It’s Opening Day, Baby!

The Always Home and Uncool office is closed for what should be a national holiday. The following first appeared 10 years ago on our family’s old AOL Hometown Web site. Enjoy and may your home team win … unless you root for the flippin’ Florida Marlins. Let’s go, Mets!

* * *

On April 3 (2000, Thing 1) made her Major League debut at the Texas Rangers' Opening Day in Arlington, Texas. It was actually more like Opening Day back at Shea with the Mets – chilly, windy and the home team won. We only made it through seven innings, but she handled it well, sleeping through most of the game.

If you plan on taking your 6-week-old baby to a game, here's what you need to know:

• Get to the game early. Feed baby right before going inside. Burp well. Repeat if necessary.
• Bring diapers. Hope the stadium has baby-changing tables in the restrooms or else plan on changing your kid on top of a garbage can, which isn’t too bad if only it makes diaper disposal that much easier.
• Put baby in one of those holders that you strap to your chest. Saves wear and tear on your arms, makes her and you feel secure. Also, frees your hands for beer drinking and scorekeeping, plus you don't have to pay for an extra ticket.
• OK, your hands are mostly free. Until baby falls asleep, leaning on your chest, you must support baby's neck. This makes keeping score quite a feat (really, a knee -- which supports baby's neck while you grip scorebook and pencil), but eating and drinking are doable. It helps if you are adept at shelling peanuts one-handed. Or enjoy eating peanuts in the shell.
• Yes, drinking with baby in tow is acceptable also long as you are not breastfeeding (or at least, the breast feeder) but only in moderation. Not only don't you want to get sloshed with a child strapped on your chest, you want to limit your own bathroom trips ... for obvious reasons.
• Having baby at a ball game makes you a chick magnet. Drunken groupies, girlfriends dragged to the stadium, ice-cream vendors -- they all love you and the baby. Heck, it’ll even makes a few guys teary eyed.

TODAY
by Greg Shea

Today you'll dig in the closet for your glove 
    and snap a ball into it while sipping your morning coffee.
Today as the toast comes out of the toaster,
    you'll still remember how to execute a perfect "pop-up" slide.
Today you'll drive to work and admonish yourself
    to "keep your head down" and your eye on the road.
Today your team will be in first and planning to stay there.
Today you'll end your contract holdout.
Today you'll still be able to turn the double play.
Today you won't lose a business deal in the sun.
Today you'll find yourself rotating your arm around your head
    to stretch the shoulder and keep it loose.
Today someone asks if you'll be at the meeting
    and you respond by saying, "Let's play two."
Today you spend an hour in the attic
    with old baseball cards and dusty Sports Illustrateds.
Today sunflower seeds strangely find their way into your back pocket.
Today you find yourself muttering something about "Bill freakin' Buckner."
Today you'll think of wearing a black suit to match the eye black.
Today you'll have the steal sign.
Today you slip up in a meeting and mention "our sales team ... vs. lefties."
Today a hot dog and peanuts for lunch will sound about right.
Today you tell a co-worker to "warm up."
Today the only strike you'll know about
    is above the knees and below the armpits.
Today you'll wear your jacket only on your pitching arm.
Today you'll buy two packs of gum
    and stuff them in the side of your mouth.
Today, during lunch, you'll wonder why Coke doesn't come in a wood can.
Today you'll scratch yourself and spit for no apparent reason.
Today you'll wonder why stirrup socks never caught on.
Today you'll be the rookie looking to make it big.
Today you'll be the wily vet with just a little something left.
Today you'll look for the AM dial on your radio.
Today your glove is hanging off the handlebars of your bike.
Today seems like a good day for an ice cream before you head home.
Today is box scores and Baseball Tonight.
Today is Donnie Sadler and Keith Osik.
Today is Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds.
Today your first coach is cheering. Still.
Today Mom's watching.
Today Dad's in the backyard -- with his glove.
Today it'll still be a kids' game.
Today you'll be a kid.
Today is Opening Day.
Copyright © 2000 The Closer

Technorati Tags: opening day,baseball,babies,parenting

Aromatherapy Stinks

If this piece reeks, blame aromatherapy.

Specifically, you should complain to my wife. She's the one who bought this bottle of Focus Oil, which its New Zealand maker says is a blend of bergamot, lemon and cinnamon that should "promote clarity of thought."

The label also denotes the essential oil mix is "'energising.'" Please notice the manufacturer uses a Kiwi-fied spelling to show authenticity of the product's origin. It also puts the word in quotation marks to indicate its marketing team either is trying to be folksy or is letting you in on the joke.

Therefore, in the name of science and desperation to finish this post, I'm huffing these heady vapors like … uh … like … um -- (SNORRRRRRRRRRT … ahhh) -- like Tommy Chong at a marijuana farm brushfire.

Whoa. Duuuuuude! You see that?

Filling our home with scents other than Windex (the cleaning people), spilled beer (me) and the funk of the unwashed (the kids) falls squarely on my wife. The origins of her relentless burning of scented candles and warming bowls of liquefied salad seasons remain mysterious, though I can offer three guesses:

• Her first whiff of our Labrador retriever fresh from the rain
• An attempt to delay the changing one of the kids' diapers until I showed up
• Five-bean chili night

Whatever. All I know is nowadays the rest of us have to live with the stench.

Yes, I said stench.

The occasional hit of lavender at the spa, in a bubble bath or on a laced-trimmed silken negligee as it mingles with a warm summer breeze rising with the musky essence of her … umm … uh … wait … (SNEEEEENX SNORT SNORRRRRRT … brrrbrrrbrrr) -- is heavenly.

But most every weekend, My Love pours another vial of Lavendula phewitreeksalotis or something into a porcelain cup on the kitchen counter and shoves a lit tea candle under it to smolder. For 16 hours straight.

When the wind's right and the windows are open, our neighbors must think we were running a renegade potpourri lab out of our house. The overwhelming fumes makes a guy want to head outdoors for fresh-air activities like picking up a week's worth of doggie doo.

Hold the phone.

That sneaky woman o’ mine!

I'm not saying there isn't any sense in scents. Smell gives us the ability to taste beyond the tongue's basics of sweet, sour, bitter, salty and the all-powerful savory (think: grillllled meeeeat). Studies have shown scents to be a more powerful memory trigger than sight or sound. And no one can ignore several findings over the years by the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago that nothing gets a man's blood flowing -- you know, down there -- like the universally sexy, sensual aroma of pumpkin pie, doughnuts and licorice. (Obviously, Coco Chanel and Donna Karan aced marketing in school but flunked chemistry.)

Face it, too much of even a good smell can be bad thing. For example, back when I worked for a national homebuilder during the boom years, our salespeople would run a bread maker or a miniature cookie oven in the model homes to create a cozy, inviting atmosphere that would entice buyers. Look where that got us.

Home mortgage crisis!

Wall Street meltdown!

Unemployed communications professionals overusing exclamation points!

Hold it. Do you smell that?

It smells like … (SNUKUKUKUKX sniff sniff SNIIIIIICKERS) "the end."

Technorati Tags: holistic,aromatheraphy,health

Mama, Don’t Let You Daughters Grow Up to Join a Knack Cover Band

No one obviously bothered to explain to these kids’ parents the irony of Japanese school girls singing an ode to male teenage hormonal lust.

Never gonna stop, give it up.
Such a dirty mind.
Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind.

Video: “My Sharona," unnamed Japanese school girls

My my my i yi woo, indeed.

For more tales of the young ‘uns and their dag-gum devil music (no, worse – Lady Gaga), please head on over to my post today on DadCentric titled “When Your Girl Goes Gaga.”

My Son, The Playa

The phone rings with a subliminal tone begging me to answer it instead of letting it go to the machine as usual. It’s Thing 2’s teacher.

“I need to talk to you about an incident that happened at lunch today.”

The first warning sign came in the autumn under a canopy of decaying leaves and bitterly cold drizzle. Thing 2’s class came to tour the local arboretum. I played chaperone while they learned about the circle of life in the vegetative world.

Instead I witnessed the embryos of birds and bees.

Thing 2 was holding hands with a girl.

Well, it was really more the other way around. I saw her make the grab, and she saw me see it, giving me a coy smile before she turned away.

She was his assigned “buddy” for the day. Maggie. A stick with a blonde ponytail. She had been giving him the googly eyes since that first day she joined his class, mid-semester, last year. I know. I helped out in the classroom that day.

“The children were playing a game of spin of the bottle.”

A month or so later, while I helped sell pencils, erasers and things of far more plastic and far less essential nature at a school function, a teacher passed on a sighting of the second warning sign.

“Oh, your son is so cute. And with the girls! Thing 2 and Libby are always together on the playground. They are best friends.”

Libby? Who’s Libby?

“When I asked, Thing 2 quickly owned up that it was his idea and he was the one leading the game.”

Libby is a classmate. In February, while others were passing around glossy index-card Valentines from the drugstore that featured the latest hip cartoon character or superhero on them, Libby presented my son with this 9-by-12-inch homemade beauty:

“He said when the bottle landed on someone …”

“… you had to dare that person …”

“… to tell someone that he or she loved them.”

Huh?

That’s it?

“So,” I say into the receiver. “You’re saying that no spit was swapped?”

His teacher laughs.

“Yes, that’s correct. … Tomorrow at lunch, some of the assigned seats will be rearranged.”

* * *

Thing 2 clamors into the minivan that afternoon. He vibrates with the unharnessed energy of the nearly 8-year-old boy he is.

“Hey, buddy,” I say over my shoulder from the driver’s seat. “Anything interesting happen at school today.”

I catch his expression from the corner of my eye. No fear, no deception, just pre-adolescent exuberance. “Nope. Is it taco night?”

“Yep. Taco night.”

“Yeaaah! Taco-taco-TAAAAAAA-cooooo!”

* * *

Thing 2 sits at the counter and asks a question of no consequence.

“I don’t know,” I say, the corners of my mouth rising to devilish points. “Maybe will should spin a bottle for it?”

“OK,” he says. His expression and body language stays unchanged.

As opposed to My Love’s. She has been apprised of the phone call and her eyes speak to me in deafening volumes.

“Not now,” she pushes through gritted teeth that sharpens each letter before it hurtles toward me. Her head motions to big sister, Thing 1, snacking at the other end of the counter.

I duck, roll my eyes and mouth “I know” because I do know.

Geez. Let a dad have a little fun, woman.

A short while later, when big sister is miles away at dance class, My Love and I flip on the klieg lights. We don shades, fold arms, tilt heads all David Caruso like.

We confront. He confesses. Rubber hoses limp back to their lockers.

“Don’t sweat it,” I say. “Just understand that that game is not appropriate for school, OK? No biggie.”

But My Love, she wants more. She wants details. Nay, she wants …

Names.

“Who else was playing?”

They spill forward monosyllabically. I know most of them, if not by sight, by reputation. But of the girls in his list, conspicuous by their absence, are two.

Maggie.

And Libby.

* * *

The day after.

The sun creeps over the backyard tree line, bathing the kitchen counter in tangerine and lemon just to Thing 2’s left. He polishes off his bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch then hurries down to his laboratory.

He’s been cutting and pasting and taping off and on since Tuesday afternoon. He has a project of the highest importance on the second-grade Richter scale due this morning.

“Two’s still asleep!” falsely tattles Thing 1 when she arrives in the kitchen half an hour later.

“No, he’s not,” I say. “He was up before you and he’s downstairs putting the final touches on his lid. Today’s Crazy Hat Day at school.”

“Oh,” she says. “How was I to know?”

Minutes later, as I scrape the plates, from the basement, my son arises. This is what he looked like:

Amazing.

Overnight, my son has transformed from stud to pimp.

 

Technorati Tags: children,pimps,studs,playas,games

Finally Home and, Uh, You Know the Rest

Our odyssey has ended.

The power is back on. No longer will my woman be cold and my beer warm. Well, I can guarantee you the beer.

Spent Tuesday night burying those who did not survive The Big Thaw. Pity the poor salmon that first gave their lives to be made into frozen Costco burger patties for me, only to go soggy and squishy in a poorly iced Coleman cooler. To never know the joy of being grilled then slathered in homemade tartar sauce. You should try it sometime.

Wednesday spent with chainsaw in hand and 911 on speed dial. As you can tell by my typing, I still have 10 thumbs masquerading as fingers.

Yesterday was scrubbing and brushing and rubbing. Then after I got out of the shower ...

I'm wiped out and not in the usual hazy, post-St. Patrick's Day way a man of my vague Irish heritage tends to be. My liver is grateful, though. My joints, not so much.

I'll be back at full speed next week, assuming they finally reopen school and I can pry the Things hands from off each others' necks. Ah, sibling bonding.

Meanwhile, enjoy the wicked organ work in this fitting musical Odyssey.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na


Video: Mike Doughty, "Put It Down"

Still Powerless (and Gamey)

The lights remain off at Uncool Estates, however, we have found refuge in several places with an abundance of outlets and a tolerance for smelly patrons: namely, the public library, the mall and a few generous friends. Given this, a few observations from me:

• The TP at the library is far kinder and gentler than the see-through, one-ply stuff at the local Barnes & Noble "superstore." Super, my sore ass.
• This finding explains why our library is always in debt. Previously, I had thought its problem with excessive spending on paper products was about buying too many copies of the latest Jackie Collins novels.
• The library is definitely not spending its money on computer monitors. This one I'm working one looks like it fell off the back of a truck. 
• A truck delivering IBM PC Jrs.
• If dropped naked in the middle of the desert, the Things would die not of dehydration, starvation or sun exposure. Within 3 hours, they would keel over from lack of electricity, their thumbs flicking reflexively for their missing Nintendo DS Lites.

That's all for me now. If you want something fun to read in the meantime, please head over to Polite Fictions, a collaborative fiction blog I write for with some really talented folks.

This go round, we are doing "The Alphabet of Regret." We each take a letter then choose a subject accordingly: autism, breakdown, cowboys, etc. When my turn came up last week, I -- being the Ringo Starr of this band of bloggers -- went all Octopus's Garden/Yellow Submarine on them and wrote:

F is for Femme Fatale, a cautionary tale about mixing religion, revenge and, um, bondage.

Fiction, people, it's fiction.