A Little Bit of This – Spring 2011

Mom with Dave and me, Easter 1970

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Moms out there and to all of the Mom helpers. That photo is the one I have as my ID on Facebook right now. I saw a few people using their Mom’s photo as their profile photo for Mother's Day and I thought it was a neat idea for the holiday, so I used that one. It turns out that my photo was such a good idea that my brother snagged it for his profile photo. Now we look like twins, but as I posted on his page, we kinda look like twins in that photo! (But trust me, we really are 14 months apart!) It’s my Mom with my brother and me on Easter Sunday in 1970. I was almost 5 and Dave was 3-1/2. That’s a photo my Dad carried in his wallet for a long time. There is one that goes with it, Dad’s other wallet photo, of us with him on the same day. We were almost adults and we were still under 5 in Dad’s wallet. The staples in Mom’s wallet were a little more up-to-date. She always had the current school picture, then we got to be seniors forever, but the First Communion photos were always there too.

Today is the 8th Mother’s Day that I won’t be at a ball game with my Mom. “Take Mommy Out To The Ball Game” was our Mothers Day tradition. She loved carnations and that was one of the Mothers Day perks. Many ballparks give a carnation to every woman who comes to the game on Mother’s Day. Sometimes it was a Tigers game, sometimes a Minor League game. In 1996, the ball game was the day before when Heather and Tracy were with us in Philadelphia. We saw the Braves and Phillies after a rain delay the night before and the three of us treated Mom to lunch at Old Bookbinder’s before we left for the airport. When I wrote the tribute that was on her memorial website, I mentioned that she’d see Roberto Clemente, one of her heroes as a kid, play again at Heaven’s ballpark. For this year’s Mothers Day game, she’ll get to see Sparky Anderson manage one of the teams.


Speaking of Baseball…


A little tirade of questioning Dusty Baker - why, oh why, would he put Francisco Cordero in to pitch when they were only ONE run ahead in the ninth inning, I don’t care if they call him “closer," which by the way is the most OVERRATED position in baseball, Cordero is more accomplished at throwing a lead away when it really counts than he is at saving games. I listen to the commentators on Fox Sports talk about how closers seem to perform better with men on base. PLEASE! Any other reliever, we’d call that “not able to get the job done,” “Poor performance.” But for a closer, the ulcers for managers and fans are part of their, I don’t know, legend? YEESH! The first batter Cordero faced went yard and tied the game. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a tie does NOT close a game! Oh yeah, but he did close it in the ninth. The Cubs got another run in to beat, Cordero. It just sucks that the Reds and their fans have to take the hit for his inability to do his job. Yes, he has a bunch of saves, but when the game has been tough or the score has see-sawed or just if it’s not easy, Cordero is NOT the man you want on the mound in the ninth. I don’t care how much of a Reds ticket goes to pay his overpriced salary, I’d rather pay him to sit on the bench and record a win.

Okay, that rant ends. If you read it all, thank you for indulging me. It’s just that Cordero really irks me. Congratulations Cubbies on the victory, but we took it easy one you and gave you Cordero and his beach ball pitches in the ninth. You can thank us by not hitting today!

So after watching the sad ending to the Reds game, I tuned in to the Tigers game in the fourth inning. What better way to wipe my emotions clean of that nasty Cordero inning than Justin Verlander! He was phenomenal yesterday, the second no-hitter of his career and just inches shy of a perfect game! In the bottom of the eighth in Toronto, after facing and retiring 22 straight batters, he went to a full count and walked batter 23, then ended the eighth with a double play. So, he did only face 27 hitters, an almost perfect game!

Justin Verlander - 2nd career no-hitter yesterday!

It was very cool to watch the game. As David said when he got home yesterday, we usually only see the last batter or at most the last inning when a network games breaks into it as the no-hitter is completed. I loved watching the game and seeing the pitcher for one of my teams pitch the gem. Verlander is only the second Tiger in history to throw two no-nos and at 28 years old, he has time to do it again in his career. Can he do it? Could he throw five more and match Nolan Ryan’s record seven in his career? Yeah, no one can answer those questions yet, but it’s going to be exciting as a Tiger fan to find out!


School’s Out For Summer

Well, this semester was tough for me. Planning on the medical issues being much simpler, I took two classes. Even in the easier one, Web Imaging, which is basically Photoshop 5, I only got a B+. I say “only got a B” because it’s my first grade since returning to beef up my resume that wasn’t an A! I had some of straight-A semesters through high school, trade school and college, but I was never a 4.0 student when all was said and done. I am proud that my cumulative average has always been in the “A” range, but really, I’ve never been asked what my GPA in school was in a job interview, so in the greater scheme of things, a B, even if it was a C, doesn’t hurt anything but my ego, and even my ego is only slightly bruised.

But the ego bruising fades with some very glowing remarks and the full 250 points for my final project in Photoshop! For the final project, we were to create two original pieces using the tools and methods we’d learned in class. I created the first one to be an in-store promotional poster for home and garden departments in the fall for spring perennial bulbs planting. I used photos of my own flowers and the labels from the bulbs with one of Darlene Haughin’s papers from the Everyday Life collab.


For the second one, I used a paper from Darlene’s portion of On My Knees, we had to secure permission to use anything we didn’t create or photograph ourselves, and photos of my own cane and walker. Remember that I got the walker when I was in aquatic therapy because it took me a little to get my land legs back after getting out of the pool. I positioned this as a motivational poster and one that could be used in a co-op ad or public service ad for a nonprofit like Paralyzed Veterans of America or Special Olympics.


As I mentioned already, I currently have an Incomplete in my XML class, with three chapters and the final to catch up by the beginning of August, I want to redo some of the chapters before that so I have the language down moving forward. As I said before, my instructor is awesome, very compassionate and understanding. I want to excel on the portion of the class that’s left, not just for me, but as a way of saying thanks to him too!


Flowers!

The entire length of the house next to our drive is in bloom!

I’m having so much fun watching the flowers Kelly and I planted in October come up! That photo was taken May 4. The tulips are up now and the colors along the side of our house are just beautiful! But, after the tulips are done, that’s it! I planted spring flowers. I’m still new to this flowers thing! I’ve been doing some looking for summer blooming perennials and next I’ll look for fall blooming ones. I’d love to be able to have continuous blooming plants through to fall on the side.

Here are three I found that are right for the growing zone we’re in and I just think would be beautiful in the summer.

Gladiolas

We’ve had glads in the side bed all along, but they were dug up when our basement waterproofing was done and we didn’t get them back in the ground soon enough. I want to get some to plant now because I know they’ll grow there and David picked a Glad branch for me a couple times, when rain or wind knocked them down, and I had a glad branch on my desk at work. So, they have sentimental value too.

gaillardias

clematis

These two are one I found that I just think are so pretty! I want to get some each of the gaillardias and clematis. I love the colors and the sunburst of the gaillardias is just SO summer! Kelly did the planting while I was at school in October, but I know how she did it and I figure I can set out the bulbs in the driveway and just move a chair down to each section to do the planting. David said he’d help too. I’ll see about choosing fall flowers and maybe planting them all at the same time.


Okay, I’ll be back with more later!