh, my gosh -- I'm going on a real vacation! I'm taking the last week of August off, and possibly the first week of September, and I was toying with the idea of going on a road trip to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands (I love saying "Badlands" -- try saying it with gusto, and you'll understand why). But the thought of being in the car for 20 hours there and 20 hours back made me feel tired, and while I can accept the idea of being tired after vacation, it seems wrong to dread vacation.

I've been wanting to go to Italian cooking school. I read about it somewhere four years ago, and bookmarked it on my computer. And every now and then, I'd pull up the page and think "next year." It's not a cheap vacation, and I doubt Suze Orman would approve of me going (she's the reason I'm not buying a new car), but I'm excited about going, and I need a real vacation. I think the last one I went on was in 2004 when Heather and I took the QM2 from New York City to Southampton and then spent a week in Ireland.

I do a lot of staycations -- vacations where I stay at home. I'll clean my pigsty of an apartment and run errands, basically taking time off to do the things I don't do because I'm traveling. I get a lot of rest during these vacations, but I don't think they actually recharge my batteries, and I desperately need my batteries to be recharged.

My mom's worried that I'm traveling by myself, and she thinks I'd have more fun if I were with a friend (she was gracious enough not to suggest it as a honeymoon), but I explained to her that I've been wanting to do this for four years, and it's hard to find someone willing to drop the amount of money this is going to take. The only reason I can sort of afford it is because I'm using (a lot of) miles for the plane ticket. She's still worried, thinking that there's safety in numbers, which, of course, there is, but I feel like I delay doing a lot of things because there's safety in numbers, and I'm just one. I'm in a rut, and I need to shake things up and get out of it.

I'm looking forward to walking around in the hazelnut and apple orchards on the property of the school. I'm looking forward to sitting by the pool, slathered in sunblock and catching up on my reading (I think my suitcase is going to be kind of heavy). I'm looking forward to not having any connectivity and not being able to check e-mail. And most of all, I'm looking forward to having the time away from my life to figure out what I really want and what I should be doing.

After I get back, I'm going to take a day to catch my breath, and then Liz and I have plans to go to New Orleans. The W in the French Quarter is having a crazy deal, probably because it's hotter than hell in Louisiana in the late summer and nobody in their right minds wants to be there. I've never been to New Orleans, though, and the shorter road trip sounds like fun rather than a burden. And also -- BEIGNETS. I'm a sucker for deep fried dough.

I'm hoping that at the end of it all, I'll be exhausted but rejuvenated with a fresh outlook on life and some mad Italian cooking skillz. I'll let you know how it goes!

Confession

I spent Sunday on the couch watching various tv show marathons on USA and A&E and Bravo instead of cleaning my horribly messy apartment. And my new BrickBreaker high score is 135,360. I think the game could have gone on infinitely, because I had 53 lives when the little ball disappeared.

I have GOT to get a life.

List

Here's a partial list of movies that I will stop and watch on tv no matter what else I'm doing:

Starship Troopers (previously discussed here)
The Shawshank Redemption (I've never seen this entire movie)
While You Were Sleeping
Roadhouse (I've never seen this entire movie, either)
Any of the Thin Man movies
Ocean's Eleven
The Bourne movies
Tomb Raiders I and II

Here's a movie I've seen four times this month on my Continental flights to and from DC and will likely watch again later this week:

Penelope (I would say that it exceeded all my expectations, except that I didn't have any because I hadn't heard of it. It's a good movie for little girls. I could nitpick certain things, but it's just too freaking charming.)

And the procrastination section of the evening is complete. Big meeting tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Pure Joy

If you're having a bad day, I guarantee this will make it better.



Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Fairy Godmother

I'm lucky to have a lot of really great friends. It's arguable as to whether it's right or nice for me to drop friends the way I do when I stop having respect for them or when I have the realization that I don't enjoy spending time with them at all, but what it means is that the friends I do have are all amazing.

Yesterday, one of those friends showed me just how amazing she is. Tuesday was a horrible day at the office, mostly because it wasn't supposed to be a day at the office. I'll go into more detail in another entry about what happened from my perspective (because as usual at the office, my perspective doesn't matter), but it's enough to know that I spent a good two hours of the day crying.

On Wednesday morning, Shana sent me an e-mail message that she had a present for me. That's Shana all over -- even though she's had a horrible year, not just a horrible day, and she needs to take a break more than any other person I know, she got me a present to make me feel better.

Only it wasn't a present. It was a MILLION presents. I walked into her office and found a huge, yellow gift bag (the size of a Nordstrom shopping bag) with an 8.5X11 label that said "The 'Because I Can't Stand to See Catherine This Unhappy' Present'" (paraphrasing) FILLED with individually wrapped gifts, all with funny notes on them (again, paraphrased so you at least get an idea of how awesome this bag was).

I'm going to try to list them, but I know I'll forget some because there was SO MUCH (I had to leave the bag at the office because there was TOO MUCH STUFF to fit in my suitcase!!): a package of plastic paratroopers ("for when you feel like throwing something"), a pack of kiwi-watermelon gum, Tootsie Rolls, animal crackers ("it's a snack AND a purse -- what could be better?"), Kashi cookies, a fuzzy poster, a Bratz paper doll book, lip gloss, a yellow bracelet (which I wore home), star-shaped Post-It notes, multi-colored pens ("because you are also colorful and bold!"), a self-inking stamp that says "Terrific!", stickers that say "A+" and "Great Job!", a huge, smelly candle, bubble bath, and a tiny, stuffed rabbit. I know there's more (I'm surprised the bag was strong enough to hold everything), and when I'm back in the office and can do an in-person inventory, I will.

That gift bag might have been the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. Just knowing that Shana got me a present was enough to lift my spirits yesterday, but seeing the thought and effort that she put into it got me peacefully and affably through a dress rehearsal where I actually wanted to set people on fire many times.

I have a fairy godmother, and her name is Shana.

A Small Nugget of Match Gold

I got a nibble on Match:

From: Him
Date: June 26

#1 Airline Baggage- Here is my rule, if you have to have wheels on your luggage to carry it, you have too much stuff. [EDITOR'S NOTE: seriously? You've bothered to read my profile, so huge props to you, but that means you must know that I travel a lot for business, and you're being all judgmental about luggage with wheels? Not smart.]

#2 Five things- Are you counting smart and funny as separate items? [EDITOR'S NOTE: just as a reminder, in my profile I write that I'm looking for five things in a man: smart, funny, can take care of himself, has whimsy in his heart, and is totally into me. Use your fingers and count them out, dude. And in what universe are smart and funny equivalent? There are plenty of people who are smart and not at all funny, and there are people I think are funny, but they're not all that smart.]

#3 Infield fly rule- What is wrong with the infield fly rule. I think it has served us well for the last century. [EDITOR'S NOTE: valid question, but if you're a baseball fan, you know what the divide is over the infield fly rule. I appreciate your attempt to engage me here, but this is intellectually lazy.]

#4 National league- Look if the pitcher doesn't bat, he really isn't a baseball player, so you are correct there. Interleague play is also an abomination. What's next? Cheerleaders? Here's what you can do to promote your team: ball day, bat day, helmet day, and for the Chicago White Sox, midget batters and that's it. Enough with the the astroturf, indoor stadiums, and night games at Wrigley Field. And enough with the steroids. If you don't have enough self-respect to stay off the juice, you don't belong in the show. As far as I'm concerned, Barry Bond's home run total is -0-. Sorry, I'm getting carried away here, next subject. [EDITOR'S NOTE: there's a little too much edge in this, but I ignored it as me just being picky and crazy. Little did I know. I do have to say, though, that were it not for indoor stadiums, not a lot of baseball would get played in Seattle, and not a lot of people would go to the games in Seattle or Houston. Too rainy in Seattle, and too freaking hot in Houston. Retractable roofs RULE.]

#5 Hockey? I guess women have a thing for hockey players but I've never figured out why. [EDITOR'S NOTE: my liking hockey has nothing to do with the individual players. It has to do with the speed and the ethical and behavioral code. Interesting that he went straight for what he perceives to be the only reason a woman would be interested in a sport.]

OK, that's it, I'll shut up now.

If you liked Liar's Poker because of the business climate in the 1980's, you might like The Predator's Ball or Highly Confident. I'd stay away from Den of Thieves. I just remember reading in Highly Confident that Michael Milken used to get picked up from his house @ 4:00 AM to get to work before the trading desk in New York opened, and I remember thinking, "that guy really has the eye of the tiger." He also started investing money for people by taking 50% of the profits, but 100% of the losses, and I thought the guy had iron ones. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I guess you could say he had iron ones, but he also went to prison for breaking the law, so I think that all evens out. I'm appalled that he admires Milken, frankly.]

If you liked Liar's Poker because of the juvenile humor and absurdity perpetuated by the world's most powerful men, Masters of the Universe as Wolfe called them, and you like baseball, I'd read Ball Four, of course and The Bronx Zoo. [EDITOR'S NOTE: excellent book recommendations -- he put some thought into it.]

Ok, at this point, I'm willing to go read this guy's profile. And here's what I discovered: he lives 2 hours away from me, he is separated from his wife (separated, not yet divorced, divorce is apparently in process), and he's only looking for Asian women. That's strikes 1, 2, and 3, all in pretty short order.

I know I don't owe these guys anything, but this one, while kind of a jerk, actually read and responded to my profile. He deserved a response according to the code in Catherineland. Here's what I wrote:

From: Me
Date: July 7

#1 Airline baggage: I disagree. I don't care how much luggage it takes you to survive your business trip -- just don't put all of it and your jacket in the overhead compartment.

#2 Yes. I know a lot of people who are smart and not at all funny, and several funny people who aren't that smart.

#3 Infield fly rule: it overcomplicates the game. And really -- to avoid an "unfair" out? Whatever.

#4 I agree

#5 Hockey: the game is fast and fair. Women like hockey players because they strike us as having some Neanderthal-like tendencies. We don't like it most of the time, but during three periods of hockey, it's attractive.

Thanks for the book recommendations.

To be totally honest here, I have insurmountable concerns about the fact that you live in [city edited out], that you're not yet divorced, and that you're only looking for Asian women, but I appreciate you writing.

I think that was fairly reasonable and friendly. Apparently, what I think is incorrect, because here's the response that got him onto the blog:

From: Him
Date: July 8

Literatechick-

That is a pretty nice way of putting it, insurmountable. I like that. But, of course, you are right. I am separated and not divorced which is a pretty big deal. Also, you were probably in the 5th grade when I graduated from High School and you are a lot better looking that I. [EDITOR'S NOTE: grammar error and typo. Why, yes, I'm kind of a bitch. Thanks for asking. All by itself, this paragraph seems relatively friendly and accepting, but in reality, it's passive aggressive. The next paragraph is what led me to labeling this as passive aggressive and what made this e-mail string blog-worthy.]

If you ever need help with the "overly complicated" infield fly rule, let me know. I understand a lot of women have a problem with this. You just have to understand that the game of baseball was designed by men, for men, and they didn't really take into account having to explain things to a bunch of women back in those days. Today, women can watch baseball just like men, although most of them still throw like girls. [EDITOR'S NOTE: where to start? I didn't say I found the infield fly rule overly complicated. I said that it unnecessarily complicates the game. As someone who has an opinion on the infield fly rule, I probably don't really need help with it. I do appreciate that he thinks it's ok for women to watch baseball, although since we don't play in Major League Baseball, I'm not sure what difference it makes that girls throw like girls. Seriously -- does he think that being a little bitch like this is going to get me to write him back? You're trying to manipulate the wrong chick, buddy. Misogynistic much?]

One last thing. I am not just looking for Asian women. It's not like this is an exclusive thing. It's just the Seinfeld/Changstein effect. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I don't watch Seinfeld. I have no idea what he's talking about here. But in his profile, he has ONLY selected Asian in the races that he's interested in pursuing. So maybe he's not creepy, just dumb.]
[name edited out]

This guy makes me happy to be single!

Long weekend

This past week, my family went to visit my grandfather in Chicago. He turned 89 in June (in Korean years, because of the way they calculate birthdays, which is based on the New Year, rather than your actual birthday, and no, I don't fully understand it myself, he's 90), and he called my mother a couple of months ago and asked her to come to Chicago and take the things from his apartment that she wanted before he called her brothers and told them to do the same thing. My mother has been crying nearly every day since.

I could only go from July 2-5 (unfortunately, the script won't write itself), but my sister is there until tomorrow, and my parents will be there until Tuesday. My grandfather hasn't been completely independent in a while, but he was able to go to Korea for a visit a couple of years ago with my mom, and he and I had dinner the night that the drunk driver nearly killed me last year (was it the year before?). I wasn't completely prepared for how much his quality of life has deteriorated.

He has to use a walker to get from the bed in the living room, where he watches Korean tv, to the bathroom in his tiny apartment. For longer trips, he has a wheelchair. He's diabetic, and he has Parkinson's, so he has to take a lot of medication 3-4 times a day. My aunt has hired a couple in their 50s and 60s to take care of him on a daily basis and get him to doctor's appointments, and there are other specialists who come on a weekly basis for things like a bath (I think showering alone is difficult for him) or therapeutic massage. It's difficult for him to sit unsupported for long stretches of time. And a lot of times he zones out because it takes too much energy for him to pay attention and participate in conversation. He hasn't lost his mental faculties -- he's still as sharp as ever. He is truly zoning out because he's tired.

My mother has two brothers in the Chicago area. One does kind of a half-baked job looking in on him and visiting with him, and the other one, the oldest of my mother's three brothers, doesn't even bother to try. In past years, when all of us would get together, and Grandpa was in much better health, at least one dinner would involve my mother (who's the oldest) and my uncles and my aunt reminiscing, which would devolve into complaining about all the unhappy memories they have from their childhood. My grandfather is the kind of person who made sure that all of his family's basic needs were met, and then he would use any leftover money to help people less fortunate than they were. My mother and her siblings have varying levels of resentment over this, but it's particularly acute in my uncles. They blame my grandfather for not giving them a better start in life, and so now, they don't take care of him. It enrages my mother, my aunt, my sister, and me, but my mother and my aunt have done everything she can to try to force my uncles to do the right thing, and they won't.

The rage is exacerbated by the knowledge that while my grandfather probably doesn't have much time left, he would have more if his spirits were higher, which they would be if he saw his family more often. He doesn't have the ability to see any of his friends, who I think have all predeceased him anyway, so all he has left is family. My parents are in Dallas, my sister is in Austin, and I'm in Houston. I should have done a much better job visiting him over the past 5 years, as often as I'm in Chicago for work. I don't really have a good excuse, except that the language barrier is really hard, and it's not easy to get to his place and back to work in a time-efficient manner. Really lame. Really just about as lame as being resentful about a crappy childhood.

I asked my dad why my parents don't move him to Dallas. He said that it's partly that Grandpa's doctors and caregivers, all of whom are Korean, are in Chicago, and partly it's that he gets a lot of assistance from the State of Illinois, a lot more than he would get from the State of Texas. My sister says that it's also partly because my dad doesn't want to live with his father-in-law. I didn't ask about that issue because I'm not ready to see my dad as being that selfish. I understand that my grandfather is not an easy man to live with, and that it would be uncomfortable having someone senior to you in the Korean pecking order living in your own house, but like I said, my grandfather doesn't have much time left.

Something I always wanted to do was to ask my grandfather to tell some stories of his childhood, so they could be written down somewhere, not necessarily as a book to be published, but just as something for my family to have. There's a picture of my great-grandparents in Grandpa's apartment, and my mother told me that Grandpa was the last of 3 boys, which I knew. What I didn't know is that he was the youngest by about 8 or 9 years, and that when he was born, his mother was so malnourished that her breast milk wasn't very nourishing, either. I guess there wasn't much food in general -- my grandfather was 4 or 5 before he was able to walk. These are the stories that I wish I had learned enough Korean to ask him about myself.

My grandfather and his brothers may have been the most enlightened men in Korea for their generation. My mother is the oldest of five; it's her, the rotten uncle, my uncle in New Mexico, my superstressed uncle, and then my aunt. During their childhood, it would have been really easy for my grandfather to focus all of his resources on educating his sons and ignoring the education of his daughters. But instead, he said regardless of whether you're a boy or a girl, I have an obligation to make sure you have the same opportunities for education.

I always thought that was the influence of my grandmother, who was a teacher. (I'm pretty sure my uncles would be taking better care of my grandparents if she were still alive, but she died the year before I graduated from high shcool. She was the one person in the whole world who was always on my side no matter what and thought that I could do no wrong. My mother has always looked young for her age, but when my grandmother passed away, my mother's face aged 10 years overnight.) When I visited Portland a couple of weeks ago, though,(and I keep meaning to post with some photos), my second cousin Christine told me some stories of her grandfather, the middle brother, that make me think that my grandfather and my great uncles were generations ahead of their time. Christine's mother is the oldest of 8 (I think), and her father made sure she went to college as well. Not only that, but when Aunt Ellen (Ul-bin Emo) looked around after she graduated, she saw that there weren't many opportunities beyond teaching for a college-educated woman in Korea, and so she looked west to the US. My great uncle was a banker, but after the Korean war, all the money was confiscated, so he scraped together enough money for a one-way ticket to the US and told her she had to make it.

I wish I'd actually made an effort to collect stories like this from my grandfather. I'm going to ask my mom to help with this. Maybe it will give him a sense of purpose that will help him want to live. His doctors say that even though he has some issues, his health is ok, and he could live for a few more years. I wish there were something more I could do.

Whanged Out

I'm still trying to recover from my delayed redeye back from Portland: I left for Pilates and lunch and came back to discover that my house keys were still in the lock.

More on Portland, with pictures and possibly video, later!