As you may know, I play tennis on a regular basis. Three or four times a week I put on the cute little skirt with the shorts built in (because I need to have POCKETS), try to find a pair of relatively clean socks in the bottom of my “gym” bag, don those perfect little white shoes and meander out onto the court with three other women to whack away at the ball. I consider this to be mental health as much as – or more than – physical activity.

Of course, when I play with the “easy” crowd of 60-somethings, they consider me to be the retriever and take a perverse pleasure in lobbing the ball to opposite corners of the back court so they can watch me run back and forth like some sort of deranged puppy. When I play with the “big girls” (who are actually quite competitive in nature) I am more of a goalie – standing at the net and hoping to avoid having a tennis ball become the newest thing in orthodontic technology.

I love the game. I really do. But I have to admit that I’m beginning to feel the aches and pains of the half-century mark. My shoulder hurts when I serve, and for a day after each match, my heels hurt. I’ve gone one round with tennis elbow and have discovered the giant economy size keg of Ibuprofen that they sell at Costco. I now refer to any stray ball on the court as a “Rosenberg” in honour of the local orthopedic surgeon (who has had the pleasure of the company of almost all of my tennis buddies at one point or another). In short, I’ve decided that aging – even a wee bit – stinks.

The upside of all of this, however, is being a member of a tennis team that won its first match yesterday. My partner and I (she’s just a little younger than I am and SHE has to wear her tennis elbow thing and a knee brace, and cannot rush forward because of a torn calf muscle) hammered our opponents – allowing them just one game in two sets. Ah, the rush of victory. I feel almost as good as Tad. No tears, but if there had been, I suspect they would have been of pain.

Today, to celebrate (read recuperate) I’m going to lie around and read, maybe catch a bit of the Orioles baseball game – which will give me an opportunity to rag on those teenagers who go onto the DL because of hangnails – and try to generate enough new brain cells to ensure that I’ll be bright enough to NOT play tennis tomorrow morning. It won’t happen. I’m on at 11:00 – and I WILL be wearing some clean socks.

Tad is what I would consider to be a very gifted….OK……good………OK, enthusiastic……. athlete. However, he has been blessed with a great baseball coach who is a fine man, and stresses FUN in youth rec baseball. So Tad has played for 2 years, and this is his third.
Those of you who know rec ball realize what it means to play in the outfield…where he plays. But last week, he was asked to “close”.

Tad has never pitched.

Worse than that, the score was tied and the bases were loaded, and the count, when the
previous pitcher threw yet another wild pitch and was taken out, was 3-2.

This pitch would end the game, as the other team was home.

Long story short, Tad threw almost all of his warm-up tosses in places that demonstrated why youth baseball teams have athletic and mobile catchers.

“Play Ball!”

One pitch, 1 called strike, game over.

I have now seen tears of joy from my son as he got mobbed by the other boys, and his obvious relief showed up in droplets all down his face.

I will now quit my job and retire, safe in the future success of my MLB pitcher.

FYI…we survived the second batch of tornados to hit this area in the past week. I left Florida thankful to not have to face the annual hurricaine season…but, this last week of tornado warnings and watches. Our town of Thomspson’s Station had two “touchdowns” but, no one was injured nor, property damaged. But, the houses and cars that have been beat by hail have yet to be examined. The hail yesterday was EASILY the size of golf balls and larger. I’ll have to have my roof examined. Fortunately, both cars fit inside the garage so, we won’t have to deal with dented cars.

Further up the road, Gallatin / Hendersonville got nailed…with 8 people killed.

Makes me wish that I had a basement. Or, some houses are starting to build concrete “bunkers” in their inner rooms. A closet may actually be made from concrete so that you have someplace more substantial to go to than what we have — the only interior room on the ground floor – is a half bath. Not real substantial. Maybe in our next house….

Good grief—I think I’ve done it. Neither Dad nor Di could give me any info, so checked the “Help” bit, and I might just have done something right. Course I did something wrong when trying to post a comment, but all motherly comments need repeating, even when its not intentional.

Having said all that, I’ve little else to report. Sue Doten will be here next Wednesday. I’m not sure when, but it will be a brief visit. She can’t even stay for dinner.

By the way, I noticed Greg bragged about Wesley’s making All-State, but I don’t think he mentioned that TAD’s audition got him into All-Region. According to one of the Seniors I talked with after the concert, “He was awesome.”

I guess our scrimping and saving and scavenging has finally paid off. We close today on our new home. We had hoped to have a home within three years, and we’ve been married almost 2 1/2 so we’re ahead of the game. Bill’s plotting now to buy a boat. I’m trying to convince him to forget the boat till we get our new debts under control. More heat. More air. Water. More gas to get back and forth to work and gas prices on the rise again soon? Let’s not rush into another toy just yet! The grand moment is at 3PM. After that we will be emptying our storage unit and moving lots of stuff to the garage and office. Hey $30 is $30 and we will have room for the stuff. Thomas is still not thrilled about leaving his one true love Ashely, and Zack can’t wait to come up this weekend and start arranging his closet. (Nothing can go on the floors till we get the carpets cleaned which is scheduled for next Wednesday.) We’ve been packing boxes, scrubbing and painting our little shoe box in an effort to unclutter and make it more appealing to a buyer. Our goal (we are into setting goals) is to have it sold for the balance of the loan by the end of the summer. After that the spare cash runs out and we eat Ramen Noodles.

Inbetween arranging for the closing and move, we’ve continued the daily grind. Thomas had an appointment with a psychiatrist Tuesday. He’ll be seeing her again in a month and in two weeks he’ll see a counselor with oodles of drug experience. Thomas is still clean, but we are concerned about the stress of the move. I played soldier for a couple of days in Atlanta. I’d hoped to hook up with Tom for a drink, but that didn’t happen. Briefed the Commanding General Sunday afternoon, performed with the band Sunday evening/night, drank after the performance and sat thru many very boring briefings on Monday and Tuesday. My boss was VERY happy to see me back at work yesterday.

Zack got his report card last week. His lowest grade was an A. He’s happy, I’m happy, life is good.

Bill’s convincing his stores they need LOTS of bread. After all, we’ve got a new mortgage to deal with. He’s working alot and sleeping a little. We’ve taken to text messaging each other when we want to communicate. Yes I am exaggerating…..just a tad!

I’m ALMOST wishing I worked in molding still where the over time was abundant, but happy to get an extra two hours on Saturday when we do our monthly inventory. Then I can come home and pack the hutch so we can move it Saturday. That and a roll of toilet paper, and we’ll all be camping out in Easley Saturday night.

I hope everyone is doing well. I’d forgotten my passwork when I wanted to comment on dad’s post about his Army day, so now that I have a new password and can write again, THANKS, DAD, for serving this great nation of ours.

God Bless America.!

I realize that this is the greatest blog in the wholed world, but – if anyone’s interested – I just updated mine.

My life is quite gripping, you know….

No, I’m not talking about the basketball thing which apparently costs companies $600 million in lost productivity every year. I’m just referring to the month in general. Since the last time I posted anything here, I lost a friend, played host to the folks, learned that my untouchable company is getting touched, bought a car, sold a camera….and still haven’t gone camping.

On Monday, March 6th, I received the news – along with the rest of the world – that AT&T had voiced their intention to buy BellSouth, the company for which I’ve worked for the last 8 years and one that I thought was far too large to ever be taken over. Believe it or not, that’s sort of a bonus for me when it comes to selecting where I want to work. Since I moved to Atlanta 16 years ago, I’ve gone through 4 “strategic alliances,” and I’m really not into doing that. Silly me – I thought BellSouth had planned to buy AT&T a few years back. The tables have apparently turned, and in all likelihood I’ll be sweating out yet another merger in the next year to eighteen months. Oh joy.

This happened, incidentally, just about one week after I’d been informed that I was immune from the most recent round of layoffs within BellSouth management. Yep. I got to breathe easy for a whole week….

On March 8th, David Willard passed away after fighting a long battle with cirrhosis of the liver. Dave, also known as Dewey, had been a good friend for over 20 years and – while we were both aware that his prognosis was not good – his death still came as somewhat of a shock. I had talked on the phone with him just the previous Saturday night, when he called me to talk about a basketball game. On Wednesday the 8th, his sister called me to let me know that he’d gone into the hospital suddenly on Tuesday afternoon and had died about 24 hours later. It’s a strange feeling to know that someone that you’ve known since high school is gone. Must admit that shed more than a few tears.

His memorial was in Greenville on the 10th, so Jenny and I drove up to pay our respects. I did pretty good through most of the service, but did sob a bit near the end. At one point, a song was played that I had played for Dave a couple of years ago on the way back from a football game. David ended up playing the thing about 9 billion straight times in my car, until I finally told him to cut it out. I later burned a copy of the CD for him. When I asked his brother why he’d played that particular song, he said that he’d just found the CD among Dave’s things and decided to play it for no reason. Kind of freaked me out, to be honest. But in a good way.

The following Monday, I had a couple of our mutual friends over to my house and we had sort of an unofficial wake for the Dewman. Told a few stories, hoisted more than a few beers, played playstation, grilled some steaks, stayed up late, and took Tuesday off to do more of the same. It was a nice time.

I believe it was the weekend after that that Mom and Dad finally came down to Atlanta for a long-delayed visit. I was a tad nervous, as it was the first time they’d seen the house since Jenny and I divorced, but I apparently haven’t destroyed the place too awful much. I must admit that I took a bit of pride in showing them to their quarters – a guestroom that I refinished last year. Prior to that, it had been a disaster area used mainly by Jenny’s and my four cats as a great big litterbox. When I redid it, I had to throw out the carpet, paint the floor and floorboards, and install hardwood – just to get rid of the smell of urine. I also painted the walls and ceiling, put in some curtains, a bed, chair, lamps, shelves, dresser, nightstands, etc. I’ve always been pretty pleased with the result, but this was the first time that someone actually STAYED in the room.

Dad was quite helpful during the visit, assisting me in mounting my television (a big flat-screen job) on the wall on Saturday, and helping to hang three sets of very wide (72″) mini-blinds on Sunday. I also got to show off my 17-gazillion btu grill on Sunday, making burgers for the three of us. Of course, I ended up serving them raw and had to recook them, but hey….I tried.

Sometime around the 15th, I got my annual bonus from Bellsouth. While not as substantial as last year’s, it was still a nice little chunk of change, and I took advantage of it instantly by paying off my car. Got my tax refund a few days later and was so excited about the number of digits in my checking account balance that, when a friend said he wanted a new digital camera, I immediately offered to sell him one of my older ones that I rarely use. For those of you who don’t know it, I’ve got (well, I *had*) three pretty expensive cameras, so unloading one of those is going to make my financial self feel quite a bit better.

I’ve been trying to find a weekend to go camping for about 6 months, but so far it hasn’t worked out. For a long time, it was beautiful all week and rained all weekend. When I finally got a nice weekend, it happened to be the one set aside for Mom and Dad’s visit. Thought about it again this past weekend, but it was just too cold. And next weekend I’ve promised to take care of a friend’s cat, so that’s out too. Oh well…maybe I’ll get a chance sometime in April.

At work, much of my time recently has been consumed by a major rewrite of our external website. Additionally, we’re ramping up IPTV (trial is set for August), so I’m getting to build a lot of servers and trying to make myself valuable. Still looking forward to vacations, though – the first decent one is planned for Memorial Day weekend and the week following it. Also looking forward to spending some time in Canada with Cy and T in July, and I’m hoping to go to Maine again this year.

But for now, I’m still in Atlanta and still working.

And that should get you all caught up in the fascinating saga which is my life.

Political Science for Dummies

DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICANISM
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk
the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows.
You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow
and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on
unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at
school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give
excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch. Life is good.

INDIAN CORPORATION
Cows are sacred.
But you have lots of goats.
You send these goats to American schools to learn how to become cows.
When the cows come home :), they form corporations.
The leaders of these corporations go back to America and say that Indian “cow” milk is better and cheaper.
American cows say they aren’t going to produce any milk unless they get greener grass, better fences, and studlier bulls.

American companies start buying Indian milk, and ship tankers of hay and feed to India so the cows can make even more milk.

The American cows lose their jobs, and become wallets for the American corporation executives.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two.
You don’t milk them because you cannot touch any creature’s private
parts.You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find
alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls.
Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he’s French, other times he’s Flemish. The
Flemish cow won’t share with the French cow. The French cow wants
control of the Flemish cow’s milk. The cow asks permission to be cut
in half. The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one but accidentally
vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can’t figure out how to vote at all.
Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegals.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

For all of you who reside in this land of comparative peace and freedom, just thought I’d let you know that twas on the 19th of March 1952 that this fearless soldier, all 135 pounds of him, embarked from the port of Seattle. His mission? Why save the world for democracy, what did you expect. I’ll never forget the feeling of wondering how in heck I got into this predicament. Hey, I joined the army ’cause I was hungry, not to go fight someone! However, Uncle Sam saw the wisdom of sending me off, and even provided me a sendoff with a full Army Band. The stirring march they played (to bolster my courage I presume) was a then current popular tune entitled “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You!!” However, once I got used to the idea of possible combat, I enjoyed the 14 days (except for the first two which I spent hanging over the rail) aboard the USNS Marine Phoenix. And that’s this week’s exciting episode from The Life of This Day.
Other than that, started going back to the Y after a lay-off of 8 or 9 months. Not too bably out of shape. I’d been trying to walk a couple of miles on a regular basis, but found that my foot was giving me trouble so thought the arobic equipment at the Y would be a better form of excercise. Greenville Chorale has started rehearsals for it’s April 22 concert. Real tough (for me) stuff including Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, in Hebrew< and Tres Cantus Laudendi, by Mack Wilberg, in Latin. I think, if we behave ourselves, they'll let us try English next year.
OK, now I typed all this (and my one finger is sore) so let’s see if we can get it on the Blop page of all Blog Pages.

So, it appears that March is almost gone. I discovered this when I finally turned the calendar page this morning, confirming that February is over. I’m not sure how this happened. One day I was on a beach in Mexico sipping the “vacation size” margarita, and now I’m staring April right in the face. It’s somewhat disconcerting, to say the least.

Somewhere along the line I’ve had to read about a gazillion resumes and conduct interviews to try to find a new Director for the United Way. I was told when I agreed to be the Vice-President of the Board that I wouldn’t have to do anything, but somehow that morphed into chairing the Search Committee – replete with an entire briefcase full of paper, endless e-mail messages, drafting those wretched “thanks, but you’re not our type” rejection letters and drinking enough coffee to keep a small Dominican plantation in business for years to come. (It turns out that other committee members love early morning meetings…hence my increased consumption of caffeine.)

On the totally fun side, however, a neighbour of mine who is a retired actor (he had an ocassionally recurring role on Seinfeld among other things) has asked me to work with him on a new project. He has, in the past, created and presented a one-man show about Mark Twain. He’s now interested in doing something about Lincoln, and when – in the course of conversation – we discovered that each of us had just finished reading “Team of Rivals” he suggested that I help him out with the research. YES! This will be good. I’m up to my ears in books that focus on the speeches and writing of our friend Abe, and next week Warren (the actor) and I will start brainstorming his program. I’m psyched.

The Cornwall Historical Society is taking some time, too. We’re supposed to be creating an exhibit about Merino sheep for the Vermont History Expo. I have cleverly delegated all the work that needs to be done to my co-chair (a fellow by the name of Tall) who has created (yet another) committee, and they’re off and running. My work here is done.

How very interesting that the Vermonters in the Day family have spent not one single hour on the slopes this winter (a lack of snow will make skiing way less fun), but that the Nashville contingent did. I respectfully suggest that in future, coming to Vermont to ski would be a more satisfying experience than one in North Carolina (well, except for this year…) And if Leumas wants to go fast – no problem. That’s what former ski patrol uncles are for.

As you can clearly see, life here is not overly exciting, aside from local politics which would be more boring than amusing to anyone who doesn’t know the entire cast of characters – from the statute-spewing farmer to the zoned-out zoning administrator to the Cape Cod transplant (who hasn’t entirely grasped the fact that Cornwall is somewhat different than Hyannis). It’s probably a sitcom in the making, but in the meantime it’s just a series of ongoing phone calls – mostly having to do with the best way to kill mosquitoes. Give me my gavel. I’ll show ’em.