Football, by George

The passing of George Carlin came much too soon. Reports say it was his heart, but I think there was so much genius pent up in that wiry little frame that his head just exploded. Just about everything he did was brilliant and almost always hysterically funny. This skit isn't necessarily his most amusing or even groundbreaking, as was the "7 words you can't say on TV." But it's my favorite. I learned football Saturday mornings in Michigan Stadium, or listening to the games on the radio. Each season, before the first kickoff, WJR radio 760 AM in Detroit played Carlin. Or was it CKLW? And yeah, you can listen to it in mixed company.

Cheers, George.

By the way ... pt. 1

• To answer a couple of questions, I found the keys the next day in my bag that I intentionally left at the office. No, it was never worth getting upset. By that point, it was out of my hands. Some days are like that.
• If you haven't done it yet, celebrate the 20th anniversary of Bull Durham (June 15, 1988). Drink a beer. Grow fungus in your shower shoes. Dance with a clown. Or just go to espn The Magazine. I linked to the first page, an interview with Ron Shelton. Day 2 is Tim Robbins and Day 3 (today) is Kevin Costner. I was three weeks out of college, had two weeks as a fulltime sportswriter under my (garter) belt. Annie Savoy was -- and still is -- inspiring. There were at least a half-dozen times this youth baseball season I was telling my daughter "Don't think, just pitch." (She would have thought I was nuts if I told her she was breathing out of the wrong eyelid). And at the batting cages on Friday, I wasn't pulling my hips out, but I was turning my hands over.
• Crash's answer to Annie's question "Well what DO you believe?" is still my favorite movie line(s), but "I Believe in the Church of Baseball" is right up there. In part because I can still remember the first time I went to Fenway Park -- walking up the ramp into the bleachers at twilight carrying the book (Sartre) I had to study for the next day's French 201 final. You exit that dingy walkway and the field just bursts into view, green and bright and beautiful. A true church of baseball.
• Finally, not everything I write will touch on Bull Durham. Honest. I just wanted to get something up tonight, meet my goal of posting at least once a week and hey, an anniversary's an anniversary. Check back soon.

-Michelle

The Smart One

There's this story by Judith Viorst you might have heard of -- "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." At the end, the mother knowingly tells Alexander, "Some days are like that ..."

And it's true. Some days are like that. Fortunately, the older you get, the easier it is to laugh at things. It is for me anyway.

So this is dedicated to my brother and sister, who have for years had to hear about how how I am the ________. (Smart, logical, steady, stable, sensible) -- pick one and fill in the blank. When we were kids, and my girlfriends played "Charlie's Angels," I had to be Sabrina.

Every.
Freakin'.
Time.

My day just goes to show that Abraham Lincoln was right: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Here's the rundown:

Morning: Got the kids to the bus on time, even remember the suntan lotion since they would be outside all day. As we're applying the foul stuff, my daughter says "I see London, I see France. I see Mommy's underpants. They have polka dots." Which apparently is pretty damn funny to a 9-year-old. Fortunately the four neighbor boys who share the stop weren't there yet.

So the kids get on the bus and I go home and change my underpants to something less obvious through off-white pants, gather my bags and walk out the door to catch a train. Except as soon as the door closed, I realized I didn't have my keys. And I couldn't get to the spare. And all the doors and windows were locked, except for one.

I get the window open, try to move the things I'll have to climb over and proceed to fold my 5-foot, 7-inch frame through a 26x17 inch opening. I'll tell you this: I ain't as flexible as I used to be. Back in the house, I have to change my pants, which did not fair well whilst caressing the dirty window frame, grab the keys and make the train with a couple of minutes to spare.

Noon (Actually, late afternoon): Three current and two former co-workers are going to grab a refreshing beverage and catch up for a bit before I have to catch the outbound train, which is a brisk 17-minute walk from the office. I check my friend's watch at 6, and figure I have about 20 minutes before I have to head out for the 6:35 Greenbush. It's about 5 minutes fast she says. So at 6:20 watch-time, I gather my bag, give the ladies some money and check my phone. No messages. No missed calls. But it's 6:27. I lost 12 minutes in 30 seconds. So now I've basically missed my train and the last two innings of a Little League game. But hey, I missed my train, which is as good a reason as any to have another sangria and hang with the ladies for an hour.

Night: Didn't have any problem making the 8:25, and there was my car in the almost-empty, not-very-well-lit parking lot. But whether it was karma, the circle of life or just because some days are like that, my keys were nowhere to be found. No car keys. No house keys. No window to climb through and mess up my pants.

I'm hoping they're in the bag I left at work. Or on my desk under the piles of ad schedules and media kits. Can't find out until tomorrow because my key to the office is also among the missing.

And yup, it's an inconvenience, a pain in the ass and basically pretty stupid, especially from someone known for doing things right and being somewhat top heavy when it comes to common sense.

At the same time, taken all together in one day, it's pretty dang funny. Especially when you realize some days are like that.