April 1, 2008  

Two things that make me smile, two that make me frown

You decide which makes me what.

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Photo by mrlerone

I finally threw away my Stadium Pal. Now over six years old, used once, never washed, I figured it was time to let go. Friends, at a certain point it is time to say goodbye to the beer-drinking catheter.

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June 24. That’s the day that my China project — which I do believe I’ve been working on for 17 years or so — launches. The lovelywife will be attending the launch event in Beijing and traveling with me afterwards. First time we’ve gone international together since before The Coming of the Children and we’re ecstatic. (She’s lined up a cavalcade of friends and family too smitten with our kids to understand that watching them for two weeks will be only slightly less unhealthy than juggling spent uranium rods.) So we’ve been talking about the trip a lot.

Recently our almost two-year-old girl overheard us and kept pinching her nose. Couldn’t figure out why. No one had “tooted” (four-year-old parlance, there). So we resumed talking … about Hong Kong. Pinch. Hong Kong. Pinch. Then it hit us. She thinks we’re saying “honk honk” which we used to say when squeezing her nose. Cracked us up. And further terrified us at the memory/pattern matching of the midgets in our house. Kids, lifecasting Tivo units for random playback.

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Yesterday, at the Cubs home opener just as the good guys were about to stage an improbable 9th inning comeback (only to blow it), the umpire waved the Brewers’ Eric Gagne off the mound. Why? Because he looked like a fucking slob. His jersey was completely untucked. Hirsute and in deep shit he looked more like a dumpster diver than a reliever. The ump made him tuck the shirt back in. Then play continued. Mind the signage, buddy!

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Tomorrow the city has announced it will clean the street where MySweetRide lies comatose. It may be the official death knell for the problem-plagued automobile. The reason is that it means we — and by we I mean my pal Chris whose street it is on — must attempt to move it. If it starts, she’s fighting to live. If not, I’m taking suggestions on what to do with her. Upside: tires so firmly mounted on hubs that that’ll never be stolen, a few extra diapers in the trunk. Downside: sounds like freight train (because of this?), missing stereo. I’ll start bidding at €50.

2 Responses to “Two things that make me smile, two that make me frown”

  1. Rob O. says :

    We have a friend who commutes daily from a condo on Lakeview out to Shaumberg (sp?) by car.
    Many times, we’ve advised him to get an old beater – lovingly tended to such as YourSweetRide – and park it at the train station out there just for shuttling the mile or so from the train station to his work. Then he could ride the train to & fro and have an extra coupla hours a day for reading, doing offline work (Or do they have wi-fi on the train? Even better still!), or just snoozing.
    So far, he hasn’t chosen to admit the genius in our plan. What can I say, you can pick your friends, but you can’t beat them until they’re sensible, eh?

  2. Rob Smart says :

    A sad sad day that sees both the demise of MySweetRide and the end of the stadium pal, our thoughts are with you in this time of woe…