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Oh my. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’m o.k., just busy here. Doing the playground thing with the kiddo, watching her develop her social skills. She’s in pigtails now. It’s getting more difficult to squint and see the baby I once knew. Though she reminds me every chance she gets that she’s still a baby…”noooooo, I’m not growing up. I’m a baby.” She’s still as clingy as a baby, which is a mixed blessing.

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball. With the Yanks in Boston, I will be parked in front of the tv all weekend. I don’t really have a lot to say about the Yanks at the moment, except, how about that Arod? Gotta give him props. He looks different. Confident. Comfortable. So good for him. Other than that, slow start, aching pitching staff and all…well, we’ll see. Anything can happen, that’s my philosophy. Whether I’m watching a game or looking down the road during the season. Because anything can with the Yankees.

The Red Sox look like a different team. Suddenly, they’re pitching rich and not quite the mashers they used to be, beyond Big Papi and Manny. Gotta like that pitching staff, though I’m not caught up in all the Dice-K hype. It’s not uncommon for a rookie pitcher to do well during their first go-round in the league. The real test will be later in the season when players and scouts have another look at him. Still, Schilling, Becket, Dice-K, and Wakefield as your Big 4…I’d take it.

With baseball season comes tag sale season. Anything can happen there, too. This year I’m all about vintage linens, wooden toys, and ephemera. Though if I can find some Le Crueset enamelware, I will be thrilled beyond measure as well. I can’t believe I don’t have any Le Crueset. That, and my lack of a Kitchenaid mixing stand make me feel just a little deprived. I manage.

I’m still decorating the house here. Ideally, in a place as small as this one, a modern look would fit the bill. When I see it, I like it for its simplicity and polish. And its easy upkeep. And yet, my sensibilities, from everywhere I’ve lived…and every theatre production, holiday, garden plot, etc…go along with a “more is more” attitude, no matter how earnestly I try to reign it in. I’m not a greedy person, yet, I can always find space for one more treasure, even with the threat of clutter shadowing every so closely behind. When I live in a space, I like to have something to look at wherever I turn.

Anyhoo, I hope you all are enjoying some fabulous weather, wherever you are, as we are here. I am going to leave you with this link to Bush’s latest musings, just in case you missed it…it’s kind of…..dada-esque, in a way.

have some more art

I haven’t had anything in the past few days. Kind of in a funk watching the Yankee’s pitching staff implode into a pit known as the DL. Sigh. You just know they have Roger Clemens on speed dial now.

And I had a dream about Arod the other night. He was…giving me the eye (!). Ew, ew, ew! Pass the mind bleach, please.

But I’m really here to pass along the work of more artists that I have discovered. Sally Smart’s work is rich, somewhat subversive, and yet poignant. I like her work with anatomy in particular. Find the collections under work.

And then there’s ex de medici, also a little subversive, rich, textural, and more than a little haunting. I liked Red and then Blue. Click on the bullets for each.

i could get used to this…

2 outs, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, Yanks back one on the scoreboard….and Arod comes through with a slammy! Thank you Mr. Rodriguez.

tis the season…well, almost

Spring training!

I was talking on the phone with Pamela, a friend of my late sister. Pam’s become a good friend of mine. I met her almost twenty years ago, but didn’t know then that she was a Yankees fan. And not a casual Yankee fan, either. I don’t think that’s possible if one lives in Arizona like Pam does. That takes dedication. And probably a good MLB cable package…I don’t think they broadcast Yankee games on the radio out there. That’s actually the way I like to take in the games, has been since I was a girl. Unless I’m at the stadium, of course, with my trusty binoculars.

I’ve never met a female Yankee fan, outside of the stadium. Well, aside from my mom. Sure, rattling off stats and trading strategies for fantasy baseball is a surefire way to impress some guys. But only with a female fan can one compare physiques and hairstyles and make wishlists of hot players we want the Yanks to draft (Barry Zito is on the top of both of our lists). And it is only at the stadium, really, that one can truly appreciate just how fab those bodies are. Just make sure the binoculars are with you. Pentyne will vouch for that.

I have missed the spring training games so far, but Pam was on top of things and gave me the lowdown. Between that and the New York papers, I’m set. But I still can’t comfortably make any predictions. I feel ambivalent, the same as last year. The pitching staff is really only older, and still shaky in the last two rotation slots. Arod is still speaking wistfully of the good old days with Jeter, before he’d insulted him in a national publication and things got frosty. Worse than that, he speaking even more wistfully of the good old days with former manager Lou Piniella, which is disrespectful to his current manager Joe Torre and only invites speculation that he either wants to be traded to the Cubs, or let out of his contract so he can reunite with Sweet Lou. Like we need that kind of distraction.  I think as long as he’s a Yankee, he should just STFU and play. Can you tell I’m not an Arod fan? I’ve just never felt the Yankees needed him, never understood why they traded a young Alfonso Soriano, a player with power, speed, and charisma for the white elephant that is Arod. It’s possible that he’s the best player that ever played the game, yes. But I don’t think his aquisition makes a difference, in fact, I don’t think Arod has been the difference on any of his teams since he played for Seattle. On the Yankees, he’s just another player, and I feel comfortable saying that just another player, some other player of lesser calibre and with less baggage and insecurities than Arod, would be a better fit over at third base on the New York Yankees. A player like Scott Brosius was before him.

My only other preseason thought is directed at the will-he-or-won’t-he-sign situtation with Roger Clemens. Please let both parties; the over eager front office, and the big guy, pass. Let him go to the Sox. I think deep down, he wants to go back anyway. We need a young fireballer, and baseball could use the kind of feel good story a Clemens/Bosox reunion creates to offset the ongoing Barry Bonds/Balco drama. It’s going be a long season.

somethings…

I like Lizzie Farley’s work, out of Scotland…especially the pussywillow bowl and the Three Sisters sculpture reminds me of Andy Goldsworthy, another artist I admire.

Took in the Mets-Cards game, sandwiched around Lost. Of course, I could not just watch the game without trying to teach the Kiddo some of the finer points. She was pretty attentive, I must say, nodding her head along. This was a great game for Willie, especially choosing Mota on a hunch to pitch. What amazes me is that they are coming this far without a real pitching rotation. I hope the Yankees are taking notes.

Lost was pretty good. It makes me sad to see Locke played. He and Said are the most intense, interesting, and intelligent characters on the show.  I like Locke’s intuitive quirkiness. But I suppose even swamis have self doubt. Next weeks eppy looks skeery. Needles, people. Oh my.

OK

I’m back. My absence is too long and complicated to explain, but know that I’m o.k. Every September, I fall into a sort of drawn out funk where I don’t feel much like doing anything. This usually ends by playoff time, and really gets rolling at around the time of one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. This year, I want to celebrate the Day of the Dead too, after reading up on it. But I’ll expand my thoughts on that later.

I’m still excited about the playoffs, though not for the reason I’d hoped for. It’s been too long since I’ve seen my beloved Yanks in pinstripes running to the mound in celebration of another World series championship (do I sound like a Red Sox fan or what?), but there’s still the Mets and the Cards to cheer for. I used to get really down when these eliminations occured, but after losing a loved one again a couple of years ago, and giving birth, this has slouched down upon my list of priorities in life. But if I had to make a pick…I choose the Mets, because my favorite player of the seventies (old, I am), Willie Randolph, is the skipper, and I’d so love for him to show MLB what he can do after so many attempts at securing a management position. The Cards too are a fine organization with great fans…I’ve really enjoyed chatting with the redbird fans. In fact, my dream WS matchup would be a Cards-Yanks classic. Someday, no doubt.

Emm is fine as well. She’s taken to lounging in her Halloween costume around the house. That is, when she’s not constructing exquisite and complicated towers, “just like the doozers” (on Fraggle Rock). She seems to have a thing for men in hard hats…Bob the Builder, the Doozers, and now, Manny, on the Disney channel. Oh yeah, I have cable now for the first time in five years. I half expected some evil serpent to come slithering out when I turned the tv on, so apprehensive I was about this latest choice. But so far, no ill effects of TV to be found. I’m just glad to have Lost current. I nearly fell of my seat when Kate told Sawyer that he tasted like “fish biscuit”. Ha. And now the focus is on Locke this week. My favorite character.

Be back on Wednesday with more randoms on…something. I haven’t decided yet.

Random randoms

1. Is there any place that we can send our kids to anymore? Home schooling is starting to look better by the day.
2. The playoffs should be a miniseason in its own right. A special summer-fall-sometimes winter hybrid. Exhilerating time of the year. I’m in heaven.
3. Chicken soup for a cold is good. Chicken soup with mini dumplings…even better. Says the kiddo, who, at the tender age of three, is suffering from her first cold.
4. And…I realize how lucky I am that we came this far before the first ailment. Bless the makers of Vicks Vapo-rub. Seriously good stuff.
5. Tis the season for gingersnaps. Double the spices. Cut the flour by half a cup and bake for 8 minutes, closely watched, for softer cookies. So good. So very good. In a wholesome, fresh baked way.
6. I just spelled flour as “flower”. Again.
7. Fall is the time of the year when I become an unlikely hybrid of Susie Homemaker and half crazed, manic sports fan, by the way.
8. My world series prediction of a subway series is diminishing by the day, thanks to 2 starting pitcher injuries for Willie Randolph’s Mets. So much for seeing the great El Duque work his magic  again. Best post season pitcher I’ve ever seen.
9. Alex Rodriguez still can’t fly under the radar batting sixth, no matter what kind of lineup he’s surrounded with. Sorry, Joe.
10. This is easy, but is there any star brighter than Derek Jeter this time of the year?? Mega-white hot doesn’t even begin to describe. 5 for 5!!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, captain, my captain. Way to step it up, baby!

Four down, one to go

Ok, I know no one I know on here cares about this stuff, but I have to gloat somewhere about the Red Sox’s latest humiliation at the hands of the Yanks. I feel so very smug. I could just snog Johnny Damon for coming over to the dark side. :>

Nothing new to report, really. I am making porcelain eggs today and working on my swap project. Halfway done.

Emm is so very cute when she beseeches me to “stop cleaning, Mommy!”. True. Out of the mouths of babes….

So…

Barry Bonds passed the Babe today with home run number 715. I really don’t understand the fuss about this “milestone”, unless it’s more of a testament to the Babe and his era and less to Bonds and all that comes with this one.

But I’m not a home run kind of fan anyway. Me, I like the running game. Give me a guy who’s a threat to swipe a base or two. Give me the double steal, the hit and run, and the squeeze play.

A home run has the excitement and predictibility of bumper cars. The running game is where the roller coaster is. It upsets the tempo of what is generally a long and sometimes tedious pace. It incites chaos into the order that is the framework of the game. At its best, it rattles, gets into the pitcher’s head, and keeps everyone guessing enough to  forces errors and manufacture runs. It  compells the pitcher to become more than just a thrower.

Barry Bonds is still a great player, but I miss the old Barry. The one of only three players who made the elusive 40/40 club, and the 30/30 club five times. I know, I know, it can be argued that the fan wants the homerun, but even on this day, it’s this that distinguishes him from the Babe for this fan.

2000!

Jete got his 2000th hit tonight. AND stole third base. I.love.this.man.
More with every passing year.