handiwork

Part of the reasoning behind the trusty ol' digital camera is all the great things you can do with them. Momma got one for the family for christmas, and it's been great fun to play with. I did read the book that came with it, the basic book, but I barely scanned the more advanced version of the book. Months later, I still only know how to complete the most basic of functions.

Today being Big Brother's last game of the spring soccer season, Momma figured it would be a good time to finally take the camera to a game and try to get some pictures of him and his teammates. One problem with this plan is that neither of have really looked at the camera to find the proper mode for action shots. I've tried a couple of things in the past, most derby related, but the constant motion of derby makes it difficult to catch any thing worth catching. Soccer can present a similar problem, but soccer's catch worthy moments can so often appear out of, as they say, your ass, so of course it carries it's own difficulty.

None of those issues are really of concern as we drive to the soccer fields today, Momma intently poring over the advanced version of the book. We still aren't convinced we found what we want, but what she did find is some sort of continuous shutter something or other. I could find out the real name, but the book is all the way in another room, and seriously, I don't care that much. It won't make this story suck less to know that it is called this as opposed to that.

So all that shit build up for this. Momma grabbed a great series of pictures of Big Brother. It's a race for the ball and you just don't know who will get to it first. That smooth kid in the blue is Big Brother.

back baby

Indeed we are back baby. Momma finally got paid and we're back to drinking the good beer. We even bought the boys some fast food today without them having asked. We like to include them in the celebration.

You have to know that the very first beer I wanted cleansing the debris away was a St. Terese. The first sip confirmed something I hadn't expected though. I had become a bit colorblind in terms of beer. I have a somewhat limited variety to choose from in my small town. I do think that I have fairly decent options in that availability.

So I've been drinking all this decent beer, and then we budget the beer and have a couple of weeks of High Life. That's all well and good, and I don't care how you feel that my budget crunch involved not skimping on beer but skimping on the price. At least it wasn't Natural Light Ice. That's almost possibly too low even for me, though if you're buying, that's another story.

Anyway, I finally poured my first St. Terese in ages, one of those lovely commercial pours where the head reaches the very top of the glass and no more. I watched in the shadows of the kitchen that nearly amber shade that turns a beautiful red as I carry the beer into the more flatteringly lighted living room. I take a nice full sip and it all comes back to me. I'm flooded with that flavor that made me fall in love in the beginning, the flavor I'd come to take for granted.

St. Terese is what I think of as an American pale ale. It's based somewhat on the British IPA, but the hops is so much more well thought out than in so many hoppy beers. The hops comes through in these beautiful floral notes combined with what can only be described as a rich hoppiness. This whole paragraph sounds redundant as I read back through it. I stopped for a sip of the lovely ale and was overcome again by this beer.

We still have a shit ton of High Life left in the refrigerator. It won't likely last long, but when I've got decent beer and cheap yellow beer, the cheap yellow beer sometimes tries to call to me in the middle of the afternoon or early in the evening. For all my love of the drink, I do try to contain it in reasonable times and amounts.

Either way, it's time for a smoke, and maybe I'll come back with some lovely post about something that matters. That won't likely happen, but you never know.

the horse

Whenever I see Sarah Jessica Parker, I always find myself wondering the same thing: which one was the horse, her mother or her father?

a visit

Mr. Friendly Codes Inspector Man just paid me a visit. You many remember that my busted ass Buick Skylark earned us an orange sticker, that same orange sticker that we usually see on cars left by the side of the interstate for too long.

I'm sure a certain part of me understands that the city needs codes, needs to require a certain standard of its citizens. I wouldn't want to live next to some neighbors I've seen, porches overflowing with crap, grass allowed to grow wild, cars sitting for years on end rusting away to nothing. But such is not the case with me and my Buick POS.

The car is inoperable, and for anyone looking behind my house, it's probably something of an eyesore. But therein lies the clincher for me, that the car is in fact behind my house. It's not sitting on cement blocks in the front yard, though it is on jack stands. I'd love to be rid of it, but I'd also like to get something in return.

It bothers me that the city has the power to make blanket decisions about the property of its citizens. It makes me a little mad that they have the power to just take a car that they've decided to take. Momma and I paid real money for that car. Her grandparents helped us out some, finding the car and helping us make a down payment, so they too have some investment in it. Momma's grandfather has a fair amount of sweat and even blood donated to that car in terms of repairs and repair help. Anyone who's done auto repair work knows that the gods of auto repair often require some sacrifice of blood, though why it must always come from the knuckles is the greater mystery.

So what's to be done? I sent a message to the National Kidney Foundation's local office a week ago and have yet to hear from them. I was completely honest in my description of the car. The body is in great shape as is the interior. Most of the engine that we actually still have is in great shape as is the transmission, though neither of those parts are currently in the car. They are in the garage taking up space I'd love to use for other purposes.

But Mr. Codes Man was exceedingly friendly, even when he was reminding me that we'd discussed this problem a year ago. I was under the impression then that the car at issue was the Subaru DL that we did get rid of around that same time. It was in sad condition in terms of body and interior, but it could easily have been made to run and is now gone. That one was not behind the house and was imminently more viewable by random passersby. Apparently both cars were a problem.

So what's to be done? It's doubtful that anyone accepting cars for donation would want this heap. It would cost them more to tow it and its parts than would be worthwhile I'm afraid. It would cost a good deal to replace the broken and missing parts, probably again more than the car would then be worth. Who the hell wants a 1990 Buick Skylark?

I thought I had a lead in selling the car for parts. That lead has had to take some time to visit his ailing father in Chattanooga, and I'm not willing to bother him about this issue right now. So I have seven days to either part with the car for whatever money I can get, hopefully including the engine parts and transmission, or I can find myself, seven days from today, watching the city tow truck haul away part of my problems, leaving me with worthless auto parts, large, cumbersome and not easily removed auto parts. They would willingly take my car and leave me with a greater problem because at least the engine parts are not out in the driveway. Maybe I should just drag the transmission into the driveway next week and let the tow truck driver figure out how to get the car out around it.

eight o'clock

No, it isn't eight o'clock right now. It's actually almost ten, in the AM, and I've been up for nearly an hour. That might sound crazy to you, and it sounds a little crazy to me. I try like hell never to be up this early.

Lately, I have been trying to wake earlier. I feel I mostly just need to get in the habit. I'm of two minds about this. If I sleep too much then I awake tired, groggy and often prone to bouts of depression. I'm not sure why that is, but I've learned over time that it's true. If I awake too early, I start the day angry, almost excited about the prospect of shouting at someone. It goes away fairly quickly if I'm left alone, but that's a bit much to ask, and it's more than a bit presumptuous to expect with the boys around.

Of course, my being a bitch if I don't get the proper amount of sleep is not the point of this post. I'm a bitch in more ways than one, regardless of time awake or amount of sleep had.

I've discussed in recent posts Momma and I driving recently to Indianapolis. The night before we left we celebrated our anniversary with a fairly high priced meal followed by some high priced drinks. We also paid a number of bills on top of the three tanks of gas we used in driving to and from and around Indianapolis as well as eating out there. That's left a huge gap in our budget for which we've paid the last couple of weeks.

Some of the budget issues involved buying lesser products, and most of these were ignorable. We've been drinking Miller High Life for most of two weeks rather than indulge our usual beer snobbery. We even bought the cheap eggs when we ran out of the good kind. But the lowest blow by far came only a couple of nights ago. We needed coffee, and while we could have spent only slightly more, Momma decided to go with the Eight O'Clock brand. I could almost make up a god and curse his name that such a travesty exists. It's soooo disgusting, even to look at, the beans a uniform poo brown and also uniformly stale. This coffee was likely roasted weeks before it was packaged and then sat for another week or so in a warehouse. It almost makes me want to cry. It even smells bad.

We usually have our pick of coffees. Our local food co-op, home to overpriced items of all sorts, has a delightful assortment of coffees. The beans are, for the most part, roasted locally and are also very fresh. They still retain a lovely luster and sheen regardless of the amount of roasting. We prefer a dark roast, and the sale coffee at the co-op lately has been a perfect example of a great coffee.

Momma gets paid Friday, and the first thing I plan to do is pack a bag full of Yirgacheffe, fly home as fast as the ol' Honda will take me, throw straight to hell whatever unfortunate beans remain from the Eight O'Clock, and grind myself a good cup. Until then I will damn the crap coffee and lament our misfortune that overspending has heaped on our heads.

boring post

Time has slipped past me lately, time I could have used for writing, time that I intentionally did any number of other things, because sometimes trying to think about writing is a pain in the ass. Sometimes it's just as simple as not being willing to approach the thing that's on my mind.

Yesterday was finally yard work day as well as shingles day. I had made a deal with a friend who isn't afraid to climb a ladder to replace some shingles. This is a job that's needed to be done for some time, but I don't do well with ladders and steeply angled roofs. We are now safe until the next overly windy day which will probably take those same shingle back off, but we can hope that isn't anytime soon.

I did my share of work. The yard is entirely mowed, and the hydrangea that was full of vines and some stupid ass tree is now just a hydrangea again. I found a bird nest nestled in all the crap that I didn't want in the plant I do want. I actually considered for a moment letting the nest be, but I wanted my flowering shrub more than bird neighbors, so the nest is now on the back porch. I'm sure it's now a homeschooling aid.

I swept the back porch and am momentarily rid of the helicopter seeds from the silver maple as well as the cigarette butts from my blackening lungs. The Boy was nice enough to break the plastic base that used to hold the umbrella that used to shade the outdoor table, but I failed to get it to the street, today being trash day, so it's ours for another week.

I finally cleaned the gutter. I hadn't realized how full of shit it was, mostly the aforementioned helicopter seeds but also a fair amount of the gravelly type shit that's on the shingles. The combination had pretty well damned up the gutter which had developed quite a sag as well as its having become and attraction for birds. I can't really describe the stink that came out of the gutter as my hand went in. It was most disgusting, but the job is done and the sage is much less.

I also finished mowing the field. Our yard can be separated into three distinct sections, four if you count the tiny bit at the end of the house. The front yard is deeply rutted under the grass but is mostly easy to mow. The back yard is smallish and easy to mow, most of the grass/grasslike stuff not ever even growing high enough to meet the mower blade, though the part of the back yard closest to the porch grows thick and heavy. The back edge of the back yard rises abruptly making the field sit about a foot higher. It isn't really field, more like the back half of the back yard. It never gets as much attention as the rest of the yard, and it's generally overgrown and ugly. I really need for this to be the year I get a handle on it and stop letting it get so shitty.

And there's my boring post. Today needs to be the day I clean the inside of the house, especially the bathroom. With two little boys, the bathroom begins all to quickly to smell a little . . . well, a little like two little boys. The kitchen is also a mess, but that's pretty much my fault. I refuse to admit when I last vacuumed. Thank you for reading, now take time to look around your house and be happy that it's really not that bad, unless it is, in which case Get Off Your Ass!

nearly 'bout

Years of working in kitchens has given me a certain attitude in regards to different aspects of food preparation. This has of course carried over into my home life. Some of this has to do with my handling a knife.

I'm pretty good with a knife. I know my way around one, but I'm also the guy that, due to random circumstances, has fallen in love with the longer than I need chef's knife. My own current knife is a fairly long Wusthof that is in desperate need of a date with a stone.

This story is not about the knife. It's a beautiful knife for all that, and the stories about it would be those of a good partner, always willing when needed to step in and do all those things I require. Again, this isn't about that knife.

This story is about the little serrated knife that came with the butcher block that came with the house. The block was full of serrated knives of all kinds when it came into our possession. I have no use for a serrated chef's knife, but the little steak knives come in handy quite often. Who wouldn't want a decent set of steak knives.

One of the kitcheny knife things I do is a favorite of The Boy. He is a lover of the banana as am I. Momma likes her bananas a little green whereas I like mine a darker yellow, happy even with a couple of brown spots. When the bananas are green, The Boy has trouble opening them. To get around his frustration based on his wanting to do it himself but not being able to, I came up with a little trick.

The trick is mostly lame, but it's fun enough for me because it involves doing something stupid with a knife. The Boy likes it because it's a tiny show. It amused him the first time I did it and continues to be a favorite.

It's really lame, as I said. I merely hold the banana upright and, using one of the steak knives, I slash the stem off. If the trick goes right, the stem flies across the room, trying to slip under the refrigerator and disappear. Sometimes the trick doesn't go quite as planned and the stem doesn't get cut all the way through. Usually a second slash remedies the situation.

He and I wanted a banana at the same time today, so I tried to get both bananas at once, sort of. I held both bananas in one hand, crossed in my palm. One of the two stems didn't come all the way off, so I slashed at it a second time. The order of this story is somewhat cloudy in my mind, which in the end may be for the best. I remember specifically having the feeling at some point in the process that I'd avoided some amount of catastrophe, perhaps the slicing off of some amount of finger. It feels like a second sight I've developed. Working in kitchens means some amount of cut fingers.

I didn't really think anything of it at the time. The process of the banana topping ends with me cutting an X in the top of the banana leaving four distinct places to peel the banana. As usual, I slashed the banana tops off, cut the X and then went to find the stems. I can't very well leave banana stems laying in the kitchen floor. As I picked up the stems I notice a new banana bit. It was the bottom of one of the bananas.

As I was throwing the stems away I looked at the bananas in my hand, seeing all too clearly the bottom end I'd also cut away. I didn't want to look to closely at the knuckles that sat between the two ends of the banana. I still don't really want to think about. Don't think about it. Don't picture yourself holding a banana in your hand and cutting both ends off at once with one quick slice when you only meant to cut off the top. It really doesn't bear thinking about.

sandwiches

Thanks to Zenari for this one, but I'm afraid that at the bottom we are led a little astray. My mortal enemy is in fact not the classic peanut butter and jelly. I do enjoy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, often a few times a week. Big Brother prefers a more substantial sandwich in general, while The Boy would eat pb&j everyday and often does. Peanut butter and honey is also a lovely sandwich, and for extra fun, get out the pan and some butter and toast your pb&j.

You Are a Club Sandwich

You are have a big personality. It's hard for anyone to ignore you! You dream big. You think big. And you eat big. Some people consider you high maintenance, but you just know what you want... and when you want it. Your best friend: The Tuna Fish Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

What Kind of Sandwich Are You?

jam on yo

This video has been sitting in a tab in my browser window next to the blogger tab for too many days now. I've actually played it a few times since finding it recently. It's Dinosaur Jr. doing Just Like Heaven, one of the few Cure songs that I really like. Actually, I've never been a huge Cure fan, but recently, because of a commercial that absolutely ruins a Cure song I sat with the YouTube and listened to a few songs, surprised that I actually knew so many more of their songs than I thought.

The sound quality, as is to be expected from live footage, is not the greatest, but it is pretty good. And any time you get to listen to Dinosaur Jr. you should consider yourself lucky. And who else could take another band's song and make it that much better?

Update: As Hardcore Girl points out, Dinosaur Jr. are back together. They've also released a new album and are streaming it on their Myspace page.

So without further ado, I give you . . .

the car

Momma and I are the proud owners of a lovely Buick POS, also known as a Skylark. It's not the car we actually use, in fact it's not been driven in a number of years. It was the first car that we bought together, and truth be told, we'd just as soon not have this car sitting around anymore. That will likely change soon.

I'll give you a little background on the car before I go into my gripe. Some years ago, as Momma was leaving the house, she experienced one of the delights of automobile failure. One of the pistons broke inside the engine rendering the car immediately fucked. Anyone familiar with the internal combustion engine knows exactly what this means. Anyone else can well imagine.

We had the car towed, on the advice of Momma's grandfather, to the house we now live in. At the time Momma's grandparents lived here. Her grandfather was our mechanic, though this repair was a bit more than he could handle. With some small amount of help from me, he raised the car up, removed the engine and transmission from the rest of the car, and then took the engine block off. The plan was a stop gap measure intended to make the car drivable again. He took the block to a machine shop, and then the mists of time took over.

Fast forward a couple of years. Grandfather was expecting to get the work done cheaply, and we had long ago replaced the car with the Accord we currently drive. Grandfather was in no hurry to get the engine block back, especially when he learned that the man who was going to do the work had had a nasty fall off of a ladder. Another year or so passes, and grandfather learns that the man has died. The man's son, in taking over the shop, got rid of all sorts of things that he assumed were trash. One of those things was our engine block.

So now we are faced with the prospect of having every bit of the car except the block. It's sort of a necessary component if you want a car with an engine and the ability to be driven. Grandfather, still in no hurry, has decided he will try to locate an engine block. He has planned this whole time to get the car running again, and while Momma and I often feel we'd prefer to be rid of it, we also know that having that second car, even if it is a Skylark, would be beneficial for the family.

Fast forward yet again to yesterday. While Momma was at work, the boys and I went to the cove to play and hang out with some of Momma's derby sisters and their children. We were even lucky enough to find some homeschool friends who oddly enough know a lot of the same people that the derby girls do. I've mentioned the size of my town before, and it was neat to see that again yesterday. We all had fun, even if I did get my first sunburn of the season. It's not a bad burn, but it does show up on me in the usual farmer tan, neck up and arms down. Without a shirt on I still appear almost to be wearing a shirt.

We returned home from a lovely day next to the river to find that a codes enforcement officer has been by and left a lovely orange sticker on the POS windshield. My Buick is obviously either abandoned or inoperable, and that is against the city code. I won't mention the fact that within a mile of my house in any direction one can find ten to twenty similar cars. I won't mention that the Buick is behind the house, nearly invisible to most passersby, unlike those other cars, often found in people's front yards.

So what's the difference between my abandoned or inoperable vehicle and the others? Apparently the others are not owned by people who have cunts for neighbors. The report on my car was made anonymously, so even if I asked I would not be able to learn which cunt neighbor called. I have an idea who it was. I have two neighbors that could actually be bothered by the car, and only one of them walks down his driveway scowling in my direction. His lawn is pristine where mine is a little tall, and I think maybe he called about the car because there isn't dick he can do about the grass. The other neighbor is an understanding sort who would actually approach me with problems.

The other option in people who might have called could be the people building the condos down the street. If it were them, then I'd like to call somebody to disallow them from cluttering up my little neighborhood with their condos. We don't have the streets or the infrastructure to support that type of sudden growth, especially when you factor in the two other developments within less than a mile of this one. I will not be happy with the increased traffic on my narrow street nor will my neighbors or any of our children. We already have enough assholes mistreating our street, especially the unmarked police car that regularly drives about fifty miles per hour between the stop signs, a distance of less than a quarter mile.

I wonder what it would have taken for the person who called the law on me to have actually approached me. He could easily have walked over and asked me about the car. I could have explained the circumstances and could have hoped for a little understanding. I didn't get that at all. Instead I have six days now to figure out how to dispose of a car that, while I don't especially want it, I certainly don't want a city tow truck showing up, towing it off and trying then to charge me for the privilege.

Yes, the car could be considered a bit of an eyesore. The front end is on jack stands and the tires are off. Of course the tires are off as the axles are attached to the transmission which is in the garage. The car is behind the house in the driveway, so it isn't one of those cars that I have to mow right up close to and still miss the grass growing underneath, nor is it home to varmints of any kind. The car, as I've mentioned, is nearly invisible to most people passing in the street.

gettin' our corn from a jar

At one time, moonshine was the best way to get your corn to market. Nowadays it's a little more than that. To some it's a way of life akin to part of their heritage, for others it's cheaper than the bonded whiskey and to some it's a little something daring in their life. That's certainly simplifying the matter as there's certainly more to it than that, but my blog, my rules, my marginalizations.

I've never purchased corn liquor, for what it's worth, but that doesn't lessen my involvement. I've enjoyed, if that word can be used concerning the topic, my share of it, and I have owned more than one jar of it in my years in my little town. For all that I'd heard of it over the years, I never touched my first drop before moving to this town. I could now easily find my share should I want to.

One difference between moonshine and other liquors is the communal nature of drinking it. Bring a bottle of tequila out, and you also bring out shot glasses and perhaps even the training wheels of lemon or lime and salt. A bottle of regular whiskey is either held close or often made into drinks. Rum is certainly mixed, and truth be told makes a hell of a lot better ice pick than vodka. Vodka? Well, the less said about that bastard drink the better. Honestly, when your pinnacle of success is no flavor at all, well why not just drink water and act stupid so people will think you're drunk?

The communal nature comes in a quart jar. You don't pour shots of moonshine, and you don't make drinks with it. You screw the top off, drink without sniffing, and you pass it down the line. You laugh at your close friend as the burn slides a little sideways somewhere in his throat. He passes the jar on, and it comes back around. Someone in the circle has a twelve pack of beer at his feet, because, as he says, "I'll drink it before it gets too got-damn warm," and he never does take you up on your offer to stick it somewhere cold. Whoever's house you're at has a refrigerator somewhat full of beer, and there might even be an ice chest with beers floating in an ice slurry.

At some point, you know the jar is coming back around. You might be ready for it, but it's also possible that you wish to sit out a round. You probably won't, and that's okay too. There's nothing like grown ups shaming each other into drinking more liquor.

Moonshine doesn't have to be illegal. If you want to set up a professional operation, and if you are willing to pay the appropriate taxes and pass the state health inspection, you could conceivably legally distill corn liquor. But who the hell does that? It's much more fun to sell it on the sly, avoiding the revenuers and the g-men with a little artistry and subterfuge. That plays right into the mystique as well, though I imagine most moonshiners would have you believe otherwise. They may even like to see themselves as circumventing unjust laws, and once upon a time, you might have been able to believe it. I'm sure there's a little Robin Hood trying to fight his way out of all moonshine distillers.

Part of the mystique to me is that it's just something so sublimely southern, the corn liquor. I hadn't actually planned to write about it, but reading at Rosie's blog about some guy named Popcorn Sutton just put me in the mood for a sip. I dragged the jar out, and Momma and I passed it around a couple times. It's back under the sink where it belongs for now, but it'll come back out soon enough.

Sometimes you just need a beer, and sometimes you need the beer to be chasing something down your gullet. Maybe I ought to know more about ol' Popcorn, but really, I don't care. I don't know if I've ever had any of his stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if I had. What I'd be likely to run across currently is more likely to come from Sullivan County than from Cocke County, but I've never really bothered with where it comes from. So long as I can still see when I'm done, I'm pretty much fine with it regardless of it's county of origination.

capital punishment

No, not that kind, the kind that happens here, in my little town, in just under a month. The lovely skaters from our state capital will descend on our fair burg to take their licks from the Hard Knox Rollergirls.

So, what are you doing May 27? If you have any sense you will find some way to get here. If you love the beautiful sport of girl on girl action, the kind that sits atop a pair of skates and throws itself in your face, then you will find some way to get here.

Okay, I know I have a total of three readers, and one of them already lives here, but still, our league could use the support, and you will never have anything better to do than watch roller derby. So find some way to get here.

someone else's idea

Perhaps today will be the multi post day, the kind of day where I rake ideas into a pile, stealing bits here and there from bloggers I read making myself post fodder out of it all. It's so much easier than thinking original thinks, and as lazy is sort of a life goal of mine, I feel I'm pretty good at it.

Cocking a Snook Too has a lovely story about her discovery of Calvin and Hobbes. If you aren't already one of her readers, then I have nothing but pity for the time you waste reading lesser blogs. If you are a reader, then you are already aware of her lovely style.

For the great unwashed masses I give you a favorite Calvin and Hobbes strip. Calvin and Hobbes is the creation of cartoonist Bill Watterson and is one of the most enjoyable comics I've ever read.

I apologize for the small size of this comic, but you didn't buy the bifocals for nothing, so lean in close and back up quick after reading it so you don't laugh spittle onto your screen.

everywhere a sign

School of Thought has a post concerning their recent travels through my birth state of Georgia. I currently feel more at home in my current little town, but there is still a part of me that's hanging on to Georgia and specifically Atlanta.

SoT discusses the religious signage, billboards that I imagine many of us are familiar with. They offer us a lovely picture of the typical blue eyed, white Jesus assuring us that he does indeed listen. According to this sign that I found, god does listen, but not perhaps to you. He does love to rock though.



And to finish it all off, I found you a short song to give you a taste of Slayer. I'm not a fan of the band, mostly because I prefer my music with either a horn section and a little '60's Jamaican vibe or with a bit of twang on the guitar and a taste of heartbreak, tears in beers if you will.

more on a theme

Recently I wrote a long post that, while using soccer as my base, was mostly about coaching in general, or so I intended. To that post I would like to add a soccer specific update.

Many are the times on the soccer field that feet meet in a clash, fighting for the ball. Many are the times I wish I'd better heeded the following advice. This is something that all soccer coaches should warn their teams of from the very first meeting as well as at any practice where this is remembered.

While at practice recently I and the coach teamed up against the team. The drill was to help the kids learn about position and to stay in position relative to your teammates. Any coach of youth soccer knows well how the kids can easily become excited by the game and forget so many of the lessons that we try to teach. Seen from one direction this is further proof that youth sports is more about building skill than in winning games. From another direction this is further proof that youth sports should often focus on the fact that we are dealing with children. Their abilities, especially when considering also their age, must always be taken into account.

This post isn't really about that, but far be it from me to pass up a chance to preach the same message yet again. This post though is rather soccer specific as I have just said.

Often in those clash of feet we find that we are kicking or are kicked in and around the feet. This is the reason for shin guards and the reason that many youth soccer teams and organizations absolutely require that the children wear shin guards. Tonight however we are looking even lower, at the feet themselves.

From day one it is imperative that the children consider foot care, specifically their toe nails. At the practice I mentioned above, while trying to keep the ball away from a very small child, I took a shot right in the end of my big toe. The child, after the collision, took the ball and ran while I, several years his senior, a few feet taller and a number of pounds heavier, not to mention the number of years I've played being much greater than his age, was stopped momentarily. My toe nails are too long, and the lightest impact, so light in fact that the child took no notice, was enough to cause me some small amount of pain as well as allow him to take the ball and proceed quite without me.

One of the most overlooked yet most important things we can teach our teams is foot care. Keep your toe nails trimmed. I've yet to actually face a real injury due to this, but many times I've been stopped, even if for only a moment, because I had not heeded this simple advice.

So in the end, the true moral, along with the myriad skills we try to teach, sometimes we forget the simple lessons. Not to liquefy the dead horse, but if you have children that play soccer or are a coach of children's soccer, remember the toe nails, and help the kids keep them trimmed. They may not remember to thank you, but at least you'll save them some small amount of pain, hopefully.

oogie

Today is a fairly gross day. I still haven't fixed the shower, and this time not entirely out of laziness. It seems as if it's just a bit above my ability, and I'm a little scared to mess with it for fear of making the situation worse.

Baths just take too long. I've enjoyed taking baths lately, but it isn't my preferred method of cleansing myself. I want a nice hot shower, stand under the water and feel nice for a minute, then soap my ass good and get the hell out. That's a simple request right?

I'm in dire need of a bath, though not as dire as if I worked and got sweaty. I'm developing a swampy down-there area, and my armpits have a certain homemade hamburger quality in the arena of scent. My hair is icky enough so that when I push my sunglasses up on my head they come back down a little smudgy.

I could wait till after derby practice tomorrow when I know Momma will need a bath because it's always nice to hop in with her, but I'm tired of feeling so damn . . . well, icky.

Another factor that has come into play is the clothes dryer. Did I tell you about it? Did I tell you how it mostly works except for the lack of hot air? One can't very easily dry clothes with just the spinning and the blowing, though spinning and blowing has a kind of dirty but fun sound to it. I have clean pants, but the britches what goes under the pants I may not have any of clean, and all my favorite tshirts are also not so much clean.

Don't get me started on the britches. It's past time to trash them all and replace them, my favorite pair having passed threadbare long ago and entered the world of split in the back just like I'm a little split in the back. The rest are so worn that I could probably read a newspaper through them. I'm already wearing yesterday's socks, and if I take a bath now, I'll have to sniff through the laundry to find the next least dirty pair of socks. Nothing makes you feel more like a man than putting on dirty socks directly out of the bath. And the only britches I have clean are the annoying one with snaps in the front that could be sexy on another man, access port and all, but they always come undone when I don't want them to. That's where the lazy comes in, hating so having to snap underpants.

So what's a gal to do? I'll probably just break down and start the bath soon after posting this, then I can sit in the steam and wonder why in the hell I just offered the world a story about worn out underwear, overly musky crotch and the like. It's all for you that I do this, humbling myself before the gods of the blogs. They have no more mercy than the Balrog, but at least they won't drag me into the pit.

haircut

I haven't had a real haircut, or what passes for one for me since sometime in the fall. That was when I last took the clippers to it and went as close to the skin as one can get without whipping out the razor. I've never been that dedicated to my shaved head, though I did one time shave it clean. It was a disaster and took much longer than it should. Also I had a bunch of red bumps on my head that made me look slightly diseased.

I've never been especially happy with my hair. Years ago I'd have jumped at the chance to grow it long. My father was always quick to call a haircut night any time any of the brothers started to get even a little shaggy. I grew up looking like a baptist missionary for the most part.

Eventually, as I started to grow it out, I decided I no longer wanted to. I have fairly fine hair that doesn't react well to length. I exhibit hat head quite a bit more than is right on top of being a fairly low maintenance type person (lazy) in terms of personal appearance.

Lately though, as I've put off the springtime head shave, I've had thoughts of just letting it grow a bit. This is fine with me. It'll be nice to have a bit of change, and Momma seems to like it. The problem is the complete lack of sense my hair has. Hair doesn't naturally grow in any recognizable or desirable style usually. As the hair over my ears and on the back of my head keeps getting longer, the hair on top and toward the front doesn't seem to be keeping up.

I'm quite sure that the hair is starting to thin and creep back a bit. Momma, bless her heart, insisted recently that she's never noticed this, but I can't help but feel she's just being nice.

While in Idiotapolis recently I begged a quick trim around the ears from a friend. She's a skater on Momma's team and an all 'round lovely person. She didn't do a perfect job, but I can't complain at all. It wasn't like I made an appointment, and I knew going in she had a beer or two in her. Also the barber/stylist chair was actually a cooler, and I'm pretty sure we had to pause the haircut once so someone else could get a beer.

Anyway, I'm finally, after many, many years, thinking thoughts of getting a real haircut. I really only need the sides and back trimmed a bit, and I'm sure the old guy down the street at the barber shop can do it right. I so prefer just stripping down to my britches and kicking the bathmat into the hall. I can sit on the toilet and lean far forward so that all the hair falls into a nice little pile between my feet. Quick and easy, low mess and easily cleaned. The thing is, I just don't miss being bald yet. I'm sure I will at some point, but we'll see when it comes.

I need to do it soon. With the front and sides as short as they are, the back, which currently has a certain duck's ass quality will soon be all out mullet. The da might not be too bad, and may even fit in with my jeans and tshirt kind of look. I really don't want a mullet. I'd have to kick my ass at least once a day. The only thing that could be worse would be a rat tail. And while you scoff at the rat tail, possibly remembering your own so long ago, believe me when I say that some people are still wearing them.

I think I'll leave you with that thought, that some people still wear rat tails. I offer you one of the most boring posts I've ever written, and sadly, I won't give too much thought to editing. The boys are watching Naruto behind me, and if that little orange clad son of a bitch shouts like a baby girl one more time I'm going down the street to find someone to slap.

win-loss

Not to liquefy a dead horse, assuming you have read this same sort of thing at Shannon's or Chris's place, but I'm thinking about the difference between children in sports being driven to win and children in sports being treated as children.

I hadn't planned to write about this aside from a largish stack of comments combined between their blogs, but as I sit here now watching soccer, it's on my mind again. The game is Chelsea versus Liverpool, part of the UEFA cup, so it features some of the very top teams in the world. These are men who have devoted a great portion of their lives to the game, and they would not be here themselves if they weren't some of the best and most skilled players in the world.

I'd love to see the Americas drawing the world's greatest, or at least our share, but that's another post for another day. We won't go into my Americas (North, Central and South) versus Europe debate just now.

Any U8 soccer team can have a big enough kid that powers through the other kids and whangs the ball into the net. I've coached kids that were like that, and I very easily could have had the entire team feed this child the ball, and I could have had a number of undefeated seasons if I were willing to play this way.

My own son has some amount of skill, and if he were currently more interested in soccer, and if he worked more at home on his skills, I have no doubt he could be a top player in our local AYSO region. That isn't what he wants right now. While he loves soccer, he also loves meeting new friends and playing with them, be it soccer or tag or even just a couple dashes around the playground. Sometimes he'd rather hold an interesting leaf and twirl it in his fingers.

Watching top level soccer however points at skills that are necessary to be good at the game, skills that must be learned young, before the drive to win becomes to strong. If I rely on my ringer, I will win games, but at what expense?

Skills needed are vast, and many children need years of play time to start to see the variety of situations that arise in the game.

-passing-soccer is often primarily a game of passing. A good team is always aware of each other in terms of distance and angles. Many teams seem to play the game and pass in constantly moving triangles. A great run at the goal often involves exact passes, not to a player but to where that player and the ball will meet. Children don't often think to pass and are too young to keep their heads up and look for the pass or to put themselves in position in relation to the ball holder in order to be open for a pass in a useful place on the field.

-aggressiveness-a problem I've often faced is wanting my teams to be the right kind of aggressive. I don't want to teach meanness or cheating. I want my kids to learn to face the opponent, to be able to approach someone and not be afraid to be hurt or embarassed. This is also apparent in goalkeeping at the age. A goalkeeper has to be able to throw themselves into danger, to leap at the ball, to pounce at a moments notice into a frightening situation. Young kids fear being kicked or run into or over. They don't naturally want to go toe to toe with each other to attempt to win the ball. Youth and childhood is the time to learn that most little hurts of soccer are just that, little hurts you forget a moment later, though at the same time, they need to know that their safety is more important than anything else. They need to know that if they are hurt they will be cared for.

-ball handling-soccer is also a game of touches on the ball. Whether that touch is a pass or a fast dribble, kids need to learn some things that seem completely unnatural at first. To kick the ball with the side of the foot may be the single most difficult thing to teach kids, but it is completely neccesary for ball control. Toe kicks not only hurt your toes, but they provide no real control on passes and shots. Passing and shooting doesn't just mean side of foot kicks either. There may be a time when a quick jab with the outside of the foot is the right response, while many times the need is to get the whole of the foot under the ball. Does the situation call for a blazing shot or a wide arc over the heads of most of the other players or maybe a chip up into the air to a teammate's head?

-dribbling-dribbling falls under ball handling, but it is more about personal control. Dribbling involves so many more ways to touch the ball, tricks that look fun when watching but are again necessary to be a successful player. You have to be able to make hard fast runs, head up, confident in your ability to keep the ball at your feet, confident that no other player will be able to tackle the ball away. Dribbling involves all parts of the foot through a range of moves to keep possession and to place yourself and the ball in the best position to benefit your team.

-selflessness-soccer is a sport based on playing where you belong. Some kids are natural shooters. Their dribbling skills are beautiful to watch and they know how to take the shot and when to take the shot. The perfect shot often falls within a momentary window when the lane to the goal is gone often before it's noticed. Often enough that shot opens up for a teammate and selflessness comes in seeing that and being willing for the teammate to get credit for the goal. At the same time, some players belong in the box as the keeper. Some kids live for denying the other team goals. Some kids belong in the back, possibly never to score in their entire soccer career, but a good defense has won plenty of games especially in a sport like soccer where goals are often notoriously difficult to come by. Selflessness is the key to being a good midfielder. The players in the middle are the workhorses of soccer, often keeping up a constant run, end to end, jumping back and forth between defense and offense.

These skills are not learned sitting out while the strong players win games. These skills are learned at a young age by kids who are given fair treatment and equal chances. These skills are bit learned by winning games as children, but they are learned over time when a child's love for a game is nurtured. These skills are learned by kids who have coaches that give their best and strive to get the same from their children. We have to accept that, when our kids are young, maybe picking a flower is the best thing they can think of to do no matter how much we might wish they would have seen the ball that just zipped past them.

modern parenting?

Momma and I were busy in the kitchen slapping a lasagna together. The boys were outside playing, though they were being a little on the quiet side and my peeks out the back door had not revealed them or what they were doing.

I finally had to check on them. I saw Big Brother approaching the garage, though he immediately turned around and tried to sneak away as he heard the screen door.

I wouldn't generally mind them being in the garage, but it's a typical garage full of garage type things in addition to the fact that it's become somewhat of a storage center for more crap than we really want. Because of this, the garage is mostly off limits to them apart from the area where their outdoor/riding toys are.

I turned the corner of the house to find The Boy holding a spray bottle that is not labeled properly. I'm not sure what's in it as it's a remainder from when Momma's grandparents lived here. The smell was similar to WD40, and from the gleam on his hands and the dark spots on his shirt, I new he was pretty well covered in whatever the chemical actually is.

I sent him inside and instructed Big Brother to pick up and put up all the toys they had out. The Boy was soon in a bath, and the toys were put away. Big Brother was brought into the house. I explained to them about the dangers of chemicals on top of the fact that I've told them numerous times about the garage ban.

So, how to make them understand my point? I did a Google image search for chemical burns and was quickly rewarded for my efforts. There were of course the gruesome images, but I wasn't trying to frighten them more than was needed. I found a nice picture of someone's arm, nice and red and puffy skin burned by some sort of acid. After showing them the picture I read to them from the same page about the different types of burns, concentrating mostly on chemical burns.

I hope they've learned a lesson. I love them and want their skin to stay just how it is. And these modern days provide us some great tools for this sort of thing. Go ahead and google the phrase yourself, gather the kids around, and show them a pretty picture of someone's skin dripping off. What better way to educate the young?

'cuz i'm bad

I can't really come up with anything to add. I tried writing something funny about how bad ass we are, but if you can't tell that from looking then my pithy little lines are going to open your eyes.

Honestly, I just feel happy to be a part of the picture. And the brass knuckles you can't really see, yeah, not real brass. I think they are actually part of a belt buckle, and I'm pretty sure the words "for amusement purposes only" were imprinted on the inside.

But don't let your amusement with the words lull you into a false sense of security. I don't need brass knuckles or even steel toes or titanium knees. The hot woman next to me doesn't either. We'll stomp a mudhole in your ass quick as look at you.