Barb’s Burblings

There are times when you have to put up with the soul-killing in order to get to the good stuff. Last night was such a time. I went with Becca and Steve to the Ben Folds concert. Ben rocked. He was, quite frankly, awesome, as was expected. The problem was his opener.
(Well, in addition to the 10-year-olds standing next to us. Well, maybe they were 12. In any case, they were wearing homemade puffy-painted shirts. You read that correctly. The shirts said “Ben Folds” on the front, along with the date. On the sleeve they had written 9:30 Club, and on the back, “Rockin’ the Suburbs.” It was horrifying, quite frankly. Why???)
Right. The opener, a guy who goes by Corn Mo. He played the accordion. (And apparently I’m psychic, because on Saturday night I had a dream that we were at the concert and Ben Folds actually asked if anyone played the accordion.) It was…it was like he was trying to be so bad he was funny, but it didn’t work. At all. The three of us stood there whimpering during his half-hour set. Totally traumatic. His last song wasn’t actually that bad, but it SO didn’t make up for the rest of the time.
(I just went to his website. Good God. The man has released albums. I’m shuddering at the thought.)
Then Ben came out, which made everything good. And since we got there early, we were in a prime location, on the balcony right at the railing. It rocked, and was a blast. Of course, I didn’t home until around 1 (and much love to Steve for driving me back to my car so I didn’t have to miss any of the concert). My contacts are absolutely killing me. I’m tired, but tonight I have to deal with packing for the California trip, which I hate. (The packing.) There’s proper business attire that’s more formal that what I normally wear, and also trying to figure out what we’ll be doing at night and what I should bring for that. Argh!
And just to update you on my fantasy team: I lost my first match-up 7-5, so am now in second place in my league (down by half a…game? point?). Oddly enough it was my offense that absolutely sucked and my pitching that was doing awesome. Huh.
Current song in my head:
“It’s All For the Best” from Godspell

I had this major craving for sushi yesterday, and the heavens smiled down upon me, and today some coworkers suggested we go for sushi for lunch today. There’s this place with a buffet; there’s a bunch of sushi, but also stuff like fried rice, chicken, etc. And for dessert they have fried bananas or apples dipped in cinnamon. Mmm. They had apples the first time I went, and they were fantastic. Over time, I grew to believe that they did that just to taunt me, because every time since then, there were bananas. Which, still good…but not apples. Today, however, I sat down at the table, bit, and found that it was an apple! Hurrah! I told the others, and suddenly I was alone at the table as everyone stampeded away. Excellent.
It was also nice because we took an hour and a half, and I went with my boss and my department director, so no guilt about the long lunch. Plus, Fridays just seem to call out for long lunches. But I’m also realizing that I only have one day in the office before going away for Conference, so now am obliged to actually be productive. On a Friday afternoon. The horror.
But I’m just happy that I got the stupid “Orioles Magic” song out of my head. All morning I was hearing “O-R-I-O-L-E-S! Magic, magic, Orioles magic!” Argh. But my brain decided to recollect last night’s Daily Show, so…
Current song in my head:
“Opposites Attract” by Paula Abdul

So I skipped work yesterday afternoon and went to the Orioles game. (And when I say “skipped work” I mean “asked my boss, who gave me time off.”) It was, let me say, awesome. I got Brian’s autograph again when he came right up to me before the game. Totally cute. But anyway. Great game–great pitching and finally they came through with some clutch hitting. Thank you, Sammy! And 12 Ks from Bedard. Most impressive. (As a side note, you should read this article from the Sun on the handshake that Mora, Tejada, and Roberts do after victories; it amuses me that it’s getting so much press attention, as I’ve been enjoying it since they started last season. But then, the team itself has been getting a lot more attention than it did last season. My favorite quote from the article is Mora explaining how he and Tejada let Brian in on it:

“Yeah, we include Brian Roberts, too,” Mora says with a laugh. “‘Cause he’s like” - and here Mora makes a wistful face, like the kid who doesn’t get picked for dodge ball in gym class - “so we’re, ‘Come over here.’”

Awww. And thanks to Dave for the link.)
Anyway, it was also nice to just get away for the afternoon. I head off to Conference next week, so work has been a bit crazy. It was good to just get away and not think about anything, really, other than baseball. It’s a good escape, which may explain why so many of my entries lately have been about baseball.
Plus, the game length was perfect (the game ran 2:39), and I arrived for tap just on time. I’m really going to have to start practicing; we’re learning this routine and I’m just like, “…huh?” much of the time. And I have to miss next week’s class because I’ll be away, which kind of bites. But she gave us the write-up of the routine, so as I stand around Marketplace, I can annoy my coworkers with tap steps. Yay!
Current song in my head:
“Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane

It’s not quite crab season (which comes, I believe, later in the summer), but here’s Miggy, showing his love of Baltimore:

How can you not love this man?
And for the curious, my fantasy roster looks like this:
J. Posada (NYY - C)
S. Casey (Cin - 1B)
B. Roberts (Bal - 2B)
A. Huff (TB - 3B)
M. Tejada (Bal - SS)
J. Guillen (Was - OF)
C. Figgens (LAA - OF)
D. Newhan (Bal - OF)
M. Young (Tex - Util)
V. Wells (Tor - BN)
E. Loiaza (Was - SP)
R. Harden (Oak - SP)
R. Lopez (Bal - SP)
M. Mulder (StL - SP)
B. Radke (Min - SP)
D. Bautista (KC - SP)
T. Hudson (Atl - SP)
B. Ryan (Bal - RP)
M. Rivera (NYY - RP)
E. Guardado (Sea - RP)
It’s fairly AL-heavy, seeing how I’m not very familiar with the NL (but working on it!). My draft was kind of random, but I’m certainly happy with the way things are turning out. Of course, it is only Week 5.

Guess who got AL Player of the Month…

“Hey, congrats…”
“Naw, Miggy, you deserve it…”

I joined a fantasy baseball league this year. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that and a lot of my picks were random. But it looks like they were pretty good. At the end of Week 4, I have yet to lose a match-up and am currently in first place in my league. I am excessively proud of myself. But then, who knew that Roberts would be such a good pick? Man, I’d be doing okay if I just had him and Tejada.

It was a good weekend, in large part that I had a lot of time to just hang out and not do anything. That’s always appreciated. Of course, there was some stupidity on my part. I went to Target on Friday, in part to look for sandals I can wear that go with khakis. I wound up buying two other pairs shoes that I needed. I got home and realized that they were the same shoe–one pair in black, one pair in brown. AND I forgot to use the $15 gift card to Target I had. *sigh*
Yesterday I went to Carrie’s gradumatation, which was neat. And involved free food, so, bonus. Then I met up with Dave, Brent, and Becca to watch the Nats take on the Mets. It was a lot of fun, if very wet. The seats were awesome and gave us an excellent view of the horrible grounds crew trying to pull the tarp onto the infield. Becca and I listened to the play-by-play of the crew trying to pull out the tarp. It took them something like 40 minutes. Pathetic.
Today was another quiet day. Colin is loving this weather. I’ve had the door to the balcony open, and birds have started perching on there. He’ll be drowsing on my bed in my room, hear the birds on the balcony and bolt for the living room. I’m just grateful that he doesn’t attack the screen door or anything. He just stares outside very intently. It’s totally cute.
Tomorrow is back to work. But a week from Tuesday I head to Long Beach. That really snuck up on me.
Current song in my head:
“Atlantic City” from Ragtime