The Sun Got In His Eyes

I gave a black eye tonight to one of the boys on our baseball team. A high fly ball that he didn't quite catch. Although his dad finally convinced him not to quit baseball on the spot, he spent the rest of the night edging away every time I came near him.

At least we know he's trainable.

Bon Appétit, Volume 1

A post over at The Republic of Dogs brought to mind some of my favorite Snag family recipes. I'd like to share a few with you.

1. Roast Goldendoodle

Bring a well-trimmed 4-5 lb. goldendoodle loin roast to room temperature. Combine 1 tsp rosemary, 3 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 cup olive oil, 4 crumbled Double Stuf Oreos, and salt and pepper to taste. Thoroughly coat roast with olive oil mixture. Bake in 375 degree oven approximately one hour for medium rare. Slice thinly and serve with braised fennel.

2. Poached Eel

Kill and clean desired number of eels, reserving liquid. Fill a 3-quart sauce pan with approximately 4 inches of water. Bring water to a boil. Gently immerse eels in poaching liquid and immediately turn off heat. Allow eels to cook for 3 minutes. Remove and serve atop toast with reserved eel liquid.

3. Turnip Flambé

Peel and dice approximately 2 pounds of turnips. Heat two tablespoons WD-40 in a nonstick frying pan. When kitchen fills with toxic smoke, add turnips and sauté for 90 minutes or until tender. Add 1 gallon of good quality rum and flee. When fire subsides, scrape turnips from remains of pan and discard.

Welcome To The Snagitorium

I spend too much time with my kids, I think. Throwing them in a van and dragging them around the country usually seems like a good idea. Then there always comes a time like the afternoon somewhere in Maine when my four-year-old son started shrieking from the back seat, "I've got a baby in my uterus! It's a great big baby!" Of course the windows were open and we were in the middle of town. Yay for us.

I took the three boys to Florida a few years ago. My Lovely Bride couldn't get away from work, it was winter break, and going to the beach wasn't a bad alternative to lying around the house screaming at the family for two weeks. So off we went.

The first few days weren't bad. We went to some national parks that were pretty much empty (because what kind of moron goes to the top of a freezing mountain three days before Christmas), took in some Civil War battlefields (leading my wife to later question why trip revolved around cannons and warships), and generally had a good time.

Then we got to the beach. Now, we were on the Panhandle, where I'd gotten a hell of a deal on a hotel room. One hundred bucks for a room with a balcony looking at the ocean. Did it occur to me to wonder why? No, of course not. I'm a pinhead.

The Panhandle's cold in winter, for those of you as geographically challenged as I am. No matter, though, there's a pool, right? Sure, until some infant craps in it, rendering it off-limits for two days under the state health code.

I give up. We go out for dinner, my kids begging me to let them eat the sugar packets on the table. "Go ahead," I say. I'm done.

The waiter comes over to see 10 or 12 packages of pure cane sugar ripped open, the kids twitching and giggling.

"What can I get you?" he asks.

"Liquor. Lots of liquor. In fact, have one yourself and give me five minutes of adult conversation. Big tip in it for you."

"I'm afraid I can't do that sir," he replies, starting to back away nervously.

"For the love of God, don't leave me here alone.

"No, never mind, forget it. Just bring me a drink. Bring me a couple while you're at it."

A couple of days later, we pack to leave and I go to put the luggage in the back of our Ford minivan. The rear door hasn't opened the entire way, however, and I bash my face. We head out of town, blood dripping down into my eyes, the boys getting a 20-minute lecture on the decline of American manufacturing standards, punctuated with liberal doses of every swear word I can think of (and I can think of a lot). Finally, my oldest leans forward and says, "Dad, maybe we should all just get a good night's rest."

That was several years and thousands of miles in the past. It hasn't gotten better.

Happy April 15!

I just finished my taxes and I want to say how Jim-dandy happy I am about the whole experience!

Actually, the only real problem I had with the whole thing was the stupid e-filing software package I bought, which required 4 hours of trying various workarounds to get it to accept my deductions. Listing the child credit as reimbursement for pain and suffering probably didn't help, but still.

I almost like paying taxes. Note I said almost. I doubt that anyone really enjoys it. Still, I get schools and roads and fire departments and police and courts and national defense and the SEC, FTC, FAA, and EPA, just to name a few of the benefits. As part of the upper-middle class, I use my share of these services, probably way more than the average poor person, so if I can help cover some of the cost, than good for all of us.

Besides, when I hear the stories about how government should run more like a business (hat tip to our first MBA president, George W. Bush, the "W" stands for "We're fucked!"), I have to laugh. Government's big and big organizations are inefficient. I've worked for Fortune 100 companies that make our friends in the Washington bureaucracy look like libertarian entrepreneurs. I've worked with the military, the one type of government that conservatives love, and wouldn't suggest using that as a role model for how to run things. On the other hand, I've worked with small nonprofits and local units of government that are amazingly efficient. Government, private enterprise, in my experience people aren't very different. In the end, the further away one gets from one's revenue source, the easier it is to take it for granted.

That's not really the point, however. The point is, things cost money. Navies and hospitals and education and everything else that we get from government cost money. They cost a whole bunch of money, more than I can really claim to grasp.

But that's alright, because I'm only paying a tiny little share. A statistically insignificant piece, from everybody's perspective but my own. And that's alright too, because when all those statistically insignificant contributions get put together, we've not only built a warship or an emergency room or a high school, we've built a civilization. And while that's sometimes an ugly process, and sometimes a painful one, in the end it's one I feel pretty good about.

Let's Play Two!

There have been some great ballplayers over the last 100 years. Who are the top 5? Here are my picks:




















1. Ding-Dong Wankenfuss.

Part of the famous Tinkers-Evers-Wankenfuss double play combination, Ding-Dong earned his name the hard way, by getting hit in the head. A tragic 8th-inning bowel obstruction cut short his career. Little League parks throughout mid-Central Oklahoma are still named for this fan favorite.
















2. Wild Willie Taser.

The namesake of crowd control devices the world over, Wild Willie was both a renowned pitcher and a mass murderer. Pitching in the days before batting helmets, he enjoyed carving the names of his victims into his belt, an artifact which even today is preserved in a special locked room at the Baseball Hall of Fame.





















3. Francine McDillermot.

Both a suffragette and an ace reliever, "Pantaloons" McDillermot has been memorialized on the 27,000 rupee coin currently in circulation in the Hindu Kush mountains. McDillermot disappeared during a barnstorming tour of Alabama shortly after declaring free agency.
















4. Deembob Registrar

A fierce competitor and the first extraterrestrial to play the game professionally, Registrar had perhaps the best forkball of all time. Although he collected 200 wins in an 11-year career with the Yankees, he was sold for dog food by George Steinbrenner after a dismal 3-15 season.












5. Ernie the Eelpout

Famous for his trademark phrase, "Hey, is that a dogfish in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Ernie is now doing play-by-play for the Lincoln Lampreys of the Invasive League. Ernie set major league records in stolen bases and hot dogs consumed.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

This weekend is the annual park clean-up day for the local baseball league. Afterwards there's a picnic in one of the pavilions, with hot dogs and hamburgers cooked by yours truly and some other poor saps whose wives wanted them out of the house. God knows how many kids will be there, whacked out on soda and candy, running around like short-circuited Disney animatrons, while the parents try to slink away and stick the coaches with the problem.

Oh yeah. I've been there in other years, refusing to make eye contact with one of my boys, pretending that I just happened to wander into this hellscape. Not this weekend. No, this time I'll be front and center, pretending that I'm not a misanthrope, pretending that I'm having fun, pretending that this isn't some horrible experiment gone wrong.

Christ, I need a drink already.

Deus Ex Suburbia

We don't write poetry
or novels.
Or paint or draw.

We rise in the morning,
the coffee is made,
the paper is on the table,
the children are gone.

We leave and do our jobs
and the world is mostly unchanged.

Then comes evening,
when the sun is heavy in the sky,
when the bats and martins circle,
when the boys and girls are shouting on the fields.

We of the gray flannel suits,
we parents and burghers,
grasp and smile,
tired and refreshed.

And the world, mostly unchanged, smiles and changes with us.
If only but a little.