Hit by a Pitch

When I was a kid, my parents put a “No Soliciting” sign on our front door. I wasn’t a fan of the sign. I didn’t even know what soliciting was (and I’m pretty sure that if I had known, I wouldn’t have been a fan), but it seems kind of mean to say “no” to something right off the bat like that. Why the negativity, parents? It was a stern little square sign that didn’t even have a little stick figure briefcasey sales dude with a circle and slash. That level of artistic detail might have made the sign more agreeable to a youngster.

I never became more conservative as I got older (my dad always said this would happen), but I did eventually acquire my parents’ distaste for soliciting. I do not like soliciting. I do not like it here or there. I would not like it anywhere. I do not like it in a house. I do not like it with a mouse. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

At least in a house, though, you can avoid a solicitor by declining to answer the door. I’m a big fan of this type of confrontation avoidance. In person out in public, it’s not so easy.

One thing in life that gets on my last nerve is the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. The Sixteenth Street Mall in downtown Denver is teeming with aggressive people who want to talk to you only as a means of furthering their own purposes. Solicitors (broadly defined)! Usually this involves people asking you for money or, worse, Greenpeace employees who want to talk to you for hours and get you to do something to comply with their agenda.¹ I do not like it when people speak to me only as a means of furthering their own purposes. In fact, it’s one of the minor annoyances of life that I hate the most.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an asocial jerkwad or anything (most of the time). I don’t mind if you talk to me to be nice or social. I mean, I smiled for a good 5 minutes after a woman complimented my German grandma bunion shoes² this morning. I like that! And I like pleasant social interactions, too, even if you’re not complimenting me! It’s cool if you talk to me about something at the gym or on the street or at the DMV or in line at the beer store or wherever, as long as you’re being nice and aren’t doing it just because you want something.

Today there was a very underweight older woman wearing a tiny shirt held together by a string (it wasn’t ripped — this was the design of the shirt). First she left me alone and tried to approach a dude wearing a tie. When he didn’t stop, it was my turn — something about a dude taking her money and a boarding house. I’m always very polite, “Sorry, I have no cash at all. I’m really sorry.”

And it’s true. I have no cash at all. I hardly ever have cash, partly for this very reason but also because what the hell am I going to do with cash anyway. Cash is so old school. And I am really sorry.

And you know, I was just going about my business here after working out, but thanks for reminding me of the fact that it’s not just cash I don’t have — it’s money in general. Then I start thinking that you probably have no money but I actually have negative money and I’ll be paying off these goddamn law school loans forever and my husband and I are gainfully employed with full-time jobs but still can’t manage to maintain our modest lifestyle in a tiny house in the ‘hood and maybe buy some new clothes once in a while and send our kid to daycare without going into the hole and and and waaaaaah woe is me.

Oh, man. That’s awful. I’m the eggshell head change-requestee — you take the person you’re hitting up for cash on the street as you find her. And apparently you don’t want to find me. Not that I’ll tell you any of this woe-is-me shit. I’ll just silently resent you like the fine, upstanding former Midwesterner of Northern European descent I am.

I mean, look. I don’t want to be a (total) asshole. I get it. There are people who are way worse off than I am and I feel bad about that. Despite the fact that I’m broke, I recognize that I occupy a relatively privileged place in our society. I wish there was something I could do about all this shit but realistically, there isn’t. I don’t have the means in any respect — money, time, connections, anything. So that sucks.

And I kind of wish I could wear a no-soliciting hat or something, so people would know that I really don’t like soliciting.
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Notes
1. The Greenpeace people lurk outside the entrance to the empty shell of a mall where my gym (for the next month — I did quit) is located. They wear green vests and are super-aggressive about talking to you. Here’s the thing, though. Or maybe here are the things, plural, because my problems with the Greenpeace people are, well, many-fold. First of all, every time I’ve seen someone actually get sucked in to their web of being talked to, he or she is stuck there for, like, a long-ass time. At least 10 minutes or more. I don’t want to spend that much time being talked at by someone who is speaking to me only as a means of . . . yeah, you know. I’m in a hurry to get in and out of the gym and get home to my peeps, and my parking meter is going to expire, so no time, thanks. Then, they’re going to want you to do something. I’m not sure what because I’ve never stopped to listen to this shit for the required amount of time. They have to want either money or action. They will get neither from me. First of all, I have no money. Second, I’m not going to take any action at their request. I’m not going to do any volunteer work for you because I already do volunteer work I chose myself without being accosted on the street. I’m not going to sign up for anything so you can send me spam emails. I’m not going to sign any sort of petition presented to me by anyone on the street ever under any circumstances (marijuana legalization is an exception, because the language of that would be very straightforward and you have to have exceptions). People petition for crazy shit and it gets on the ballot because people on the street think it sounds okay and sign it and it ends up being a steaming pile of horseshit that should never pass in a million years but now we have to worry about it because it’s on the goddamn ballot. I mean, I’m sure my expensive-ass lawyer mind could figure out what you’re asking me to sign, but I don’t want to be put on the spot like that. If I’m going to sign something, it’ll be because I want to and I’ve independently researched the issue. Finally, I’m not going to give you money or do what you’re requesting because doing so would be encouraging you to stand on the street and annoy people. I don’t want that!
2. I don’t have bunions. I just accessorize as if I do.

Most of the time, our Saturdays are spent doing the shit you gotta do. We get up, have breakfast, go shopping,¹ come home, take nap(s), and clean the house.² After that, we usually get pizza and hang out.

It’s nice to get everything done on Saturdays, but the problem is that more often than not, Saturdays are taken up by the shit you gotta do. Then what happens on Sundays is that we spend the morning doing our respective workouts and then before you know it it’s naptime and then before you know it it’s like 4 p.m. on Sunday and you’re like, holy shit, we haven’t really done anything fun yet this weekend OMG let’s do something fun now oh wait why bother let’s just sit on our asses and drink beer while Soren eats carrots and climbs in a box or something. Then I go back to work on Monday feeling a little ripped off that my weekend was lacking in fun and by the time Friday comes around, I’m a full-on grump.

I’m thinking about this because yesterday, we did something fun in the morning and, I shit you not, I feel like it kind of changed my whole outlook on life. We met some friends and their 4-year-old daughter at the Denver Botanic Gardens and hung out for a while, and then we went to Cheeseman Park and had a picnic and went to the playground.³

I’ll tell you what. You’d think I would’ve been in better spirits Friday night, having taken a vacation day and all. But I was pissed the hell off and I don’t even know why. I mean, I had a headache all day, so that sucked. But other than that, I was just generally grumpy. This happens to me sometimes. When I get stressed out, I get kind of — and I hate to admit this because it’s awful — high-strung and short-fused and, well, controlly.⁴ And then I become obsessed with getting everything done and making sure everything is perfect. The house has to be clean and the grocery shopping has to be done and oh shit there’s cat fur on the couch already and and and and . . . it’s dumb but that’s how I roll sometimes. It’s not cool.

But then yesterday, I woke up without a headache, so that was awesome. And then we spent a few hours outside doing fun stuff and, well, that was totally awesome. By the time I woke up from a nap and was assembling diapers and dusting the living room, I actually felt really positive about the whole endeavor. And my theory is that this change in disposition was due, at least in part, to the fact that I was no longer operating on a fun deficit.

And, verily, it comes to be that I make another declaration about How Things Will Be that in all honesty I’ll probably forget about by next week but here it is anyway: Goddamn it, we will do something fun on Saturday. All work and no play makes me crazypants like that dude from The Shining. Nobody wants that.

It was a beautiful day yesterday.

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Notes
1. The usual Saturday shopping requires going to 3 or 4 stores and takes, on average, approximately 2 hours. We go to Super Target (most of the grocery shopping and fun stuff); PetSmart (usually); King Soopers (that’s the local grocery store where you get really good produce for cheap, dairy products, and a few other things); and the beer store.
2. Have I told you about this before? Equitably dividing the household cleaning tasks is very important. In terms of the routine stuff, every Saturday, I dust and Ben vacuums. We take turns cleaning the bathroom.
3. There are no pictures of our friends here because: (1) I am not in the business of putting pictures of other people’s children on the public internet (I always find it creepy when people do this); and (2) I don’t put pictures of my friends on the internet, because I think it’s weird and awkward.
4. Of course, I have a mile-long list of control issues, but most of them focus inward, if that makes sense. Most of them just make me uncomfortable. It’s the ones that have the potential to annoy other people that really bother me.

The other day, Soren sang the following while in the bathtub:

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday cupcakes!!

As far as I know, he hasn’t even seen a cupcake in like a month, since we were at his friend’s birthday party (for the record, he didn’t even eat a cupcake that day — he had a gigantic piece of the “adult” cake, which involved browned butter, chocolate mousse, and hazelnut frosting).

Today at dinner, he stood on his chair, giving his jambalaya the side-eye (Ben even used my recipe!), requesting cupcakes over and over and over (as toddlers are wont to do). The boy loves some cupcakes. And we didn’t have any, and even if we did we wouldn’t have given him one right then and there, and he pretty much got over it and ate at least some of his dinner, so that was cool.

At first, I took a hard-line position against sweets. Babies don’t need sweets, I thought. And that’s true. Babies don’t need sweets. I freaked out about whether to give Soren cake for his first birthday. Then I got over myself and gave him a homemade pumpkin cupcake. And then I realized that, hey, I enjoy dessert once in a while (if by “once in a while” I mean “several times a week”), and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with enjoying a little dessert.

So after working all day, running 6.3 miles at the gym, and hanging out with Ben and Soren for a bit, I made some cupcakes while Andre Miller got a shoulder contusion and the Nuggets were summarily dismantled by the Mavericks. Soren was asleep by then so he doesn’t even know the cupcakes exist yet, but boy will he be excited tomorrow.

I’d been wanting to make strawberry cupcakes for a while, but most of the strawberry cupcake recipes I’ve ever found on the internet are kind of horrifying and include things like jello, which, well, gross and not vegetarian. I figured I’d make my default vanilla cupcakes with strawberry frosting, but when searching for a strawberry frosting recipe, I found a strawberry cupcake recipe that didn’t terrify me.

So I made strawberry cupcakes, pretty much following the recipe (I used 2 eggs and the equivalent of 4 eggs of Ener-G egg replacer, because I didn’t want to use egg whites because it seems wasteful to just toss 4 yolks and I didn’t have any other use for them in the immediate future) with my usual altitude adjustments. I think I added extra strawberry puree to the frosting (I used what was left in the blender and didn’t measure it). I doubled the cupcakes and did not double the frosting, and it ended up being the exact right amount of frosting for the cupcakes. The cupcakes themselves are decent — mine came out dense (I suspect I might be overmixing) and the strawberry flavor is very, very subtle. The frosting, however, is the shit — it’s so good the cupcakes function merely as a frosting-delivery device so their lack of flavor is pretty much immaterial. Mmmmm frosting. It’s definitely worth adding to your dessert arsenal.

Holy crap I’m tired.

In other news, this is the greatest day in the history of days because Peyton Manning is coming to Denver and that means, if all goes well, Tim Tebow will be leaving Denver. I am so excited about this I was hoping everybody’s work would close and the whole city could go out for a beer to celebrate, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Oh well. There are plenty of good, Tebow-free days ahead of us. This is weird, but for the first time in years (since Josh McDaniels was hired as head coach), I’ll have no reason to hate the Broncos. I’m not sure what to do now.

Photo by Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

Today, the Denver Nuggets traded Nene to Washington.

From a basketball perspective, this doesn’t really bother me. The thing with Nene is that he never lives up to his potential. I mean, really, dude is huge. He should be going hard in the paint (sexy!) on, like, almost every play. If he drives to the basket like he really means it, with his size and power, there are very few guys in the NBA who can stop him. The problem is that more often than not, he doesn’t do this. He plays lazy a lot of the time.

I understand it’s a delicate balance for a guy like Nene. He’s strong and powerful but, despite his gigantic, sexy contract, he’s not a superstar and he never gets superstar treatment from referees. He gets called for ridiculous fouls. So to some extent I understand when he wants to lay off and take it easy. On the other hand, it frustrates the hell out of me because damn, nobody is going to stop him if he really goes for it, you know? He had an awesome game the other day and I was all, yeah, more like that! But it never happens on a consistent basis.

Although I’m not upset about this trade from a basketball perspective, I am disappointed from a hot-guy perspective. Seriously? Nene is quite possibly the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life. Gorgeous. Stunning. I mean holy hell dude is smokin’ hot.

And don’t get me wrong. I don’t watch sports because I want to see hot guys. I watch sports because I love watching sports, and watching sports is what I do. But I’m not gonna be mad when, as a side benefit, I get to check out remarkably attractive men while enjoying sports.

So I’ll miss Nene because he’s, like, the hottest guy ever — hotter than my boyfriend Jon Garland, and if you know anything about me, that’s really saying something.

We’ve been having some ridiculous nice weather in Denver. Today, I took a break from working and Soren, Peaches, and I finished (almost) the last of my tree sites (I have one weird one left). We did the outliers, like the random house way south and west that resulted in us walking past the above building. It’s a former church that has been turned into “Distinctive Residences.” Fancy!

I’ve always wanted to live in a former church. Do you remember a while ago when I almost applied for an attorney job in Petersburg, Illinois? Now, I realize that was total crazy talk. I figured, hey, that job paid more than I make now and the cost of living in Petersburg, Illinois is not what it is in any even minor metropolitan area. So we’d live like rockstars, if rockstars lived in Petersburg, Illinois, which they do not, so never mind.

In anticipation of moving to Petersburg, Illinois, I checked out the real estate offerings and found this beauty, an old church that is zoned residential. (By the way, I can’t believe that is still available. Somebody needs to buy it, fix it up, and live in it. So gorgeous.) I don’t remember what the asking price was back then, but it was not much (and it’s even less now — holy crap, go snap that up before someone beats you to it). I was smitten with this potential new life. I’d lie awake in bed at night thinking about our life in Petersburg, Illinois, where we lived in a former church and I walked to my little attorney job and Ben did — well, who knows what Ben would do there — and Soren — well, Soren would be the weird vegetarian kid with the crazy hippie parents who are mos def violating several ordinances with their animals and their loud and weird music and oh yeah, that’s a terrible idea.

Back when we were looking to buy a house, for some reason I don’t remember, the first place we looked at was a former church turned residence in Leyden, “a small unincorporated community lying west of Arvada at the junction of West 82nd Avenue and Quaker Streets,” so, basically, in the middle of nowhere. It was crazy awesome but needed work that was way above our pay grade. For example, there was not one bathroom completely surrounded by walls. But there was a courtyard! And it used to be a church! And it too would’ve been a terrible idea.

The good news is that I have Ben who provides the normal to my crazy. It always goes something like this:

Me: Let’s [insert totally ridiculous crazy thing that we should never, ever do here]!!!

Ben: No.

This dynamic works very well for us. When I propose endeavors that are only somewhat crazy, Ben (eventually) agrees. When I propose something that would end up making us miserable, he’s all, hey let’s not.

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Earlier today, I was in the kitchen frying tofu for tonight’s vegetable fried rice. All of a sudden, I realized hey, I’m really content right now. Happy even. So I tried to take a little inventory of what had been going on that led to me feeling so good. This seems like a good strategy, right? I was cooking and Soren was entertaining himself. I’d just emptied our countertop compost container into the big compost bin outside. I was barefoot. I’d spent the day doing work work and volunteer work, and had a nice stretch of time outside in the beautiful weather, walking around the neighborhood and encountering people who, more often than not, are really nice. (One thing I’ve noticed is that people generally either love a Rottweiler or are scared of a Rottweiler.) In the greater scheme of things, I’ve had a few really nice days, with a good mix of productive stuff and fun stuff, and not much down time. I always think I need more down time, but maybe I don’t really need that much. I still have to figure that out.

I don’t always talk about being happy when it happens. I think this is because I worry it’ll sound braggy, or that it’s just not that interesting. But then I realize that if I never talk about it, it probably seems like I’m never happy. That’s dumb. So hey, today I’m happy! I hope you are, too.