Two Things
#1: Holy crap, Soren is nine months old today. Wow! Nine months go way faster after the kid is born than when you’re pregnant. (Although isn’t a pregnancy technically 10 months? I’ve kind of forgotten everything educational about pregnancy, which I guess is okay considering the overwhelming likelihood that I’ll never do it again.) Having a baby is much more fun than being pregnant. Having a nine-month-old is much more fun than having a newborn. It’s kind of cool how this being-a-parent thing keeps getting better and better, especially because none of the stuff before sucked or anything.
#2: I really love the Denver Botanic Gardens. I got a membership when I was pregnant, because I was crazy and thought I’d want to take a newborn there all the time, like, in the winter. I imagined getting dressed up in sweaters and cute boots and popping over to check out whatever is alive at that time of year. That was dumb and I never did it and you’re lucky if, in those early days, I left the house or even changed out of a horrible nursing tank and paint-spattered maternity pants, but now that Soren is old enough to kind of appreciate stuff, it’s really fun to go there. If there’s ever a day we don’t know what to do with, I’ll suggest going to the Botanic Gardens. I’m never disappointed and Soren and Ben seem to like it.
What’s cool is that it’s really close to our house. It’s easy to get there and park, so there’s no pressure to have some big, awesome, amazing time because of how much effort it takes to go. I hate that sort of thing (and that’s probably why I’ve always hated New Year’s Eve — so much effort, never that much fun). It’s never annoyingly crowded and it’s easy to navigate, even with a big giant jogging stroller.
It’s cool, too, because you can find spots where you feel like you’re not in the middle of the city. I mean, yeah, you’re surrounded by buildings and stuff, but sometimes you find just a little bench looking out over a pond or a tiny little waterfall, and it’s like you’re in your own little world, at least until you hear someone’s kid yelling about how she doesn’t like this part of the park and it’s yucky, but in a few minutes your kid is going to be making pterodactyl noises while practicing not-crawling on a nice patch of grass, so whatever. It’s all good.
I don’t even mind the weddings. We often go to the gardens on Saturday/Sunday late afternoon/early evening, and there’s almost always at least a wedding or two. Today there were two (and weirdly, yesterday when we went for a walk at City Park, there were two weddings there, also — I kind of feel like a wedding magnet right now). It’s kind of a bummer when you’re at the Botanic Gardens and sections are closed for a private event, but it’s also kind of fun to watch people arrive and depart. You’re always tempted to crash or at least try to snag some beer (although I’m not sure that people have receptions there — the big-ish wedding we saw today was just the ceremony, and people just about flew out of there to, we assumed, get to the reception and start drinking beer). It’s almost like you get to enjoy the fun of a wedding — watching people, scoping out the fashion, and listening to the music (today’s wedding featured “Could You Be Loved?” by Bob Marley, which is totally awesome) — without actually having to attend the wedding. I don’t know.
I kind of enjoy the buzz of a wedding while we’re just there, doing our thing. That’s probably weird — but sometimes I like people watching or being a passive observer of an important event. I also really like listening to Ben talk on the phone. That’s weird, isn’t it? Sometimes, maybe when I get overwhelmed with too many things to worry about, I just like to slip into mellow mode and enjoy being around other people’s lives, without worrying so much about my own. It’s like a kind of meditation for people with ADD who are too impatient to actually meditate.
It’s actually kind of a good lead in to my new hobby, which I’ll tell you about next time. It’s kind of weird, but I hope you’ll find it at least a little entertaining.
Urlachered!
Song: As We Enter by Nas & Damian Marley
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After writing that last post wherein I used approximately 9,000 words to say what could’ve been said in 50, as promised, I went to the new gym. Like anything, the new gym has its benefits and drawbacks. In the interest of brevity, I will summarize its differences from my old gym in analogy form:
old gym : upscale country club :: new gym : ex boyfriend’s sweaty garage.
That’s not to say I didn’t like the new gym. I did. The woman who gave me the fastest gym tour ever was not salesy at all. She was all hey, want a tour, here’s this and this and this and yeah, wanna work out? It was awesome. (As you may know, I don’t like salesy.) I navigated the locker room, which had a kind of nice, unassuming hippie-ish vibe, and got a good workout on an elliptical and a treadmill. I even, after staring at a blank screen for a good 10 minutes, managed to turn on the tv without totally embarrassing myself.
The cardio equipment clearly meets my needs. It’s the weight equipment that has me concerned. It appears that they don’t have any traditional weight machines. There are free weighs and cable systems and all that sort of thing, but no machines (at least not that I saw). Currently, my weight training routine is pretty much half free weights and half machines.
I probably could make the transition to all free weights with little difficulty. However, the thought of drastically changing my routine has me a little flustered. As much as I hate to admit being any sort of “routine” person, I really do have my routine set when it comes to working out. (I realize that this actually is a bad thing because I’m sure I’ve plateaued and am not really challenging my body.) Do I want to go to a gym where I can’t do my normal routine? Will that freak me out? Worse, will my muscles suffer? Will I lose strength as I start something new?
Well. Thanks to a professional portrait I had taken at work, I’m no longer that concerned about my muscles. I received two 4×6 matted high-quality prints of this photo that I promptly hid in the only locked drawer in my office, which contains such embarrassing things as copies of my yearly self-evaluations. That’s because, and I shit you not, in this professional portrait, I look like Brian Urlacher’s sister the lumberjack. (I kind of want to post the picture here because oh my stars and garters, you have to see it to know that I’m seriously not exaggerating, but if this picture ever sees the light of day I’m pretty sure my life will actually be over.)
You guys, I’m not even kidding. It’s not just that I look fat in the picture. Don’t get me wrong — I look fat! Very fat! But I also look like a linebacker. A long-haired, bespectacled, girl linebacker. With wonky eyes of some sort (I have no idea what my eyes are doing in this picture). It is the second-worst picture of me of all time (the worst is my driver’s license picture, in which I look almost exactly like a cross between Monica Lewinsky and a kitten in the sense that kittens usually have faces that are too small for their heads and in the case of kittens that is adorable but for an adult woman it is never okay and I will never, ever, ever have dark brown hair again in my life, what was that about anyway?). I don’t know what it is about these two pictures that makes me look so gigantic and awful. I mean, I’m no skinny little thing, but good lord. I’m not even overweight! My BMI is in the normal range! I swear! Even taking into account my top-heavy-ness, tendency toward broad gigantic shoulders, and bizarre fixation on building upper-body strength, I shouldn’t look like I weigh enough to have to purchase two seats on airplane flights.
I guess the middle-of-the-road terrible photo in which I’m wearing a hoodie will stay on my work’s website forever.
Anyway, the fact that in a recent photo I look like I should be donning a flannel shirt to spend a morning chopping wood at a pancake breakfast to raise funds for a wayward girls’ football camp tells me that maybe I need to shake up my strength-training routine. Maybe lightening up a little is a good idea because, holy shit, maybe I’m actually overdoing it. Maybe I don’t need to do three sets of eight reps of ye gods the heaviest weights I can possibly lift that many times. It would be fine if doing this made me look like Serena Williams, but it doesn’t. I look like the angry woman who’d give you a massage at the bath house before kneading dough for 12 hours straight with no breaks because breaks are for wussies.
I’m not sure that’s really the look I’m going for here.
Quitting the Gym
Song: Word Up by MSTRKRFT (Warning: song awesomely contains very bad language.)
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I’m thinking about changing gyms because a personal trainer talks to me too much.
Well, that’s not the only reason, but it’s a big one. I’m putting this shit behind a cut because it is long and totally ridiculous. Also, please keep in mind that I have PMS.
So, what’s up with my fantasy baseball team, anyway?
Song of the day: God’s Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash (You know what’s weird? This song is everywhere lately. It keeps popping up in commercials, including one for a video game and one for some kind of Jeep. The song has been on my radar for a while because it plays at Rockies games when Joe Beimel takes the field. Joe Beimel is kind of awesome. I even named my fantasy baseball team after him.)
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This year, I’m playing fantasy baseball for the first time (well, the first time for real — I did it once before but did an autodraft and then totally forgot about my team). I wrote about my draft here. My plan then was to avoid all Red Sox and Yankees players and hopefully not totally suck ass. That has not changed.
So, what happened since then?
Well, to start, my team totally sucked ass. I think I managed to avoid 12th place, but I spent a few weeks in 11th place. I lost a lot. But I’ve been slowly moving up — very, very slowly, spot by spot. I’m now in 6th place. If I can stay in the top 6, I’ll make the playoffs, which would be awesome.
I drafted a few stinkers (a word I’m using because it fits in with my current grandma obsession, wherein I like things such as roses, fussy manicured topiary greenery, big silly glasses, and pillbox hats, except for the pillbox hats). Mike Napoli and Geovany Soto did nothing for me so I dropped them. Isn’t Napoli playing first base now? I don’t even know. Don’t tell me if these guys are good. I don’t even know who Jhonny Peralta is. Does he play for the Indians? Aren’t they so bad their moms won’t even watch? I had Kendry Morales until he had that stupid, stupid injury. I loved that guy.
If there’s one thing I did right (it should come as no surprise considering the name of this site), it was the pitching roster. Here’s who I had on opening day:
Ubaldo Jimenez (Col-SP)
John Danks (CWS-SP)
Jonathan Broxton (LAD-RP)
David Aardsma (Sea-RP)
Mark Buehrle (CWS-P)
Jorge De La Rosa (Col-P)
Ted Lilly (CHC-P) (DL)
Here’s who I have now:
Ubaldo Jimenez (Col-SP)
John Danks (CWS-SP)
Jonathan Broxton (LAD-RP)
Octavio Dotel (Pit-RP)
My Boyfriend Jon Garland (SD-SP)
Ted Lilly (CHC-P)
Mark Buehrle (CWS-P)
David Aardsma (Sea-RP)
Jorge De La Rosa (Col-P) (DL)
The rest of my opening-day roster:
Mike Napoli (LAA-C)
Geovany Soto (CHC-C)
Kendry Morales (LAA-1B)
Brandon Phillips (Cin-2B)
David Wright (NYM-3B)
Jhonny Peralta (Cle-3B, SS)
Troy Tulowitzki (Col-SS)
Miguel Tejada (Bal-SS)
Carlos Quentin (CWS-LF)
Michael Bourn (Hou-CF)
Brad Hawpe (Col-RF)
Nick Markakis (Bal-RF)
Vladimir Guerrero (Tex-Util)
Current:
Miguel Olivo (Col-C) (Who knew this guy would be awesome?)
Michael Cuddyer (Min-1B, 3B, RF)
Brandon Phillips (Cin-2B)
David Wright (NYM-3B)
Alexei Ramirez (CWS-SS)
Carlos Quentin (CWS-LF, RF)
Colby Rasmus (StL-CF, RF)
Brad Hawpe (Col-RF)
Vladimir Guerrero (Tex-Util)
Martin Prado (Atl-1B, 2B, 3B) (I picked him up off waivers! I’m serious!)
Nick Markakis (Bal-RF)
Michael Bourn (Hou-CF)
Troy Tulowitzki (Col-SS) (DL)
I’ll keep fighting the good fight (read: try to succeed in fantasy baseball without using Red Sox or Yankees). I’ll let you know how the second half of the Joe Beimel Fan Club’s season goes!
ETA: Holy crap you guys, I just accidentally “liked” this post. I don’t know how I did it or what that means, but I’m pretty sure you can’t really like your own post, especially when it’s as stupid as this one. If you can tell I did that, please be so kind as to ignore it. I don’t know how to “unlike” and anyway, that seems a little harsh — I mean, this post never did anything to me, you know?
Hawk Homerism
Song of the day: You Remind Me of Something by R. Kelly
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I just read this GQ post, “The Best (and Worst) from MLB’s Broadcast Booth.” Guess who’s the worst: Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Steve Stone of the Chicago White Sox. Ho hum. I’m not surprised, because hating on Hawk is about as easy as being a drunk Cubs fan who can’t name five players on the active roster. But still, that’s kind of lame.
This is the author’s biggest rip on Hawk:
Hawk is an unbearable homer. . . .
Well, sure. Hawk is a homer. My first question is: Is it okay to be a homer, as long as you’re not an “unbearable” homer? Where does that line get drawn? I’d guess that most, if not all, local sports announcers are homers to some degree.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I like homer sports announcers, as long as they’re local. (I believe national sports announcers and reporters have a duty to be neutral. I also believe they have a duty to crawl out from up LeBron’s butt, but that’s an impossible dream.) I’d rather listen to someone like Hawk who’s a gung-ho crazy White Sox fan than someone who’s just going to objectively call the game.
The only time I can see being annoyed by a homer announcer is when you’re stuck watching the opposing team’s broadcast. I remember wanting to chew my arm off in a misguided attempt to escape a couple years ago while listening to a couple Red Sox broadcasts when the White Sox were in Boston. Now, however, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, this here internet, and mlb.tv, I can listen to Hawk and Steve Stone broadcast every game (or, with MLB At Bat on my iPhone, I can listen to Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson, who are awesome, too).
I won’t pretend I’m not biased here — I love Hawk Harrelson. He’s my favorite broadcaster in all of sports and my love for him probably borders on being is completely irrational. I know he’s not for everyone, though. I just don’t think the fact that he’s a homer is a valid (or interesting) criticism.
Stoner Bruschetta
Song of the day: Full Moon by Armand Van Helden feat. Common
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The thing we probably miss most about Chicago is the food. I shit you not, guys — Chicago has the best food in the world. The food is not nearly as good in Denver, but I suppose that’s for the best and is why we’re not all fat here.
Anyway, back in the day when Ben and I were first dating, we used to go out to eat really good food all the time. One of our favorite places was Ezuli, which was at 1415 N. Milwaukee Ave. (they’ve closed). They served, as best I can remember, what was described as Caribbean food. They had good drinks and music, too. It was one of those places in Wicker Park with exposed brick and good food, where you’d go for dinner and stay to listen to whatever the DJ was spinning later while you have some drinks.
The one thing I remember eating there was this crazy-ass Caribbean-like bruschetta stuff. It made no sense but was really, really good. We figured that whoever came up with it was really high at the time.
Here’s how to make it, vaguely. I’m not a professional recipe-writer type, so I’m just doing this on the fly. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll answer as best I can.
Stoner Bruschetta (or Peanut Butter Mango Bruschetta or Caribbean Bruschetta)
Ingredients
- sliced French bread
- a little butter
- thinly sliced onions
- peanut butter
- sliced mango
- blue cheese
Directions
Toast the bread or put it in the broiler for a bit to get it a little (but not too) crispy. Set aside. Melt butter in a frying pan and saute the sliced onions over low-ish heat until they’re caramelized (this takes a while but is totally worth it — trust me). Smear a nice little layer of peanut butter on each slice of bread. Layer the sliced mango on top of the peanut butter. Then add the caramelized onion. Top with a bit of blue cheese.
That’s it! It’s super easy and sounds kind of weird, but it’s really, really good. It goes well with beer, weed, or something made with rum and whatever the hell else you drink with rum. Enjoy!
Awesome Song & Best Pitch Ever
I just have two quick things today.
First, go listen to this song now. It’s fun. Trust me.
Second, did you know that Ubaldo Jimenez threw the best pitch ever? He did. Check out this awesome post about it, complete with gif.
I haven’t written much about sports lately, but at the very least, I plan to update some of the “Players We Like” soon. I’ll be scoping out new info. on people like Jamaal Tatum (who is worse about updating his website than I am), Linas Kleiza (back in the NBA!), Julius Hodge, Jerry Owens, and Garrett Wolfe. If you’re Julian Sensley, let me know what’s going on in your life right now.
Bad Luck
We arrived at last night’s Rockies game about half an hour late, but it was still the first inning. (We later heard that the game was delayed because somebody committed suicide by jumping off a bridge near Coors Field — no idea if it’s true but if it is, good thoughts to the surviving family and friends and anybody who saw it happen.) It was a slow and boring ga
me, punctuated with the obnoxious cheers of an inordinate number of St. Louis Cardinals fans. (I like to say, when there are too many fans of the opposing team, “If St. Louis [or insert name of other city] is so great, why don’t you move back there?” unless you’re talking about White Sox fans, in which case there aren’t too many and I’m all, “Yay, my people!”) The wind picked up and the temperature dropped and by the sixth inning, the Rockies were getting hammered and we had a grumpy baby on our hands. So we became Those People Who Leave the Game Early (TPWLGE) (unnecessary and inappropriate capitalization makes me irrationally angry and I’m doing it here only because I’m irrationally angry at myself for being one of TPWLGE).
It takes us 15 minutes, tops, to walk to the car and drive home. After we got grumpy pants fed and to bed, I settled in to see that the Rockies were down 9-3. Ha! That sucks even more than it did when we were still at the game. Good thing we left early, suckas! I didn’t even know that it was about to start raining.
I started the
ninth inning sitting at my computer waiting to update my stupid game log with the score. I had “Rockies 3 – Cardinals 9″ (I need to learn how to make em and en dashes on the Mac one of these days) already written. Then I changed it to “Rockies 4 – Cardinals 9.” Then crazy shit started to happen and I moved my butt to the couch to watch the rest of the game. (Note: I use a laptop, which yes, I could easily take with me to the couch, but when I’m not really trying to be on the internet, I leave it on my desk, which is right next to the couch.)
It turned out to be what the guys on tv referred to as the “greatest comeback in Colorado Rockies history.” (Troy Renck article here.) We totally could’ve been there, but we were TPWLGE. I mean, grumpy baby, good excuse — but still, that sucks. And then you had salt, wounds while the postgame guys spent a good six hours making fun of TPWLGE. We totally deserve it, but ouch.
It seems like leaving the game early set into action a swirling vortex of suckitude, wherein annoying things keep happening. Here is a brief summary:
- My work website was down all night (as far as I can tell) and I wasted time trying to access my work email so I could do actual work at like midnight, before I finally realized I could access my work email even though the website wasn’t working by using the direct link.
- A cat puked on the floor in our bedroom (the only carpeted surface in the house).
- Despite Ben’s constant and diligent efforts, the bedroom carpet smells slightly of pee again, Sadie.
- Sadie pooped in the kitchen while we slept. (This has become an everyday occurrence since the onslaught of constant and terrible fireworks in the ‘hood.)
- While standing on a chair and attempting to water the hanging plant I repotted last weekend, I spilled water all over the chair and the living room floor.
- I put some leftover Tuscan potato salad into a plastic container to take to work for breakfast. After closing the container, I noticed that it was covered in animal fur. How is that possible? I wiped off the fur on the outside of the container only to realize that there was also a bunch of fur on the inside of the container. I wiped off as much as possible but just couldn’t throw out the potato salad and start fresh, so I’ll probably be eating some fur for breakfast. Yum, and gross. I don’t know why I’m telling you that, but I’ll understand the next time I invite you over and you say no.
- Soren pooped right before we left this morning. You guys, the early weeks (months?) of solid food baby poop are really, really, really gross. I’m still as dedicated to cloth diapers as ever, but really, ew.
- Blueberries.
- A cat pooped right before I left so I had to scoop that because Coltrane, the buffet is closed, at least until someone else poops and I’m not there.
- I got stuck on a two-lane, one-way street where one lane was closed and the other was occupied by a street sweeper moving at approximately .0008 miles per hour.
On a positive note, I fell asleep within a reasonable amount of time and then stayed asleep until my alarm went off this morning. Almost six hours of uninterrupted slumber! Fabulous!
Learn by example.
This weekend has been too crazy. We survived and spent the afternoon at the Denver Botanic Gardens, which is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s nearby and doesn’t give me an ethical dilemma like the zoo does, plus Soren seems to really like greenery. I took a ton of pictures, some of which I posted over at Flickr. I’m much better at Flickr these days than blogging.
This is my favorite picture from today.
July 4 Party Playlist
Here’s my lovingly crafted 4th of July playlist. Ideally, I’d have put the songs in some kind of order that makes sense, but I didn’t. Instead, I shuffled a few times until I thought it looked okay. I also wasn’t cool enough to correct errors, such as “kid cudi” listed as the song title. Lazy ass.
It’s heavy on MGMT and LCD Soundsystem, but that’s just how this summer is going, yo.
You can listen to some of this stuff on Grooveshark. I really wanted to put a Grooveshark widget here, but wordpress.com won’t let me.
Update: I can’t put the Grooveshark widget here, but I can provide a link. You can listen to the whole playlist here. Awesome! (If that link doesn’t work, try this one — sorry I’m not better at this, but I can’t figure out how to log out of Grooveshark to check the links.)
The list is after the jump, but it’s really ugly. Here’s a pdf, which is annoying but it looks better than the list.
