Archive for April, 2009
Playin’ ‘possum
Saturday was kind of a big day for me. Eventful compared to most, anyway.
Bright and early I gathered with 12,000 of my closest friends in Louisville to run a half marathon. Well, some were there to run a full marathon, but most of us felt that thirteen miles was sufficient for this particular hot spring day. (We felt that a second thirteen miles had little to offer that we wouldn’t have already gained running the first thirteen). As the United Auto Workers sign said along the course, we were “United in Solidarity,” which I’m pretty sure is the same thing as saying we were together in togetherness. The Fellowship of the Gaunt.
Here we are. I’m right behind the thin one in the running shorts:
Some combination of the heat and a general malaise from a lingering cold kept me from running as fast as I’d hoped. My thirteen miles were comprised of eight miles of racing and high-fiving kids along the sidewalk, followed by five miles of bitter thoughts while trying to think up a good excuse to quit. If my hotel room and shower had been at the ten mile mark instead of the finish line I might not have made it.
So I ran my thirteen miles, ate a complimentary bagel, and drove home to mow the yard. Then the day got interesting.
As I was putting away the mower I noticed a face peeking at me from underneath the overturned wheelbarrow I keep tucked away beside a storage shed. The face of an opossum. (Let the record show that I have demonstrated the technical spelling of “opossum” and will henceforth spell the word the sensible way).
I am neither opposed to possums nor posed to opossums. While not exactly a majestic deer, I figure possums pretty much keep to themselves, so what’s the harm? Upon reflection I decided that our yard is sufficiently short of a vast wooded expanse that I probably needed to evict the possum. I figured I could flip the wheelbarrow over with a rake and leap out of the way before the possum could, well, play possum in a menacing manner. I figured it would eventually go hide someplace for the rest of the day and seek a new home overnight.
Well.
Let’s just say my blogging senses are not well developed or I would have had a camera at the ready. When I overturned the wheelbarrow I learned that this was not just any old random neighborhood possum.
This was the “Octomom” of the possum set. She bared her teeth at me, surrounded by a roiling mass of baby possums. Pink noses and nasty gray fur abounded. I was staring at more beady little eyes than the Senate cafeteria has on Baked Potato Day.
While I failed to get a live action photo the internet has helped me give you a sense of the scene, except Octopossum looked madder than this:
Let’s just say that for the rest of my life I will practice safe wheelbarrow storage techniques wherein the wheelbarrow can not be mistaken for shelter, especially by a marsupial with a brain the size of an almond.
Eventually Octopossum and her babies trundled underneath a nearby utility trailer I use to ferry mulch and yard debris. I returned a half-hour later and they were gone, hopefully to some safe and more remote location where Mama can teach her babies the time honored possum traditions such as lurking around at night, being omnivorous, and having just really ugly tails.
Go figure. A day that I will forever remember for a possum encounter started with me being roadkill.
Verbal Abuse
Now that I have been an official member of the blog community for a few weeks, I suppose I should open up and let you know a little more about myself. I am sure many of you are clamoring for such details. You strike me as the sort of folks who clamor.
During my budding blog career I will say many things, but I will not say these things:
- “My primary regret from college is that I never took that year off to backpack around Europe.”
- “Next year we will summer at the coast.”
- “I missed the NFL playoffs last weekend because I was antiquing.”
- “Tonight after work I’m just going to take a hot bath and then scrapbook for hours.”
- “I texted until my thumbs bled the day Brad left Jennifer for Angelina.”
Not only do I have no interest in these particular activities, I am also philosophically opposed to forcing perfectly good nouns to act as verbs.
Call Me Unhip
Posted by Mark in Entertainment, Random on April 21st, 2009
Recently I spent a day working in an unfamiliar part of our building. A young guy came in and asked if I had seen somebody he was looking for. I explained I didn’t know anybody in that area, but asked what the guy looked like. The young guy’s face brightened and he said, “Oh, he looks like Moby!….The musician!”
I told him I hadn’t seen anybody who looked like Moby and he thanked me and left. That’s when I started analyzing our exchange. (That’s what we quiet, introspective types do. We think about talking way more than we talk about what we’re thinking).
The first thing I wondered was whether this Moby character was actually the person I was picturing in my mind. I’m pretty sure I know what he looks like but frankly don’t care enough to look him up online even now. I enjoy a little mystery and intrigue in my life.
I concluded that I probably did in fact know this Moby of whom he spoke, and congratulated myself on coming across as “hip” enough to the young guy that he assumed I would.
Then I reconsidered the pregnant pause when he said, “Moby…the musician.” The guy did not think I was hip enough to know who Moby is. That’s why he added the bit about the musician. During the pause he was thinking, “Ah, jeez. This middle-aged guy is going to think I’m saying some guy looks like a whale.”
So while I am not and never expect to be “hip,” at least I got to know what it felt like for a moment, even if by mistake.
Tax Time 2009
Posted by Mark in Current Events on April 15th, 2009
I must start today with a general apology to corporate America, or at least the Hershey’s company. I recently made a snarky comment about how no self-respecting modern company would sully its sales of Easter products to the general public by injecting even a little “meaning” into the process. Specifically I was speculated that if Lucky Charms cereal made an Easter-themed product it would probably include little marshmallow Peep-like characters such as bunnies or chicks, but no crosses. Well, it turns out that Hershey’s sells chocolate crosses in addition to the traditional chocolate bunny. Well done, Hershey’s. As a Christian consumer sometimes I appreciate being pandered to. (Error! Sentence ended in a preposition)!
As a Christian consumer by which sometimes pandering I appreciate. Whoah. That’s even worse. I am a Christian consumer to whom pandering is sometimes appreciated. That will have to do.
(No, wait. I can still rein this in. Sometimes I appreciate companies pandering to the Christian consumer).
Now on to current events. As April 15th approaches each year it is common for me to awake in a cold sweat and ask myself the following questions:
1. Did I have any intangible drilling costs in 2008?
2. Did I amortize any pollution control facilities?
3. Did I really file my return in February or am I just remembering last year?
I usually settle quickly back to sleep content in the knowledge that I am a big stickler about keeping all my drilling costs tangible. It’s good to be able to put just one worry out of my mind, especially now that I apparently have to worry about pirates.
Put me in, Coach
I have been coaching youth basketball at our church for almost ten years. We use the Upward Basketball program of which I am a big fan. The teams I have coached have experienced a wide range of on-the-court success. (I think one of my early teams may have been the reason our league chose to not keep score for the youngest age groups).
On the plus side, I have never been accused of committing any recruiting violations.
One of my favorite things about coaching is when (and this is a rare thing) something I have taught the boys in practice shows up in a game and actually works. For example, this year I taught them a VERY simple play for when we got the ball out of bounds under our basket. Five minutes of practice should have been sufficient to teach this play. We worked on it almost all season with no success. Suddenly, in the next to last game, everything clicked. The right kid took the ball out of bounds. The right kid set a pick in the right spot. The open player cut to the right spot. Layup.
I stood on the sideline with my arms upraised like Andy Dufresne after he crawled out of the sewage pipe in The Shawshank Redemption.
So sometimes I teach the players something. And sometimes they teach me.
“Isaac” was one of the smallest players on the team, but he had more fun playing than anybody. He’d yell for his teammates when he was on the bench. He’d scrap for loose balls when he was in the game. About every other week he’d describe for me some elaborate play he’d invented. One game he showed up sporting a nice new cornrow hairstyle and complained that his eyebrows hurt. Another coach and I surmised that his hair was cinched too tight, but having no experience with cornrows ourselves this was admittedly speculation on our part.
One of our opponents had a player who gave us fits every time we played them. This kid was above average in height, and much more physically strong than any of our players. We were losing one game pretty much because of this one player’s impact, and Isaac knew it.
“Let me guard him!” Isaac pleaded between periods. I set our lineup as before and once again saw the same result. I heard the same request again. “Let me guard him!”
This is where I’d like to say that Isaac came in and shut the big kid down despite being WAY undersized. However, our league rules require us to match players of similar ability and size and this just would have been too much of a stretch for me to justify. If not for that rule, I would’ve let him try just for the look I saw in his eye. The big kid was hurting our team, and Isaac wanted at him.
The next time life presents some big or scary challenge, I hope I can follow Isaac’s example.
“Hey, God. Let me try. I’ll give it my best shot.”
Magically Delicious
Posted by Mark in Current Events, Food, Running on April 8th, 2009
I confessed to you recently that I was a little discombobulated because my office moved. More accurately, I myself moved between two stationary offices. Things are not getting any better in the discombobulation department. Today I went for a run at lunch with some co-workers (one great perk of my job is that we have a locker room on site so I get to have recess). I was outside for about forty-five minutes. For about a half-hour we trudged through a howling wind and blinding snow even though it is April 7th. For the last fifteen minutes the wind seemed to disappear, the sun came out, and we could hear birds chirping. Maybe the oddest weather swing I’ve witnessed. Couple that with the fact that the North Koreans just test fired a long-range missile and I’m just disconcerted in general.
Disconcerting before I even mention that last Sunday on the way to church my family witnessed a squirrel chasing a rabbit across somebody’s front yard. I have never seen a squirrel chase anything but another squirrel, but this one definitely had something against this particular rabbit. I’m guessing that with Groundhog Day recently behind us and the Easter Bunny fast approaching, this squirrel finally snapped in a fit of jealous anger. I can’t blame him for being bitter. He got left out of the holiday rodent lineup.
(Wikipedia tells me that a rabbit is technically not a rodent, but I’m guessing such a distinction would be lost on reasonable squirrels, to say nothing of angry ones).
I want to close today with a product suggestion for the General Mills Company, the maker of Lucky Charms cereal. Last year around Easter I was trying to round up a snack for our daughter Shelby. As a joke, I offered to make her a bowl of croutons mixed with leftover marshmallow Peeps chicks. Since then we have occasionally joked about having a bowl of croutons and Peeps. A couple weeks ago I was getting out a box of Lucky Charms and a light bulb went off. After I replaced the light bulb I had a really good idea.
General Mills should partner with the Peeps people and have an Easter themed Lucky Charms cereal every year. Instead of the normal marshmallow bits they could have little Easter chicks, bunnies, eggs, lilies, etc. (Of course they could also include little marshmallow crosses but no responsible modern company would mar the commercial veneer of Easter with a little meaning).
I hesitated sharing this idea in case General Mills runs with it and I thus contribute to the further commercialization of Easter. Then I figured that, hey, at least it would help raise awareness of Easter and maybe some folks would at least ponder its meaning while enjoying a delightful bowl of limited edition Lucky Charms. Plus also the Arbor Day Squirrel told me this was a great idea and I don’t want to make him mad.
It’s Not Easy Finding Green
I realize my writing will never win a Pulitzer prize. Or any other kind of prize. But I don’t care. I’m not sure anything can top what happened last week after I wrote the bit about the Wienermobile. I received a comment (now attached to that post) from a very special source:
The Wienermobile!
Yes, friends, I have corresponded with the Wienermobile (or more accurately, a caretaker thereof). Turns out that there is (of course) a blog dedicated to the traveling adventures of the various Wienermobiles. When I entered information about the Wienermobile photo in my blog, apparently my blog software notified the Wienermobile blog that I was making reference to the Wienermobile, so somebody checked my blog out and left a comment. I realize this interaction has more to do with software package features than me having any kind of meaningful association with the Wienermobile, but I don’t care. I may never get interviewed by Larry King, but my blog has been acknowledged by the Wienermobile. Can Mark Twain say the same? (No. For many reasons).
As if that weren’t exciting enough, today was the day of my bi-monthly haircut. After the excitement of moving the part in my hair from the center to the side in 1990, all has been quiet along the haircut front. Sure, my forehead’s getting slightly larger and a few gray hairs are infiltrating, but all in all it’s been an unremarkable couple of decades haircut-wise. Until recently.
The lady who cuts my hair has begun trimming my eyebrows. This didn’t happen in college. Having eyebrows raging out of control makes me feel like (and thus want to act like) this guy:
Oscar
To make matters worse, I was never a big Oscar the Grouch fan as a child, even though I loved Sesame Street. I am a Bert guy. He’s more of a cynic than a grouch. Plus, being rather angular, I resemble Bert more than Oscar physically, at least when my eyebrow(s) are trimmed.
But more interesting than the haircut (which I know is fascinating enough) is what I saw afterward. Next door to the barbershop is one of those “Instant Cash Advance” places. I think what you do there is write them a check for, say, $115 and they give you $100 cash and promise not to process the check for maybe a week. At least that’s how I assume those places work. But what was really interesting was the sign on the door of this establishment:
“No cash kept onsite”
Now that’s a revelation. They don’t keep cash at a business whose only product is, well, cash. “Cash” is in the name of the store. I’m just flush with questions about this.
1. Have any would-be customers seen that sign and departed to go to a cash advance place that does keep cash around?
2. Is this sign a simple ruse to ward off robbers who aren’t smart enough to realize there MUST be cash inside a cash advance store? If so, do the proprietors really think somebody that unaware would even read the sign in the first place?
3. Maybe we are to assume the sign applies to non-business hours. Robbers should not bother breaking it at night because no cash will be found. They should just jump the poor guy who locks the door because, obviously, he must be carrying all the cash off the premises.
4. Or maybe part of the appeal of these places is that you have to go on a scavenger hunt to obtain your cash. For example, if you write them the check for $115 they will tell you to go to a drive-thru window of a specified restaurant and show the clerk a photo of yourself with, say, a Wal-Mart greeter. Having thus established your bona fides the clerk will tell you the name of an obscure Russian novel in the local library where you can find your $100 cash. Prosperity and fun wrapped into one transaction, with no cash onsite.
I thought about going in to ask about the sign, but was just too uneasy about the ambiguity to even set foot in there. As Oscar would say, I decided to scram.