In the spirit of Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow, we bring you this newsreel of the latest events and twists of fate in the lives of the small tribe of Johnstadts that inhabits the wilds of Western Massachusetts. (Warning: This video contains mild to moderate scalping.)
Went home from work early today and took a two-hour nap, thus warding off a migraine. And after supper, we all went to a contra dance that was sponsored by a few graduating students who belong to the cotra dance crowd here at Williams. There are many a thing I could say about that particular clique, but I will limit myself to this: They remind me, in many ways, of hobbits. And they put on a heck of a contra dance.
I also made a purchase recently: a Flip. It's a good-enough video camera ($149) that has sound and a far clearer picture than the digital still camera I've been using up to now. So the quality of the images in future films should be vastly improved. And the sound...? I may occasionally let it through. But tonight, in preparing the newsreel, I used Garage Band for the first time, and I have to say: I'm kind of a Buster Keaton-type filmmaker. Music over images, and nothing more. The video of Q's first experience pitching would have had far smoother musical transitions had I learned about it a few weeks earlier.
Hope to feel better tomorrow - been low-grade sick for a month now.
Hasta pronto!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Jitters and Nerves
OK, I talk a lot about baseball these days, but you have to understand: It's a very exciting subject. No matter what T thinks.
So Saturday, Q was scheduled to pitch the 5tgh and the 6th inning. This was a game against Cheshire, probably the best team they'll play against. Lots of big kids who hit the ball hard. I was home alone with the two kids, since Janneke was off at a conference, and was also on duty in the concession stand. (The game was at the very nice Cal Ripken field featured in the "Opening Day" video.) So we (T and I) just dropped Q off at the dugout and headed to work. I wound up flipping burgers under a tent, which afforded the best view around - right behind home plate, pretty much. I could see everything. But I couldn't leave the area, since every five or ten minutes somebody would come up and request that I cook something.
So the first two innings go by, and thanks to some VERY good defensive plays by Williamstown Savings Bank, Cheshire was only up 4-0. It was a much closer game than expected. And at the top of the third, out trots the same young man (Adam) who had pitched the first two innings. Now, that ain't right - by rule, they can only pitch two innings, and the next person to pitch should have been Pearl. "What the hey," I thought. And the same thing went through the mind of the opposing coach, who walked over and asked what the story was. Our coach said, "Well, we're down a pitcher."
This just wasn't true. Q was there, playing third base. I started to get suspicious - Since the score was close, was he going with pitchers he thought gave us the best chance to win? Was Q going to be bumped out...? I got myself madder and madder as I watched. At one point as they took the field, I saw an assistant coach with an arm around Q, down on one knee, talking to him earnestly, and Q nodding, seeming sad. "He's trying to justify not letting him pitch," I thought. Steam shot out both my ears. This was just not right.
Adam pitched three innings, and Pearl pitched three, and WSB lost, 9-4. Pearl wasn't on that day, and gave up the maximum allowed - 5 - in one rough inning. And I was hopping up and down, knowing - just knowing - that Q would be able to get it over the plate. I was a little delirious, I was so mad. But, on the advice of Alex's Dad, I decided to sleep on it before I said anything to the coaches. I greeted Q as he left the dugout, put my arm around his shoulders, and asked, as flatly as possible, "How was it?"
"Terrible."
"Why?"
"I just didn't feel like pitching."
Ahhhhhh. Suddenly it all made sense: We WERE down a pitcher! Q had been too nervous to face those big kids! Poor Pearl, tired as heck, had been soldiering on in the face of adversity, rather than robbing Q of his rightful spot. Man, I felt terrible. I had been shooting hateful thoughts at the coaches for over an hour - and they had been saying, "C'mon, Q, you can do it! We believe in you!" But Q couldn't do it. I felt awful, and so did Q.
So we had a lot of talks about how you can't ask and ask and ask to be allowed to pitch, and then when your number is called, not go. You have to overcome the nerves and go out there anyway. You can't let teammates and coaches down, especially on a day like Saturday, when we had several kids out sick. Boy, it was an emotional rollercoaster for everybody. The best conversation was when I told Q that the reason he was slated to pitch was that everybody BELIEVED in him. I did, the coaches did, his teammates did - the only one doubting Q was Q. That made him smile, and seems to have stuck with him.
Because today, in the rubber match against Pownal, Q was sent to the mound again in the 6th to protect a 15-0 lead. And the result was the same: One walk, three strikeouts. Q as a career no-hitter going, and his confidence is high.
This is so much fun...!
So Saturday, Q was scheduled to pitch the 5tgh and the 6th inning. This was a game against Cheshire, probably the best team they'll play against. Lots of big kids who hit the ball hard. I was home alone with the two kids, since Janneke was off at a conference, and was also on duty in the concession stand. (The game was at the very nice Cal Ripken field featured in the "Opening Day" video.) So we (T and I) just dropped Q off at the dugout and headed to work. I wound up flipping burgers under a tent, which afforded the best view around - right behind home plate, pretty much. I could see everything. But I couldn't leave the area, since every five or ten minutes somebody would come up and request that I cook something.
So the first two innings go by, and thanks to some VERY good defensive plays by Williamstown Savings Bank, Cheshire was only up 4-0. It was a much closer game than expected. And at the top of the third, out trots the same young man (Adam) who had pitched the first two innings. Now, that ain't right - by rule, they can only pitch two innings, and the next person to pitch should have been Pearl. "What the hey," I thought. And the same thing went through the mind of the opposing coach, who walked over and asked what the story was. Our coach said, "Well, we're down a pitcher."
This just wasn't true. Q was there, playing third base. I started to get suspicious - Since the score was close, was he going with pitchers he thought gave us the best chance to win? Was Q going to be bumped out...? I got myself madder and madder as I watched. At one point as they took the field, I saw an assistant coach with an arm around Q, down on one knee, talking to him earnestly, and Q nodding, seeming sad. "He's trying to justify not letting him pitch," I thought. Steam shot out both my ears. This was just not right.
Adam pitched three innings, and Pearl pitched three, and WSB lost, 9-4. Pearl wasn't on that day, and gave up the maximum allowed - 5 - in one rough inning. And I was hopping up and down, knowing - just knowing - that Q would be able to get it over the plate. I was a little delirious, I was so mad. But, on the advice of Alex's Dad, I decided to sleep on it before I said anything to the coaches. I greeted Q as he left the dugout, put my arm around his shoulders, and asked, as flatly as possible, "How was it?"
"Terrible."
"Why?"
"I just didn't feel like pitching."
Ahhhhhh. Suddenly it all made sense: We WERE down a pitcher! Q had been too nervous to face those big kids! Poor Pearl, tired as heck, had been soldiering on in the face of adversity, rather than robbing Q of his rightful spot. Man, I felt terrible. I had been shooting hateful thoughts at the coaches for over an hour - and they had been saying, "C'mon, Q, you can do it! We believe in you!" But Q couldn't do it. I felt awful, and so did Q.
So we had a lot of talks about how you can't ask and ask and ask to be allowed to pitch, and then when your number is called, not go. You have to overcome the nerves and go out there anyway. You can't let teammates and coaches down, especially on a day like Saturday, when we had several kids out sick. Boy, it was an emotional rollercoaster for everybody. The best conversation was when I told Q that the reason he was slated to pitch was that everybody BELIEVED in him. I did, the coaches did, his teammates did - the only one doubting Q was Q. That made him smile, and seems to have stuck with him.
Because today, in the rubber match against Pownal, Q was sent to the mound again in the 6th to protect a 15-0 lead. And the result was the same: One walk, three strikeouts. Q as a career no-hitter going, and his confidence is high.
This is so much fun...!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Research with Breakfast
Hey, folks - OK, here's the situation: Having recently learned some trivia about elephant seals and their ability to remain submerged for incredible lengths of time (two hours), I'm curious as to what the longest is that any mammal can stay under the water. So I open up the trusty Mac, and see that an Internet browser is open, and that it's on the "Frog" page of Wikipedia. Seems odd, I say to myself. "Hey," I call to Janneke, "Who was lookin' up 'frog' on Wikipedia?"
"Q," she calls from the recliner. "He wanted to do some research before school today. He wrote a whole page of notes, mostly on the etymology of it."
I cackled out loud. Not just at the delightful curiosity of my little Best Boy, but at the wonderful symmetry. He got more from me than gigantic eyebrows and a tendency to roll his shoulders when he runs.
Anyway, so as not to leave you hanging: Two hours is also the length of dives observed in sperm whales, the probable champion. A number of different sources give the dive times of the elephant seal as two hours - strange!, that a seal can out-dive most whales.
Must...Sleep...!
"Q," she calls from the recliner. "He wanted to do some research before school today. He wrote a whole page of notes, mostly on the etymology of it."
I cackled out loud. Not just at the delightful curiosity of my little Best Boy, but at the wonderful symmetry. He got more from me than gigantic eyebrows and a tendency to roll his shoulders when he runs.
Anyway, so as not to leave you hanging: Two hours is also the length of dives observed in sperm whales, the probable champion. A number of different sources give the dive times of the elephant seal as two hours - strange!, that a seal can out-dive most whales.
Must...Sleep...!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Movie time (maybe)
Well, I have a few minutes here before Janneke finishes up what she's doing and we sit down to finally watch a movie together, so I'll jot down some news items for y'all. We've had a stack of Netflix movies on our kitchen counter for well over a month now, and just can't get a moment to watch them. By the time either of us would be available, it's so late that we know we'd fall asleep before it ended. The kids are in bed by 8:00 or 8:30, and we're all hygienated and such by 9:00 or 9:30...and then there's the looming 5:30 alarm clock. But tonight we plan on watching one. Although, if I were a betting man, I'd say it ain't happening. It's almost 9:00 now, and Janneke's still not ready...I'd say another month is about to pass before "The Lives of Others" gets seen.
We had two trees cut down in our back yard last week. They sent some guys in on Monday and started it, and then we saw neither hide nor hair of them until Friday. So we had our yard filled with branches all week. I wasn't too pleased. Friday afternoon, it was all cut down, so I spent some time Saturday morning and this afternoon spllitting, hauling and stacking the wood. When I came in, I went straight to the bathroom and started soaking away the soreness.
Which, strangely, was the moment our tree guy came by to drop off the bill and apologize for the delay. Seems their wood chipper had been out of commission. Would've been nice to get a phone call to that effect, but hey, he did stop by in person to apologize. Can't fault him there. The grass out back gets a lot more sun now, and should thicken up nicely. We like to play back there with the kids,but it's been such weak grass that every time you change direction you tear up a giant divot. Should be better now.
T had two birthday parties in the last week. She is an absolute rock star - one of our friends, whom we don't see much of any more, was at a fundraiser last night where I volunteered (to benefit the charter school where I used to work), and said she'd just had "the privelege of spending some time with T at Hazel's birthday party". She said T was the youngest kid there, and yet absolutely held court, with everyone clamoring to spend time with her, fighting over who got to push her in the swing, etc. We've always seen her that way, but maybe it's just empirically so. She draws people to her.
She's got a cough lately, though, which is doing the opposite of drawing us to her. Emotionally, I mean. It draws us to her physically in the night to dope her up with more cough medicine and spend an hour out on the recliner with her until it kicks in, usually around 3:00 or 4:00 AM. So emotionally, you have to keep your distance. Otherwise you'd have a Homer-on-Bart choking fit.
Whoah! Janneke's out here and wants to see the movie! Holy heck! I'm about to sit and watch a movie with my wife! I'm really nervous all of a sudden - I don't remember just how to do this anymore! Do I look OK? How's my hair? Is there something in my teeth? How do you run a DVD player?!?
Holy Christ, here I go...!!!
We had two trees cut down in our back yard last week. They sent some guys in on Monday and started it, and then we saw neither hide nor hair of them until Friday. So we had our yard filled with branches all week. I wasn't too pleased. Friday afternoon, it was all cut down, so I spent some time Saturday morning and this afternoon spllitting, hauling and stacking the wood. When I came in, I went straight to the bathroom and started soaking away the soreness.
Which, strangely, was the moment our tree guy came by to drop off the bill and apologize for the delay. Seems their wood chipper had been out of commission. Would've been nice to get a phone call to that effect, but hey, he did stop by in person to apologize. Can't fault him there. The grass out back gets a lot more sun now, and should thicken up nicely. We like to play back there with the kids,but it's been such weak grass that every time you change direction you tear up a giant divot. Should be better now.
T had two birthday parties in the last week. She is an absolute rock star - one of our friends, whom we don't see much of any more, was at a fundraiser last night where I volunteered (to benefit the charter school where I used to work), and said she'd just had "the privelege of spending some time with T at Hazel's birthday party". She said T was the youngest kid there, and yet absolutely held court, with everyone clamoring to spend time with her, fighting over who got to push her in the swing, etc. We've always seen her that way, but maybe it's just empirically so. She draws people to her.
She's got a cough lately, though, which is doing the opposite of drawing us to her. Emotionally, I mean. It draws us to her physically in the night to dope her up with more cough medicine and spend an hour out on the recliner with her until it kicks in, usually around 3:00 or 4:00 AM. So emotionally, you have to keep your distance. Otherwise you'd have a Homer-on-Bart choking fit.
Whoah! Janneke's out here and wants to see the movie! Holy heck! I'm about to sit and watch a movie with my wife! I'm really nervous all of a sudden - I don't remember just how to do this anymore! Do I look OK? How's my hair? Is there something in my teeth? How do you run a DVD player?!?
Holy Christ, here I go...!!!
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Closer
There is news on the baseball front. Here it is, in filmic form:
Janneke received her graduation robes today. The college buys them for tenured faculty, and they are very swanky. She showed them to the kids just before bed tonight. It was a very nice, proud, strangely anticlimactic thing to see her in front of the mirror, adjusting them.
T had a birthday party Saturday, which left her wiped out:
But she recovered for Sunday, when she presented her Mother's Day present:
Terrible picture, but I love her early-morning hair in it.
Q also handed over the goods to a grateful Mami:
I got her something too. Don't think I didn't. It was a shirt, which I thought would suit her very well, and had even spied out what size shirt she wears. P after P after P after XS after XP, fer cryin' out loud. And then a 1 turns out to be too small. So I got no smooches of appreciation. Just grumbling sarcasm and the odd bird flipped my way, pretty much right up 'til now. There is absolutely no justice in the world, I tell you.
Except in baseball.
Janneke received her graduation robes today. The college buys them for tenured faculty, and they are very swanky. She showed them to the kids just before bed tonight. It was a very nice, proud, strangely anticlimactic thing to see her in front of the mirror, adjusting them.
T had a birthday party Saturday, which left her wiped out:
But she recovered for Sunday, when she presented her Mother's Day present:
Terrible picture, but I love her early-morning hair in it.
Q also handed over the goods to a grateful Mami:
I got her something too. Don't think I didn't. It was a shirt, which I thought would suit her very well, and had even spied out what size shirt she wears. P after P after P after XS after XP, fer cryin' out loud. And then a 1 turns out to be too small. So I got no smooches of appreciation. Just grumbling sarcasm and the odd bird flipped my way, pretty much right up 'til now. There is absolutely no justice in the world, I tell you.
Except in baseball.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Play Ball!
Opening Day! The traditions, the echoes of years past - Pageantry, patriotism, the Star Spangled Banner...and a great deal of blood spouting from the nose. All this and more awaits you, dear reader, in the paragraphs to come.
The first with the bloody nose business was T, and there was actually very little blood involved. Just a pesky scab that wouldn't heal from all the way back before the Wisconsin trip. So we put a bandaid on it:
T actually had to fake sadness for this picture. She likes the bandaid a lot - it gets her swag. A lady at a store gave her a couple of stickers just because she has a boo boo. Knowing her, pretty soon she's going to start limping everywhere and coughing conspicuously whenever she sees someone with lollipops.
Q wore his uniform for the first time Saturday morning, and he looks pret-ty snazzy in it, I must say. As did all his pals. But why describe it when photographs can do the job so much better:
He's really still quite a novice at this whole sport, but he was very excited to be playing in an actual game. But first, the parade. Seriously. A parade. Starting at the middle school and turning down Cole Ave to the big field, where the flag was raised and...Again, why bother with so much description, when a film is available:
The game itself was far more exciting than it really had a right to be. Whooping when Charlotte hit a blooper single (turned it into a double on a fielding error) to score two runs felt about as silly as a thing can feel, but it felt pretty darn good, too. Williamstown Savings Bank won 8-3 over Williamstown Medical Associates in the first instalment of what's going to be a three-game grudge match over the course of the whole year. WSB turns out to have some pretty darn good pitching, and some decent hitting as well. Q didn't get much offense going himself, so we'll have to work on that.
After a whole day of baseball, Q still hadn't had enough, so he and I engaged in some pitching practice (he wants to pitch) in the front yard. A return throw from the catcher (me) glanced off the heel of Q's extended glove arm and straight into his honker, immeidately sending great volumes of blood toward the grass and ear-splitting cries of anguish all the way to Bennington. We got it staunched in short order, and within twenty minutes he was back to playing catch, but it was a pretty traumatic little while between the two. He'd never had a real, serious, into-the-mouth bloody nose before. He was surprised at how sticky it was, and I was surprised that I didn't absolutely freak at the sight of my bloody little boy. I did, a little bit, at the sight of his uniform pants, though. That took some serious scrubbing.
We worked on the pitching as well as the hitting again today. Q and I spent an hour or so practicing baseball down at the park this afternoon while Mami and T were at a birthday party. Q stood facing the backstop at home plate, and I knelt across from him on the opposite side of the plate, with a bucket with 12 baseballs in it. I lobbed them one at a time so that they plopped down in the center of the plate, and Q would hack away at them. We did a bucket of 12, and he connected with one. Barely.
Q then helped me pick them up and put them back in the bucket, and said, "I'm going to hit like Greg Counsel."
Counsel is a Milwaukee Brewer who stands pretty much straight up and down at the plate and slowly twirls the end of his bat , which is held almost straight up in the air, while waiting for the pitch. It is the most ridiculous stance ever - it could only be made more ridiculous through the use of props and sound effects. Q stood there and twirled his bat in the air, smiling sneakily at the silliness of it.
He hit all twelve balls, many with positive authority.
So, good luck coaching him, fellas. He is going to hit goofily. Just no two ways about it.
The first with the bloody nose business was T, and there was actually very little blood involved. Just a pesky scab that wouldn't heal from all the way back before the Wisconsin trip. So we put a bandaid on it:
T actually had to fake sadness for this picture. She likes the bandaid a lot - it gets her swag. A lady at a store gave her a couple of stickers just because she has a boo boo. Knowing her, pretty soon she's going to start limping everywhere and coughing conspicuously whenever she sees someone with lollipops.
Q wore his uniform for the first time Saturday morning, and he looks pret-ty snazzy in it, I must say. As did all his pals. But why describe it when photographs can do the job so much better:
He's really still quite a novice at this whole sport, but he was very excited to be playing in an actual game. But first, the parade. Seriously. A parade. Starting at the middle school and turning down Cole Ave to the big field, where the flag was raised and...Again, why bother with so much description, when a film is available:
The game itself was far more exciting than it really had a right to be. Whooping when Charlotte hit a blooper single (turned it into a double on a fielding error) to score two runs felt about as silly as a thing can feel, but it felt pretty darn good, too. Williamstown Savings Bank won 8-3 over Williamstown Medical Associates in the first instalment of what's going to be a three-game grudge match over the course of the whole year. WSB turns out to have some pretty darn good pitching, and some decent hitting as well. Q didn't get much offense going himself, so we'll have to work on that.
After a whole day of baseball, Q still hadn't had enough, so he and I engaged in some pitching practice (he wants to pitch) in the front yard. A return throw from the catcher (me) glanced off the heel of Q's extended glove arm and straight into his honker, immeidately sending great volumes of blood toward the grass and ear-splitting cries of anguish all the way to Bennington. We got it staunched in short order, and within twenty minutes he was back to playing catch, but it was a pretty traumatic little while between the two. He'd never had a real, serious, into-the-mouth bloody nose before. He was surprised at how sticky it was, and I was surprised that I didn't absolutely freak at the sight of my bloody little boy. I did, a little bit, at the sight of his uniform pants, though. That took some serious scrubbing.
We worked on the pitching as well as the hitting again today. Q and I spent an hour or so practicing baseball down at the park this afternoon while Mami and T were at a birthday party. Q stood facing the backstop at home plate, and I knelt across from him on the opposite side of the plate, with a bucket with 12 baseballs in it. I lobbed them one at a time so that they plopped down in the center of the plate, and Q would hack away at them. We did a bucket of 12, and he connected with one. Barely.
Q then helped me pick them up and put them back in the bucket, and said, "I'm going to hit like Greg Counsel."
Counsel is a Milwaukee Brewer who stands pretty much straight up and down at the plate and slowly twirls the end of his bat , which is held almost straight up in the air, while waiting for the pitch. It is the most ridiculous stance ever - it could only be made more ridiculous through the use of props and sound effects. Q stood there and twirled his bat in the air, smiling sneakily at the silliness of it.
He hit all twelve balls, many with positive authority.
So, good luck coaching him, fellas. He is going to hit goofily. Just no two ways about it.
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