In this edition of the D&B News:
- Barn Dance!
- The high school reunion that never was
- New house built on Munger
- BCA Junior National 9-Ball Championships
- Rolling Sculpture Show, downtown
- $1000 vet bill for a cat that was an "accident"
- CALIFORNIA!!!!
- Blackout of the century
- TC golf for Derek
- Betz's homemade Velveeta cheese soap
- Oktoberfest in Dayton
- Betz playing pool again
- Did I mention CALIFORNIA?????
“Detroit,
you can go ahead and flush the toilet.”
-Mayor
Kwame Kilpatrick, 26 hours after the onset of the country's worst blackout,
announcing that the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant had its power
back.
July
1, 2003
I
was just out of bed at 7:30 a.m. (mucho early for me), hadn't brushed hair
nor teeth, and was watering the plants on the deck to avoid the inevitable
heat of the day. A little old man suddenly came out from behind our
big garage, scaring the crap out of me. Before he even said
anything, I knew it must be the old guy who had come up to Derek a few
weeks earlier, at about the same time of day, and talked to him about
living in the new house being built. I chatted for a good 15 minutes
with Howard Allen (wife: Faye) who is nearly 80 and would like to
buy the house and be our new neighbor. I mentioned in the last
newsletter that I was hoping for an older couple with bad eyesight, so we
could continue to frolic in the nude and leave the shades open (I assure
you, it is mostly Derek who does this). Unfortunately, Howard's
vision seems fine. He's hard of hearing, but that does us no good
with the nudity.
I
departed for the U.P. at around 9PM, arriving in Gaylord for the night at
just after midnight. I made the rest of the journey the next
morning, meeting up with Mom in Escanaba in mid-afternoon. That
night, Mom coached me on her trusty Singer, and in just a half-hour or so,
the pillows I mentioned last month are "in training" no more.
That
night was the extent of my visit with Mom, as she had a
previously-arranged trip to visit David in Illinois. She left for
work in the morning on the 3rd, and I had the run of the house--everything
I always wanted as a teenager! I stopped in at the new Northland Inn
for lunch with Celina. The bar has been there for ages and ages--as
far back, I think, as when Northland was a much bigger logging town before
"the big fire." But it's gone through several different
owners in the last couple decades, each with a lesser degree of success
than the one previous. It sat idle for two or three years until a
few local kids grew up, went to college, got good jobs, and decided to buy
it and renovate it so their parents would have something to keep them busy
in retirement. I'd been hearing for months about how nice it looks,
but this was my first opportunity to see it for myself. I wasn't
disappointed! www.northlandinn.info.
I had a lovely time visiting with Celina as she worked her day shift.
There were very few customers, so we had loads of time to catch up on
what's been going on in our lives.
I returned home in mid-afternoon to get ready for the big BARN DANCE that
night. I'd been planning my trip to the U.P. for several months,
but only for my high school reunion. My extended family has a picnic
at the lake on July 4th every year, but this year Anna Lindholm was having
a Barn Dance too. I found out just a few days before I arrived,
so I felt very fortunate to be able to sort of kill two birds with one
stone--visit friends AND family all in one trip. Auntie Barb and
Lori were up from Chicago too, and there were lots of cousins I hadn't
seen in years, so I was really looking forward to it (despite the
90-degree
heat and 95% humidity).
As
I drove up to the "parking lot" (a cow pasture next to the barn,
with its own separate driveway), I hadn't seen any of my family yet.
I would've sworn I was in the Twilight Zone when the first person I saw
was a young African-American boy running through the field. First,
there are almost no people of color in the U.P. Second, aside from
my uncle's wife who is Lebanese, my family is about as white as can be.
It crossed my mind that there must've been another adoption in the family.
Many of my cousins have adopted kids from other countries, but until now
they'd only come from Baltic countries so for the most part they
"blend in." But rather than turn around and go back to the
last farm on the road and ask if I had the right directions (or entered
the fifth dimension), I walked up to the barn, hopscotching around the cow
manure landmines after the cute little boy. Then it all came
together. I was in the right place. I soon learned that my
cousin Connie, who now lives in Florida, brought a friend from their
military base, along with her two children, home for a visit. As far
as I could tell, everyone at the party welcomed the newcomers with open
arms. Despite the reputation of some people in the U.P.,
there didn’t seem to be any racial phobias or prejudices here. It
was a proud moment for me. Some Yoopers suck when it comes to
racism, but evidently not my cousins.
I
greeted all my closest relatives (three
uncles, three aunts), met the camera-shy pregnant pot
belly pig, watched a hayride,
and tried to acclimate to the intense heat with as little sweating as
possible (at which I failed; I was schvitzing to beat the band).
I wondered why no one was in the barn, until I
actually ventured up there myself. It had cooled down to high
80s outside, but the
barn loft was still a sauna. The band, who very closely resembled
ZZ Top (but played bluegrass), deserves major props for staying up there
the whole time and keeping the music going.
I
was quickly reminded how funny the people in my family are.
One of my favorite cousins that I only see once every few years at special
occasions is Deena.
She's the second-to-youngest of 11 kids. She's the one that, as
a baby, was forgotten on the bed once when the whole family departed
for a trip, so she's understandably cynical. On this day she was
especially funny because (1) she'd had several beverages of the
hops-and-barley variety by the time I got there, and (2) she was dressed
in her 1980s Fleetwood Mac groupie duds, complete with headband and baby-blue
concert T-shirt. She told me a story that made me laugh so hard
I almost peed my pants. It goes something like this:
When
Deena was first married, she lived in Ann Arbor. One time, her
entire family drove down for a visit in a Winnebago. Remember:
11 kids, and by then, a lot of them had kids of their own. Well,
having grown up in a family of full-bodied Swedish nurturers, she felt
that it was her obligation to feed all of them when they arrived.
All day long, she cooked...three pans of lasagna to be exact.
Meanwhile, the Winnebago passengers were enjoying the fact that they had a
designated driver. They polished off two cases of beer before they
got to Escanaba, which is only about an hour from their departure point,
and about 1/8 of the entire distance. So by the time they got to Ann
Arbor, they were pretty.....ahem....."happy." Deena had
the lasagna ready and waiting for them, but it was polished off in a
matter of minutes. She was mortified, having not made anything for
backup. Her Mom, my dear old Auntie Helen (my Grandpa's sister), was
even a little drunk. She reassured Deena, "Don't worry honey.
I got ya covered. There's
a HAM in the Winnebago!"
As
I mentioned above, adoptions of international children have become fairly
common in my family. Deena adopted a Russian baby several years ago.
After she had us all in stitches with the Winnebago story, someone asked
her, "That reminds me Deena....when is your husband going to retire?
He's been working at the hospital for a long time!" Her
response was “Hell no he can’t retire.
I haven’t paid off my Russian yet!”
By
the time I recovered from the laughter brought on by that one, she'd been
dragged off by someone else who wanted to talk to her. In five
minutes she told me two stories that made the whole trip worthwhile, and
then POOF she was gone, just like Keyser Soze in
The Usual
Suspects. Come to think of it, she does have a little bit
of a limp....hmmmm.
Around dark, Auntie Barb drove us out to "lookout point"
to see if we could see the fireworks in Iron Mountain (about 20 miles
away). There were "No Trespassing" signs posted all over
the place, but Auntie Barb said, "Oh that's just the Blomquist
farm....old Norm is asleep by now I'm sure...." and trudged on
through! Sure enough, we could see and hear the fireworks...and
someone else had beaten us to Lookout Point. They shared their perch
with us, though, about 8 of us precariously teetering on what was surely a
200-foot dropoff into the U.P. wilderness. It was astonishing that
we could see the fireworks so far away. Only in the U.P. or
somewhere equally remote would I imagine this is possible, because there
was a vast expanse of nothingness (i.e., absolutely no lights) between us
and the city. At the end, the flashes stopped but the booms
kept coming for a good 30 seconds afterwards....a fantastic natural
demonstration that light travels much, much faster than sound. And
I bet ol' Norm Blomquist slept right through it.
Before
heading back to Mom's house, I hit Solberg's Bar with Uncle Marty, and my
cousin Jackie got there a little later. Uncle Marty bought me a pop, and I
indulged in a cigarette because it felt like such a moment.
We sat there for an hour, just people-watching.
They have volleyball every Thursday, with buckets of suds.
By this time, it was well into the evening, and the volleyball
players were WELL into the suds. Near
as I could tell, the lineup of several North Dickinson High School
football teams from the 90s were there.
Uncle Marty spent most of the time shaking his head at "the
boys," too quickly and accurately reminded of the many buckets of
suds he'd consumed there himself in days gone by.
I remember some of those days, because I was a teenager at the
time, looking forward every Sunday to ballgames at Felch Memorial Field,
followed inevitably by beer and pool at Solberg's Bar (Fresca for me and
Grandma). I played many pool
games on that table...and one of my most memorable shots.
Here's
how the table looked:
I
was on the 5-ball (orange), and my opponent only had the 8-ball left.
If I missed, he'd have a really easy shot on the 8-ball in the side
pocket. So I had
nothing to lose...I curved the cue ball around the 8-ball in order to
pocket my 5-ball. I was about
15, and Uncle Kevin had never seen a massé shot before (nor had I
executed one). He was
flabbergasted. He looked
around at everyone standing near the pool table, "Did you see that
shot? Holy cow, did you see
that? That's my NIECE!"
I don't know if Uncle Kevin remembers that day, but I remember it
like it was yesterday...my first foray into competitive pool with an
audience. That day, an
audience of ONE (even though a hundred people were in the room at the
time).
I
was very sad for Celina to see her car still at The Northland Inn when I
drove home, around midnight. She'd gotten there at 11:30 a.m. and
was only supposed to work until the afternoon. The evening bartender
didn't show up, so she got stuck working the whole night. She'd been
told that if the bar emptied out, she could close, but there was always at
least one person there. By the time I got there, at least she had
some of her friends to keep her company. I didn't intend to stay,
but they were all having fun, so I decided to join them and be the sober
one who laughed at them--a position I find myself in quite often.
I
had the great pleasure of giving a longtime local braggart a sound
whooping on the pool table. He's exceptionally chauvinistic and
absolutely disgusting...exactly the kind of person I love to play pool
against, especially when a bunch of his friends are standing around
watching. He can actually play fairly well, but I stomped him
soundly. Funny though, he still felt compelled to talk about how
much better he is than me. But I didn't take the bait. I just
smiled graciously and winked at the people who were watching, telling him
"that one game you won, was actually pretty good. Too bad about
the 5 other games."
To
think: when I was growing up, I actually looked up to people
like him. For what reason, I have NO idea. If he had said
something demeaning to me when I was a teenager, I would have been
heartbroken. I would not have responded at all; I would have just
gone home and cried. Now, I think...what a pathetic, buffoonish,
waste of flesh that guy is. I ended up staying until Celina and all
of her friends left at 2:45 a.m.
The
night of the 4th was the long-awaited 15-year high school reunion.
It had become evident a few weeks before that the turnout would be
low. I had heard nothing from
the reunion coordinator (I'll call her Lucy--names have been changed to
protect the stupid) since a very vague postcard in February, so I had
assumed that they decided to cancel the event.
When she e-whined me a month before the event asking, "What
should I doooooooo?" I had to tell her she was on her own.
I told her that most classmates, like me, had probably assumed it
had been canceled since there had been almost no communication.
Lucy took great offense to this and has not spoken to me since.
I am lucky to have gotten back the most current mailing list so I
can use it for the 20-year. She
managed to lose $500 of the class's money on a deposit for a banquet hall
(for which at least a partial refund would have been given if she had
canceled more than 3 weeks ahead of time), and didn't even bargain with
the banquet facility for some food for our $500 (which we would have
gladly picked up) or a partial credit toward our 20-year reunion. It's
awfully easy to play around with other people's money.
I sold a lot of frickin' candy bars when I was in high school, so I
am largely to credit for the decent cushion of money we have for planning
reunions. People ask me why
I'm a control freak. Because
THIS is what happens when you ask other people to take care of things.
I
arrived about a half-hour late to the Friday night casual thing (the only
thing left of what was supposed to have been a 3-day reunion weekend),
and saw zero cars in the parking lot.
So I drove around Gwinn for a half-hour, then went back.
I was still the only person there. Eight people eventually showed up by invitation, and we bumped
into two more who still lived in the area and just happened to be at the
bar that night. At least
three of them said they only heard about the reunion from the post card
I sent them over a year ago. The
planner claims that despite her best efforts, no one replied.
I have to wonder what she considers to be her "best efforts."
I felt terrible for the people who’d come from so far away--one
from Boston, one from Virginia, and one all the way from Phoenix!
Guess who WASN'T there: Lucy.
Here are some pictures:
Betsy & Janelle...... Dave/Steve/Carrie........
Carrie the Goofball........Class of 89ers........ Them again
Kim & Melinda........ Dave/Steve/Betz
Here
are some stats from the reunion that you may find interesting:
Number
of male classmates that attended: 5
Number
of them that were balding: 3
Number
of them that had mullets: 3
(You
do the math)
I
was unable to find any more family photos while at Mom’s.
And I wouldn’t even think about looking in any closets,
because getting to the back of one of them would be a 2-day job in itself.
I'm quite sure that I'd uncover some forgotten Christmas presents
from 1984 if I probed deep enough in there, so after a cursory sort
through 2 or 3 photo albums, all of which I'd already been through, I gave
up. So I was kinda bummed
about that, but maybe next time.
I
went to Northland for lunch again, to
see Celina before I left. I
was chatting away with her and Rosemary (the bar owner), when someone
asked across the bar…. "Excuse me, are you Betsy Sundholm?”
I looked back, and their faces didn’t ring a bell.
Obviously, though, these people knew me.
Crap….who are they? They
could have strung me along and embarrassed the shit out of me, but they
were far too kind. They only
let me guess for 10 or 15 seconds.
“Dick and Margaret DeBolt!”
A shriek and some big hugs quickly ensued.
I had never met Margaret, but have been corresponding through Christmas
cards since I was 17. Dick used to bring his boys up from the Lower
Peninsula for hunting every year, and when I was fifteen I had the biggest
crush on their oldest son, Rusty. Of course, I was too shy to
tell him that, but Mom invited them all over for Thanksgiving dinner on
at least one occasion. In retrospect I'm sure she did it because
she knew my crush was so powerful. Some of my fondest puppy love
memories came from their visits, even though I never did tell Rusty I
liked him. Sean became pen pals with their younger son, Scott, and
stayed in touch for many years after that. It was really a treat
to see Dick and finally meet Margaret. They were driving through
the U.P. on their Harley....living out their retirement dream. Kudos!
The
new Northland Inn is so nice, I imagine they will be very busy come
Hunting Season. I even
thought of planning my November vacation around it, and working a few
nights at the bar for tip money, which can be very good in the U.P.
in November, when the ratio of local women - to - homesick hunters is
about 1:50. And as I recall
from my days as a bartender at Knotty Pine, most of them like nothing more
than a sassy, bodacious Yooper woman who tells dirty jokes and keeps
the beer flowin'. So what the
Hell...I'd prostitute my sarcastic wit for a few hundred bucks.
And PROUDLY! But as it turns out, Hunting Season conflicts with pool
season (a big pro tournament in Toledo), but it was a nice thought while
it lasted.
So after the visit with Celina, tacos and a photo opp with the DeBolts, and a cream soda with the rest of the afternoon barflies, I departed mom’s at 6:03 that evening, arrived in AA at 2:03 AM on the button. It usually doesn’t take quite eight hours, but I made frequent stops to keep my back from getting stiff. One of them was at St. Ignace for a photo with the red, white, & blue moose that we didn't get a picture with last year:
Derek
must’ve missed me because
the next morning he made breakfast, then agreed to go--brace yourselves--SHOPPING.
We brought new home a new office chair before his attention span
gave out exactly 52 minutes into the search.
That night we had dinner with Derek’s family at Kristin’s house.
Those were the best chicken potpies I’ve ever had.
Homemade, in our own individual little casserole cups!
Before
I left for the U.P., I noticed that Ratso was licking a lot more than
usual. Not licking himself,
but licking his chops, like he had peanut butter on the roof of his mouth. But he wasn’t puking or anything, so we didn’t do
anything right away. A couple
days after I got home, I caught him peeing on the floor.
Our cats NEVER do this, so it was cause for immediate concern.
I looked around, and found evidence of several previous impromptu
litter boxes too. After going
through a half-gallon of vinegar to clean it up, and then showering for a
half-hour, I called the vet, and dropped him off the next morning.
They would have to keep him there until he peed in some plastic
beads that are supposed to simulate cat litter.
When I saw the beads, I knew we were in for trouble.
He was NOT going to want to pee in them.
They said some cats hold it for up to 48 hours if they’re
irritated enough with “Mom” for leaving them at the vet in a cage.
But they assured me, if you keep him in a kennel long enough,
eventually he’ll have to pee (somewhere).
Blood tests, which they took immediately, showed that his iron was
low, which may indicate kidney problems.
By
the end of the day, he hadn’t peed yet, so they had to keep him
overnight. At around 3:00 the
next day, I was running errands for work in that neighborhood, so I
stopped by to see if a visit from Mom might relax him enough to pee.
Nothing doing. He just
wrestled with me for 20 minutes to let him out of the cage. That is
one STRONG cat, let me tell ya. Later
that night I picked him up, a little nervous about the cost of daily
kennel fees adding up, and took him home.
I set up the bathroom just for him--favorite toys, favorite
blanket, and litter box with fake litter beads.
I set his carrier down and opened the gate so he could get out and
at least feel more comfortable being at home.
I went into the other room to get him some food and water, and by
the time I got back, he had peed….a full 8 ounces.
Doesn’t sound like much, but considering that he only weighs 15
pounds, it’s a significant portion of his body weight.
I was able to get it into a specimen cup using the little syringe
thingee they gave me, but the vet was closed for the night.
The 24-hour-clinic told me to put it in the fridge. “In the FRIDGE? Are
you freakin' kidding?” But
that I did, clearing everything on the shelf, and putting quadruple-layers
of Ziploc baggies around the cup, and 3 sheets of paper towel underneath.
When I dropped it off the next morning, the girls at the Cat Clinic
saw me coming. They'd all
been on "Pee Watch 2003" for the previous 36 hours.
As soon as I walked in, they rejoiced, "Ratso finally gave you
liquid gold!"
Twenty-four
hours later, I got the word from the vet:
Urinary Tract Infection. He
also had another tapeworm and is definitely anemic.
And he hadn't had heart worm / flea treatment in far too long.
Medicines needed: Drontal (tapeworm), Amoxycillin (UTI), Revolution
(Heartworm), and vitamin/iron drops (anemia).
Veterinary
costs for Pogirski/Sundholm household year to date:
$1000.
Number
of cats yet to have their checkups: 2.
Number
of cats that were called "free" when we got them:
3
There's
something to be said for success amidst adversity, because that night, I
bowled my first turkey (three consecutive strikes) and my high game to
that point, a 136.
The
pillows were completed in mid-July, WAY over budget. Now I see why
they cost so much at the store. Within
a couple days, Ratso was the first to partake of a catnap on them. He slept for about 30 minutes while I wrote in my garden
journal on a chair nearby. Within a month, all three cats had
adopted the floor pillows as their own.
They now sleep there regularly, sometimes even in twos....as long
as one of us is in the room. Mission accomplished!
One
beautiful Saturday afternoon in July, while recounting the day’s
“earthly” accomplishments in my garden journal, I watched as Simonie,
inarguably the sweetest of our three, pawed the screen saver (bugs) on the
computer. I had my little "Aww, she's so cute" moment, and
then I wrote this haiku:
She swats the ’puter
Simonie simply couldn’t
be any cuter.
As July 11 was an unseasonably cool Friday evening and we had nothing to do, we went to see the "Rolling Sculpture Show" in downtown Ann Arbor. I had seen the signs around town and heard about it on the radio for a week ahead of time, but wouldn’t have thought much of it if my friend Susan hadn’t e-mailed to say "I'm going to have my hot dog stand set up--stop by for a visit and a free wiener." After just a few minutes walking around, I spotted an Elvis impersonator. Of course, we had to have a picture.
We
wandered around for a couple hours, went and had our free wiener and said
Hi to Susan, and bumped into at least a dozen people we knew. I
even got a lead on a roofing job from a co-worker who will soon be buying
a new home with her partner. Derek's nervous that they haven't called
yet, but I keep reminding him that they haven't moved into the house yet.
We
saw lots and lots
and lots and lots
of really cool
cars and other
vehicles that night. Fittingly, the last one we looked at was a
priceless, one-of-a-kind 1927 Dusenberg--from
where we get that expression, "That's a doozy!" Car
collectors don't like to tell you how much their cars are worth,
especially the really rare ones. He did tell us, however, that it is
insured for $750,000 but he has turned down offers for “a lot more”
than that. A scruffy, mustachioed auto mechanic walked up to the
owner, who was surrounded by onlookers, and said, “Do you remember
me?” The owner looked
baffled only briefly, but then said, “Oh yeah, you worked on my
Bentley!” …as if having
one car worth six figures wasn’t enough.
He had another!
In
mid-July I saw a headline: "Jerry Springer for Senate."
Now I’ve seen everything.
The
fine folks at Comedy Central charmed me in July by repeatedly airing
“Best in Show,” which gets better every time I watch it.
Maybe this time it was especially funny because the Harrisburg KC
Dog Show had been aired on Animal Planet all week (Best in Show
also took place in Pennsylvania). And
isn’t it peculiar that the Norwich Terrier (Eugene Levy & Catherine
O’Hara’s dog “Winky” in the movie) won the Best In Show award on
the movie, and the same breed of terrier won the same award in Harrisburg?
(All right, so that’s not 100% true.
It was the *Norfolk* terrier, the Norwich’s virtually
indistinguishable cousin, but seriously, would you have known the
difference if I hadn’t just told you?)
The line from the movie that made me laugh the hardest:
upon seeing Rhapsody the poodle’s handler (a gay woman) plant a
huge, unexpected kiss on the poodle’s owner (a seemingly straight,
married woman), a man watching the spectacle declared,
“Rhapsody has two mommies.”
Oh my goodness, that shit was funny.
Note to self: Buy “Best in
Show” on DVD.
Just
in time for the big Junior National 9-Ball Championships, I spray painted
about 35 frosted globes. They previously covered the light bulbs
over the pool tables at the Union, but the fact that they're frosted,
diffuses the light too much and we had to remove them. I stole an
idea from TLC's While You Were Out: spray paint the globes to look
like pool balls, and set them on top of the light fixtures so they can be
used to identify the table numbers. Get it....Table 1 has a
one-ball, Table 2 a two-ball, etc. Here's a picture of Table
16. Neat huh? I spray painted
the ball color, then a small circle stencil in white, and then a number on
top of that (just like a pool ball).
Anyway, we had a very Mars-Venus moment when I asked Derek to help me finish the last three globes, and I thought you might like to read about it. This is, of course, told from my perspective. To hear Derek’s version, you will have to ask him yourself. (I doubt he even remembers).
They
were the 8-balls and Venus wanted them to be perfect…particularly black
on white, when any mistake would be painfully evident.
Venus had sawhorses and a nice plywood table set up for the big
project, but the globes wouldn’t sit still. When she held the
stencil up to them, they moved slightly, so it would help to have one
person hold the globe still while the other holds the stencil in place and
sprays the paint. There were
only three left. But Mars saw
the project, in its absolute final stages, after Venus had been gently
coaxing his interest and encouragement and--heaven forbid--help for
about a week, and then decided he must find a better way to do it.
Mars:
“I’ll build you a jig.”
Venus:
“A what? No honey,
just hold the globe in place for me. There are only THREE left.”
Mars
traipses off to the garage, starts sawing.
Venus:
“(Grumble)…. Mars…. (grumble)… Venus… (expletive)…..three
left!!!
I asked for your help, I didn’t ask for you to create a different
way to do it.”
Mars
didn’t hear a word of this, of course, because of the saw.
Ten minutes later, when the whole spraying project would have only
taken 5 minutes if Venus had done it alone, Mars came out of the garage
and declared, “It’ll take longer than I thought to make a jig. What do you want me to do?”
Venus
(forgivingly):
“OK, just hold this.”
Mars holds the stencil in place, and Venus
sprays a slightly imperfect, but entirely acceptable, white circle.
Mars:
“The edges are a little fuzzy.
Here, let me do it. (Translation: surely I can do it better than you because I have a
penis).”
Mars
oversprays by 200%; white paint drips down the shiny black surface and
onto the table, destroying a half-hour of Venus' work completed over the
last two days.
Mars:
“Uhhhh…..….I’m sorry?”
Fortunately,
and predictably, Venus made a spare of every color just in case there was
such an error.
Number
of globes Venus sprayed: 36. Number she messed up beyond usability: 0.
Mars’
same ratio: 1:1.
Oh,
it gets better, people. You thought I just talked about the good
times in this newsletter? Thought our lives are nearly perfect and
we get along swimmingly? Bha! Think again!
The
evening ended with Mars blowing off the evening’s previously-agreed-upon
household duties (after golfing from 6AM-7PM) and going to bed, and Venus
so furious that her head felt like it was going to explode.
Of course, being Venus, she didn't stay angry for long. In minutes her anger turned to distress, and distress turned to
self-doubt, and the expulsion of tears and some more expletives relieved some
of the pressure on her temples. Venus
actually had a bit of a Mars moment of her own, in that she punched the
wall. Thank goodness for good
drywall and a not-too-powerful right jab.
But the nausea, which it isn’t clear came from the argument or
the inhalation of spray paint fumes, continued throughout the
night….long after Mars apologized and said he will get things done
tomorrow after work, if only Venus will leave him a list.
By
morning they had kissed and made up. After breakfast, Mars set guiltily to work on the Honeydo List.
Some favorite
words of the quarter:
purloined
cuckold emollient
modicum
7/15
I
saw two things
I saw today made me very sad. One
was a divorced couple, with new wives and husbands and step-kids in tow,
exchanging children at the gas station.
This of course inspired me to write another haiku:
Must exchange the kids
Six o’clock at the BP
on Michigan Ave.
The second sad thing is that Munger Road, previously gravel for a mile north from our house to Michigan Avenue & I-94, and consequently not heavily traveled, is now paved. We shudder to think of how many more cars (potential cat-flatteners) will now use this road.
7/16
I
received a pamphlet in the mail from yet another animal charity (you get
on one list, and you get on them all), and I am in love. http://www.bestfriends.org/
7/17
Derek
met me at the Union and we walked around at Art Fair.
We saw Bill Ford--as in Bill Ford the head honcho at Ford Motor
Company--the guy with the weird eyes that talks on the TV commercials
about if he could only have one car it would be a '65 Mustang. Worth
billions, and he's just walkin' around like everybody else at the Art
Fair--only he, unlike most of us--could afford any item he wanted at Art
Fair. Oy, the prices! Five grand for a wooden bowl with a crack in it?
And I don't mean "some crack in it" (enough crack
might actually be worth it on the street).
Of course, we saw many things we wanted to buy.
Shortly after the Bill Ford encounter (I didn't recognize him, and
Derek didn't have the courage to go up and make a scene), a metal
sculpture caught Derek's eye. But
we went home without making any purchases.
7/18
I
walked around for an hour while at work and splurged on a small purple
bowl at Art Fair (paper clips).
It matches the office, and it was only five bucks. So what
if I could make the same thing with clay from Michael's for 35 cents,
I can still say that I bought "art." Later, we went back
(Derek after 4 beers) and bought not only the
metal
sculpture, but the matching hall
table. He also bought
a very cool (and much more reasonably priced) framed shark photo for basement.
By the pool table, of course....where'd you expect? The photo itself
didn't call out to me, but once I realized he actually had a place in
mind, I loved the idea.
7/19
We picked up the artwork just minutes before
the Art Fair was over. Derek sat
in the truck (parking would have been impossible) and I walked to the
vendor's booth to pick up the piece.
As I trudged along, I was accosted by the public access TV people.
"Here, sing on TV." "Sing???? Um, no, I don't
think so." "Well, just talk then" (shoving microphone
in my face). "Uhhhhh, ok." I actually sounded fairly
articulate; didn't get nervous. But once I started talking, I
couldn't shut up. I just went on about how I was
"here to pick up a steel sculpture that we bought yesterday when my
boyfriend had had too many beers and wasn't thinking straight...oh yeah....he's parked right over there
(pointing)....anyway, we bought it from an artist who's from Wisconsin...I
can't remember his name...and it's a beautiful July day....not so hot like it normally
is during Art Fair....Wow, can you believe there's only an hour left
before the end of Art Fair....did I mention it's a beautiful
day?".....before long those public access people were virtually
yanking the microphone out of my hand. I completely neglected to say
the two things they’d actually asked me to say: my name and where I'm
from. Maybe that's a GOOD thing.
I really liked the artist, Randy, and his
partner, Dave, so I asked them to pose for
a picture. The hall table
that was on display was already sold, so they would be making another one for us
and delivering it in August. After
picking up and loading the sculpture without incident, we celebrated with riblets at
Applebees (great deal--get the lunch portion, it's more than enough food).
That
was a busy day for us, as I managed to also get in a shopping spree (75%
off summer stuff!) at Fashion Bug, a 90-minute trek through Farmer Jack,
punctuated by an annoying teenaged cashier who said, "I mean...."
fourteen times in the course of a minute (does this mean that
"I mean...." is the new "....like...." for
teens?), and we later went to see Terminator 3, which we both gave two
thumbs up.
7/20
Snooker
embraced the new pillows. While
Derek worked, I moved around furniture in preparation for hanging the new
sculpture. We don't get HBO,
but so many people have told me how good "Sex and the City" is, that I finally used my 99¢
coupon at the video store and, over the course of the following three
weeks, rented the first four seasons.
I adore everything about the show--mostly her friend Stanford--except the whiny Carrie Bradshaw.
She can never leave well enough alone. She's gone through half a
dozen decent boyfriends, and when she can't find a reason to break up with
them, she makes something up. Don't get me wrong--I LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sarah Jessica Parker the actress. But I want to smack Carrie the character
and scream "reality check!"
7/21 Stricken with the 48-hour, hit-by-a-truck, can’t-keep-anything-down, flu. Went in for 1:00 meeting anyway (Damn, does U of M appreciate this?). Curled up on the couch for the evening and rented "The Hours" on DVD. Derek really didn't like it. He left saying, "You owe me BIG for watching that with you." I, too, was a little disappointed in the plot, after hearing such rave reviews, but really appreciated the acting. When people hear me say I was disappointed in the plot, they call me crazy. But seriously....I guess I just didn't understand what those women were depressed about, particularly Virginia Woolf herself. I think, like Gosford Park, that I would understand and thus enjoy it more, the second time around. I'll have to do that some weekend when Derek's not home.
7/22
Operating at 75% capacity, went to work for 7 hours.
7/23
95% back to normal, worked 6 hours, then bowled a 172! Showing once
again, success amidst diversity! Derek had a golf lesson.
Tried to call Uncle Marty all week for golf this weekend but he's
been blowing us off. Whatsamatta Uncle Marty....don't you like us
anymore????
7/24 The pool tables at the Union were nearing completion for the Junior National 9-Ball Championships, just five days away. Our table mechanic had recovered about 12 of the 17 tables in brand-new tournament grade Simonis cloth (courtesy of a tournament sponsor--the greatest perk of hosting the event). The day was starting off very smoothly, when happenstance led me right into the Billiards Room to see Maintenance worker Ken putting up filter-type material on the ventilation units. A rage ensued.
“Why?” you ask? Well, they did this to us earlier in the summer--“testing
the air handlers”--and left the entire Billiards Room and two study
lounges on the floor below, covered in a ½-inch layer of black soot, and
refused to clean it up. I
realize that they have to make sure the building’s heating and cooling
works, but do they have to do it 5 days before the BIGGEST event in
Billiards Room HISTORY? ….which, mind you, they are all very well aware
that I have been preparing for for almost a year?
I started to almost scream at Ken, with whom I normally have a
pretty good relationship, but soon realized that he was just doing what
his supervisors told him. He
was very kind not to scream back at me.
I found the nearest phone and started calling. Wouldn’t you know it…none of his superiors were
available. So I headed to my
Director’s Office. I felt I
might need backup. Damn, she
wasn’t there either. By now
I was so angry I was quivering. At
last, Donna (my bowling teammate, one of my best buds at the Union, and
Facilities Coordinator with an equal stake in the situation because her
Custodial staff would be responsible for the cleanup), who’d had time to
calm down since hearing about it much earlier in the day, was able to
pacify me. “Just take a
deep breath, go upstairs, and drink your coffee.
I’ll take care of it.” That's
why I love Donna. She takes CARE of things. With
the benefit of a two-way radio, she was able to convince the Maintenance
Director to wait another week until the tournament had finished.
That guy has NO idea how lucky he is that he didn’t talk to me
that day. I outweigh him by 50
pounds easily, and I'm a couple inches taller, and my wrath would have
given me the strength of Lou Ferrigno circa 1983. I might have
caused that daft little man some serious physical pain.
Just found out about the new Michigan Women's 9-ball tour, coordinated by
my friend Alice. First tournament: September 27-28. $1,000
added by the host room. Woohoo! Wait...is there ANY chance
I'll have time to get in stroke for it? Doubtful. But I can
try.
7/26 Before Derek got home from work, I huffed & puffed to move the furniture around to make room for the new sculpture. That night, Derek and I did some huffing & puffing together...no, not the good kind...rearranging the heaviest furniture and hanging the Orbit sculpture. We had to move the entertainment center, which was never centered on the wall from the day it was delivered. It was more like an entertainment “off-center” (that groaner was for Grandpa Sundholm). It weighed about a billion pounds. We moved the couch 3 or 4 times until we finally settled on a spot. The living room is on a diagonal now...it's more feng shui. I don't really know what that is for sure, but I think it's about energy flow and symmetry. It's definitely more symmetrical and balanced.
7/28
BCA countdown: two days. An entire UPS truckload of boxes
arrived for me at work--donations for the BCA competitors.
Both of my offices are stacked from floor to ceiling.
Constant interruptions, regarding unrelated topics, prevented me
from getting much of anything done for BCA.
Instead, I schlepped home a pile of papers 4 inches tall and sorted
them there. At least, that way,
things could stay in piles by topic on the desk, until I could deal with them.
Derek came home from work furious over a customer who called his
main contractor to complain about some alleged mistakes on the job, but never even gave
him the chance to try to make amends.
He even asked her face-to-face if there was anything else he could
do before he left. Now
she’s threatening not to pay his contractor, and any financial
settlements will come out of Derek’s pay.
7/28
The first kids started to arrive for the tournament.
They said they love the tables, and the lights are 100 times as
good as the tournament last year. They’re
so cute.
7/29
Almost all of the kids are here now.
Boy there’s a lot of them.
7/30
A blur of a day. Worked from
7AM until 1:30AM. Are these
kids ever going to stop coming?
7/31
Halfway through the Junior National Championships, I remembered I
don't like children. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this?
And why-oh-why didn’t I remember it in August of 2002 when BCA
called and asked me to host an under-18 national championship?
By the time I had this recollection, however, I was up to my
eyeballs in them, and their parents seemed to not give a shit.
By the end, I realized I don’t like parents either.
I
am mostly joking. A few of
the kids won my heart. First,
there’s Bethany
and her entire family, from Illinois.
She played in our qualifier back in May, with her dad and little
brother Ben there to cheer her on. For
the Nationals, the whole family came.
Great people. Second,
there was Kory from
Canada and his mom Shelly. Also
very good people, and I met them at our qualifier back in May too.
Twins Emilyn and Eleanor (the girls winner!) from San Francisco,
they were great too. Finally,
there was Ryan from the west side of Michigan.
I couldn’t get a picture of him because he had two disappointing
losses very early, and was too sad to pose for a picture.
The
rest of the kids, especially the older ones, deserved a swift kick in the
butt from their parents, most of whom also deserved a swift kick. It was a fabulous event, and it is now part of Michigan Union
history. Worth every hour of
effort, but I am glad it’s over….and I doubt we’ll be doing it again
any time soon.
For the first day, I got to rub elbows with the #1 pool player in the world, the most famous pool player in the world, and the best Trick Shot Artist in the world. Too bad I was so busy running the show that I hardly got to talk to any of them.
Derek got in on the activities too. He gave one of his idols, special guest Johnny Archer, rides to and from the airport and got to hear some really great stories. We both really gained a lot of respect for Johnny in the 24 hours he was here. Guess what! About 8 years ago, Johnny was around Detroit during a road trip. Derek played against him two weekends in a row, in two separate tournaments. He beat him both times! And one of Johnny's good friends is a guy named Tommy Kennedy, who won the US Open in 1992 and is widely respected in the world of pool. Derek also upset Tommy in two consecutive tournaments while on tour in the south in the mid-90s. That's probably why Johnny treats Derek with such respect...not like "just another fan." Those unlikely victories, aside from defeating then-ranked number 5 player Tony Ellin in The Glass City Open in 1993, are probably Derek's greatest claims to pool fame.
Derek also set up his lathe during the tournament and cleaned shafts and applied new cue tips for the kids. He didn't expect to make any money or be very busy, but he thought it would be really good practice on the lathe. On the first night, he had almost a dozen cues lined up on his table! It was a win-win. Actually a win-win-win! Derek won because he got practice and made a little money. The kids won because there had never been a cue repair vendor at any of the previous BCA tournaments. And the Michigan Union won because Derek paid a vendor commission!
8/3 The tournament finally finished at 10:00 last night. It was my first good night’s sleep since Monday. We met at noon today to disassemble the bleachers and load them into the truck. While collapsing on the couch at the end of the day, I added up my hours for the week. The grand tally: 86.
8/4
I was technically on vacation for two weeks as soon as the tournament
finished, but I went in for a couple hours on Monday to tie up loose
ends before leaving for California. I got a huge vote of confidence and kudos from Audrey, Barb....Hugs and an “I can’t believe you’re alive & kicking!”
from Donna. Now able to think
about my own life again, I set to work on final plans for the San
Francisco trip. Rental car
for the trip: we decided to
splurge on a convertible.
California, Here we Come!
This story can best be told with pictures. If you have a slow connection (i.e., dial-up through your phone line), it will be painfully slow to look at these pictures. Sorry about that, but pictures take up a huge amount of a computer's memory/RAM, so it takes them a long time to open with a dial-up connection. Anyway, for those of you with the luxury of a cable or Ethernet connection, enjoy! (Subliminal message: look at the pictures at work rather than at home).
I called my bro to wish him Happy Birthday on August 12, and he talked my ear off about their trip to Joliet for the races. Normally, as you might guess, when Sean and I talk on the phone, I do most of the talking and he tries to get a word in edgewise. Well on this particular day, it was the stark opposite, because he finished THIRD out of over 100 drivers! He's far too humble though...he blamed himself for "slow reaction time" or he would've made it to the finals. Geez, bro, ya done great! Just ride the wave and enjoy it!
We got off the airplane in Detroit at around 11:30PM on August 13, having survived all four flights (much to our surprise and delight). Ricky picked us up at the baggage carousel, and we treated him to midnight breakfast at Dimitri’s in Belleville. Not only did he drive 4 hours to watch our cats for a couple days, he stayed the WHOLE time, and gave us rides to and from the airport on both days. The least we could do is buy him breakfast. He also got a box of See's Candy (which I'd picked up at the airport at the last minute) before leaving for Traverse City at 1AM.
8/14
We were both a little jet lagged.
The Big
Blackout! Good thing we flew
home yesterday or we would probably still be in Phoenix.
We have a generator but no fuel.
He had a gas can but it was at the prison in Milan (where he worked
today).
I kinda figured the prison guards wouldn’t take kindly
to some stranger driving up and asking “Can I have my gas can back?”
at midnight with no power and a couple thousand convicted felons inside
feeling anxious. Derek got the generator going with gas siphoned from
Kathy’s lawn mower. He was
so proud he made power for us, that he wanted to plug everything in.
Not just the essentials like the refrigerator or the radio.
Not one but two lamps, coffee maker, electric razor, plug-in
air freshener.
Strong man make fire.
8/15
The lights came back on at around 8:00 a.m.
We were very lucky, having been without power for only about 16
hours. (Other communities were without power for several days). Lines
at gas stations were extremely long.
Derek watched golf, Betz shopped for groceries.
Rented This is Spinal Tap
and tried to conserve energy by using only the TV and DVD player.
No lights, no AC, no fans.
8/16 Derek worked, I continued unpacking, reading, putting the photos in a little temporary album, until the REAL scrapbook is finished. Could be many months before that happens. Watched rest of Spinal Tap. After SNL, I pulled out “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” and started reading it again. Rather….continued reading it, because the old bookmark was still in there, on page 37. For almost two months since then, I have been leaving it conveniently in places where Derek is likely to see it.
8/17
Rented more Sex and the City.
I hate
Carrie Bradshaw and what she did to Aidan.
At work: dreading the weeks that lay ahead.
List of things to do is about a month long, but the students will
be here in a week. But I’ll
get everything ready; I always do.
8/18/03
My first day back at work started well.
Lisa and I got along very well, and it’s nice to have her back to
take care of the schedule. I had
to fire someone. After he
missed two shifts and we didn’t hear from him for a week, I sent him an
e-mail telling him not to come back (the semester was almost over anyway
and new staff would be hired in a couple weeks), but he showed up a little
while later for work, having not checked his e-mail….so I had to reiterate it
all, much more awkwardly, less eloquently I’m sure, and in front of his
co-workers (I pulled him off to the side).
Ouch.
“There
Oughtta be a Law”
Those
of you who know me, know that I will not proselytize about the typical
topics people proselytize about (politics, religion).
And if you didn’t already know that--take note.
Those are subjects I just don’t bring up, and try feverishly to
change the subject if someone else does.
But I will proselytize about a few things:
my cats being one of them, and my vow to stay child-free being
another. So consider yourself
warned about this next paragraph.
After
work, I chatted with neighbors Jon and Kathy in their yard.
It was that time of evening when people are out taking a walk,
riding their bikes, etc. A
lot of people were out in the 'hood.
A young lady pedaled by with a puppy in a knapsack on the back
seat of her bicycle. It was
just adorable. “Oh my gosh,
a puppy!” I exclaimed. Kathy
said, “That was a puppy?” My
response: “Well yeah….or one really hairy baby. They're
putting kids on leashes now, so I guess putting your puppy in a rumble
seat is the next logical step." After cracking up, we
started talking about sightings we’d each had of children being led around
stores on leashes.
I saw one young mom who had 4 children under the age of 5.
Clearly, a leash….a tandem leash no less….was an absolute
MUST for her.
Suddenly it dawned on me, the next
legislation we should put before our city councils:
a child leash law. Just
THINK of all the problems it would solve!
Derek
stopped at Lowe’s and came home with two presents for me:
a little tiny sprinkler head for little tiny patches of garden, and
a wand for reaching high places. Makes
you go “Awwwww…..” doesn’t it? Nice try, Mars, but Venus hasn't
forgotten about the saw/jig/spray paint incident just yet.
8/20 Derek played in golf outing and attended a hospital charity dinner with his friend, Dave. A great perk: he met Scotty Bowman, who autographed a hat, posed for a quick pic. Derek also bumped into my cousin, Craig, who was playing in the golf tournament too. They'd only met each other once or twice, and for almost the whole round thought to themselves ("How do I know that guy?", but by process of elimination Derek eventually decided to ask, "You don't happen to have family in the UP, do you?" and then it all came together. He also bought signed photo of Muhammad Ali and a signed jersey from Al Kaline. Most of those things will probably just collect dust in the basement, and he definitely overpaid, but it was for a great cause. And he got a round of golf at a GREAT course, plus a fabulous meal out of it, so I'm sure he considers the money well-spent.
8/22-24/03
Derek and Jay went to Traverse
City for the weekend to
golf and visit our friend Rick.
When they got home Sunday, Derek regaled me with the story of how
Rick and his buddy won the $40K poker tournament at the casino that
weekend. He also told
me when he got home that there’s a chance I can get to meet and have
dinner with Vern
Yip and Ty Pennington if Rick wins another poker tournament next month.
HOLY SHIT ∞ HOLY SHIT ∞ HOLY SHIT!!!!
8/26/03
The odometer on the Betzmobile turned 9-1-1-0-1 on the exact same street corner where I was when I heard
about the real 9-11-01 almost exactly 2 years ago on the radio (shy two weeks).
Creepy! SPHERE
hall table was delivered.
8/30 We went to the fair with the girls! Angela was a volunteer at the State Fair this year, so she hooked us up with free passes and free parking! We had a good time and ate bad food (isn't that what fairs are all about?). I won Niamh a prize at the pool table game, and she agreed that I'm a good date. Derek won a comparable prize for Ciara, which they plan to give to their nephews. We also bought a bag of carrots to feed to the petting zoo animals. The goats are my favorite. Their mouths are precisely the right shape for nibbling. Here's a picture of me and my homeys that I think turned out very cool. Betz and the girls
9/1
(Labor Day) Labored
9/2-9/5
A blur, worked elevenish to tenish every day.
9/5
We celebrated the end of a long week with dinner at Smokehouse
Blues, which has previously been one of our favorite restaurants.
Their signature menu item: homemade memphis style baked beans with
chunks of pork ribs, pulled off the bone, cooked into the sauce.
FanTASTic. On this occasion, however, it was clear that the beans were poured
out of a can and into a pot, heated up, and squirted with their house BBQ
sauce. I spoke up about
it. The waitress tried to argue with me that they're "the same
beans we've always served." There's nothing I hate worse than
when the waiter tries to deny something when they are 100% in the wrong.
I'm being nice, and I'm not expecting a free meal or anything...I'm just
pointing out that these beans are clearly different than what you normally
serve, and as a regular customer I noticed it and am disappointed.
Whatever
business you're in, good beans are what keep your customers coming back.
Did
I tell you the story about the white trash waitress who once assured me,
before I ordered the meatloaf special, that the mashed potatoes were
homemade? When the order came out, I knew instantly that they were,
in fact, instant. I pointed this out to her, saying I would like
something different because these were not what I asked for.
"No, really, they're homemade!" Losing my patience, I said,
"Listen, you can tell me whatever you want, but I grew up surrounded
by potato farms. I guarantee these are NOT homemade potatoes."
She back-pedaled, "Well.....that's the brand name. Home-Made
Potatoes." Riiiiiight! This is the same waitress we
witnessed calling the cops on her baby’s daddy from the restaurant
because he was threatening to go to burn down the trailer with the kids
inside. We definitely got our
$6.00 worth during breakfast that day.
More
fun words:
perspicacity
effluvium
abstemious
iconoclast
Words officially added to Webster’s Dictionary this year:
Botox
dot-commer gaydar comb-over paintball McJob extra-virgin
9/6 Derek forced me up at 8:30 to go get a truckload of stone for the edging around the deck. Earlier in the week he had the boys dig a trench so we can mow around the deck without having to weed-whack. We chose black and white granite. Looks nice.
On
9/10 I declined an opportunity offered to me a couple weeks before by my
Director: to be the Host Chair for the Fall 2004 ACUI conference, which celebrates the
Michigan Union’s 100th Anniversary.
Derek was proud of the letter I wrote to my two supervisors
explaining why I decided against it.
In fact, they were moved by the letter too, in which I explained
why I can’t do it because I already do too much for the Union (there
were lists) and for the Association (and bullet points), which is a
volunteer gig (and more lists). One
of them even said, “Thank you for bringing me back to my senses.”
Who Cut the Cheese?
9/13 I decided to make some homemade soap that Saturday afternoon. I'd done it before, with a gift (kit) from Angela one Christmas. The first try was glycerin soap--you know, the translucent kind. But about 6 months ago the milky white kind was on sale, so I picked up a 2-pound brick. I gave away the first batch as Christmas gifts, but this batch I wanted to be for my own home. The colorants included in the kit were pink and purple, neither of which match my bathrooms, so I went to Michael's and bought a three-pack of "fall colors," which included a very lovely tangerine orange. The guest bathroom is teal and orange (fish/ocean scenes) so I bought some little teal soap nuggets to put in, so when I cut the loaf of soap into slices, you'd see orange with plops of teal. Great theory, right?
Somehow it ended up looking like Velveeta cheese. I kept adding and adding and adding orange color drops, but the color didn't change. And I was worried that it was too liquidy, so I eventually stopped and let it set. Then I left to run other errands, with it sitting on the kitchen counter in slices on a cutting board. In the meantime, Derek came home from work and saw some cheese sitting on the counter. Well, you can imagine what happened next. Fortunately he barely got it in his mouth before realizing the error. You'd think that he would have been deterred by the large blue CHUNKS in it!
I later found out my mistake: I'd been using the wrong bottle of color. Instead of the tangerine, I'd accidentally picked up the bottle of GOLD. They looked almost exactly the same!
Derek went to a golf outing in the morning and the Michigan-Notre Dame game in the afternoon with Stanley. That night, the three of us went to Jeannine’s birthday party.
One of the girls who works for me, moonlights at a salon. She said the latest trend is waxing your arms--not your underarms, but your forearms. Curious but not willing to pay $40 for waxing, I picked up a bottle of Nair. My arms are now bald and smooth as a baby’s butt. It’s kind of freaky but I like it.
9/16 Crap, now I realize why people pay $40 for waxing. Nair only lasts a couple days! Now I have a bunch of gross-looking stubble.
9/20 We went to visit our friends in Dayton for a weekend (a shortened weekend for me, as I had to work Friday night and Saturday morning), and had a good time despite overwhelming crowds at Oktoberfest at the Dayton Art Institute. Here are some pics:
The potato pancakes--were they worth the 50-minute wait in line?
The beautiful Dayton Art Institute (sadly, we didn't even make it inside!)
Betz & the Liederhosen Grandpa
I did, indeed, play in the inaugural J Pechauer Michigan Women's 9-ball Tournament, despite having only logged 45 minutes of practice time in preparation. I suspected I wouldn't play up to par, but didn't want to miss the opportunity. And I also wanted to show support for my good friend Alice, who is the visionary and driving force behind the greatest thing to happen to women's regional pool in many years. The turnout was fantastic: 38 women! Much to my dismay, a good number of them have played (or currently play) on the professional tour. My performance wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I nearly defeated pro Vicki Paski, but she narrowly edged me out. I won two more matches, then was stunned with my second loss. After having a 6-4 lead, I let my opponent make it back to 6-6. Then, she made the 9 on the break. It was, to say the least, disheartening. But every competitive player has done the exact same thing, so it didn't take terribly long for me to get over it. Derek made it there to support me toward the end, and his hug eased the pain a little bit. Plus, there was a HUGE action match going on in the back room, so I scurried back there to watch that instead. I If I had won that match, I would have gotten "in the money," meaning I would have earned at least my entry fee back. The next one is in late October in Lansing. Not sure yet if I'll be able to play.
Those of you who read the newsletter regularly, know that when it comes to direct input on content, Derek is a cursory contributor at best. But lately, people (you!) have been saying things to him like "I already saw that in the newsletter" and "Your newsletter is great!" so he is now taking an interest in it. Maybe one day he will even read it! He gets frustrated on the web, because we have a very slow (dial-up) connection at home. On my list of things to do this fall is get cable hook-up, and then I think he'll become much more web-savvy....well, "savvy" is not exactly the right word. For now we'll settle for "literate."
Anyway, Derek asked me to include ONE thing in the newsletter. We were driving down the road, and he was talking about someone who wears way too much makeup. I commented that I hardly wear makeup to work at all anymore. "I'd rather impress people with my competency, not my eye shadow." He said that I absolutely MUST include that in the newsletter. So there you have it. Our first true collaboration on newsletter content. I said it, and he said to include it.
New pages I've added to this site since the last newsletter:
Stuff that gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling
Hope you all have a beautiful, colorful autumn, and I'll be composing another one of these tomes for you again around Christmas time!
Love,
Betsy & Derek