Barb’s Burblings

Seriously, if you don’t care about baseball…feel free to skip this. I just need to rant.

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So I just paid the May rent. The problem is that for the first 20 days of May, I’m paying rent on two places. It’s handy in that it means I can move gradually–no big rush. On the other hand…um, yeah, that’s a lot of money. And it doesn’t help that the security deposit for my current apartment was only $200, so I don’t exactly have the prospect of a windfall anytime in the near future. Unfortunately.
Current song in my head:
“They Can’t Take That Away From Me”

David Copperfield manages to put his “magical” abilities to good use

So after 5 years or so of living on my own (well, not on my own-on my own–I’ve had roommates since 2001), I got sick of always having frozen meals, pizza, Chinese, or pasta for dinner. I should start actually cooking, I thought to myself. So I’ve been making periodic forays into the world of cooking. I was quite pleased with my New England clam chowder and I found a chicken chili that I absolutely love.
Tonight was something called Monterey Jack Turger Burgers, from one of my Weight Watchers cookbooks (hey, that’s where I got the clam chowder recipe, too; they’re good cookbooks). It was…odd. Not bad, but weird. It had ground turkey, soy sauce, ketchup, garlic powder, pepper, and scallions. Then, when you grill it, you add turkey bacon. It was pretty salty.
Of course, the problem with this whole cooking thing is that these recipes usually make at least 4 servings. And there’s only 1 of me. On the positive side, it means I don’t have to worry about making dinner again for a while. On the negative side, things get very boring pretty quickly.
In non-food related news, the O’s are closing up a series with the Blue Jays. I’m blown away because we’ve reached the 4th inning, and as far as I can tell, the commentators have yet to mention the fact that Gregg Zaun (Jays’ backup catcher) is Rick Dempsey’s (O’s bullpen coach) nephew. I’m just happy that Zaun is now the backup catcher; last season, he played more, so we got to hear about that a lot more. Particularly since Dempsey was the first base coach at the time.
And in completely random news, Colin just started attacking one of my socks. (Which is not on my foot, thankfully.)
Current song in my head:
“Polly Wolly Doodle” (thank you, Jack the Ripper Wikipedia entry)

Congrats to Miggy for winning the AL Player of the Week for this past week. And guess who else was considered? Indeed, my boy. Yay, Brian and Miggy! It reminds me of when Brian won Player of the Month for April last year and he was like, “I think Miggy should’ve gotten it” and Mazz was being interviewed and was all, “Who was second–Tejada?” I *heart* the O’s middle infield.

There’s nothing like helping a friend move to get you all motivated for your own move. No, wait. Make that, There’s nothing like helping a friend move to make you decide that really, you don’t need to move. Or, if you do need to move, just chuck all your stuff and start over. I’ve already gotten messages from my arms and shoulders that they really didn’t appreciate this exercise over the weekend and would prefer not to repeat it, thanks.
In all seriousness, helping Brent and Katie move was fine, and it did start me thinking about my impending move in more concrete terms. So that’s good. I keep trying to tell myself that I don’t have that much stuff, but then I pause to contemplate the amount of crap in my closets. Ugh. But I’m still excited about having a linen closet in the new place. Hurrah! And a week from today, I’ll have the keys.
I also managed to see the Capitol Steps on Friday. Very enjoyable evening, and one of the cast members does a dead on Kermit the Frog voice. So dead on, in fact, that he should be doing the Kermit voice in any future Muppet endeavors instead of Brian Henson. Plus, I am totally in favor of any show that includes political satire set to showtunes. And it was nice spending time with Krishni.
However, this weekend was the first series between the Yankees and the Orioles, which always leaves me conflicted, as I can’t root for or against either team. So I usually wind up rooting for individual players. I like more of the players on the Orioles (because, honestly, Giambi? Yuck), but I don’t like seeing the Yanks or the O’s lose. I think in my ideal season, they’d wind up splitting the season series against each other. So if the O’s take 2 of 3 of their next series, it’ll be OK! And, you know, it helps that the Red Sox dropped 2 of 3 to the Blue Jays.
Current song in my head:
“Two Tickets to Paradise” by Eddie Money

What was I thinking when I signed up for advanced tap? Was I high? Something was clearly going on to make me think that it was a good idea.

Dave and I were totally on the same wavelength this morning. Around 11:30 I called him. “I was about to call you,” he said. “Wanna go to the game today?”
Did I. It was the Perfect Day for Baseball. Sunny, 80 degrees, not humid. Perfect. And apparently a lot of people felt the same, because when we got to the park, the lines at the ticket windows were crazy long. Which was kind of awesome.
It was a good game–Colon vs. Bedard. And both had great outings, though the right team won (i.e., the Orioles). Ramon Hernandez continues to impress. David Newhan, I noticed, has let his hair get a bit long. I lectured My Boyfriend Brian Roberts on the concept of patience at the plate; he went 1-3 with a sac bunt.
But it was nice to be out, to be at the Yard, and to talk to Dave about baseball for 3 straight hours. As hard as it may be to believe, I could write a LOT more about baseball on here, because other than Dave and my dad, I don’t really have anyone to talk baseball with (I could with Brent, but we try to avoid it, due to the Red Sox-Yankees tensions there). So it was nice to sit outside, watch a great game, and enjoy the game. I was supposed to be doing some work, but it was so worth taking the time to do this.
Current song in my head:
“Kodachrome” by Paul Simon

I was obviously feeling masochistic last night, as I finally broke down and took Colin to get his claws trimmed (I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be able to do it myself). He knew something was up when I closed the doors to my bedroom, trapping him in the living room area. But he surprisingly didn’t put up much of a fight when I put him into the carrier (unlike the time he peed on me during the process).
So we get to PetsMart and the guy goes into the back to put away a dog he had just finished grooming. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “does the back really smell that bad? Because it smelled fine in here until he walked through that door.” It was then that I discovered that Colin had thoughtfully pooped in his carrier. This was new. I felt really bad for the grooming guy, but he was like, “It’s easier to deal with than urine.” Oh, the foreshadowing.
Colin’s nails are trimmed and I pick out some food for him, and we head home. “No pooping!” I tell him as we make our way back. Soon enough we arrive at home. I open the carrier and he bolts for under my bed. A few minutes later he emerges, and I notice that he is, in fact, wet in certain areas. It took only a moment for me to ascertain that he had, in fact, peed in the carrier. So I grabbed him and held him in the shower for a few minutes, which, trust me, not a good time.
And then I spent a pleasant evening scrubbing out the carrier and occasionally sniffing Colin to see if he smelled, which cause him to look at me strangely. I wish I could reason with him; you know, “Hey, Colin, if you’d just let me trim your claws here, we wouldn’t have to deal with this!” Seriously, I am dreading what he’s going to be like when I move.
Current song in my head:
“One Step Out of Time” by Michael Ball

Today was Opening Day for the Nationals–their first home game of the season. I guess I’m spoiled by the O’s having their Opening Day as the first game of the season for the past few seasons. It just seems weird to have Opening Day be this far into the season (you know–a week in). Part of the beauty of Opening Day is that it’s a clean slate; everything is optimism and sunshine and puppies. It has to be hard on a team to start the season away; it has to be hard on fans to have an Opening Day when your team is already 2-4.