Barb’s Burblings

How excited was I to see an article that explains the Nationals’ poor luck? So excited. Because it turns out that the Nats are cursed, and there’s nothing more fun than a baseball curse. And what could be more awesome than a curse related to the Lincoln assassination? Nothing. Nothing is more awesome than that.

Nationals Park sits directly on an infamous stretch of the Anacostia River where authorities conducted the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth on the ironclad U.S.S. Montauk anchored at the Navy Yard. Next door at Fort McNair, Booth’s co-conspirators were held and tried at the country’s first federal penitentiary, and four of them were hanged there in July 1865. Booth himself was buried there until his remains were later moved.

Nestled beside where Lincoln’s killers were executed, the placement of the stadium may have unwittingly exposed the Nationals to the conspirators’ vengeful ghosts. That the apparitions of Booth and his gang would aim their ghoulish enmity on modern baseball may seem strange, but it makes sense given President Lincoln’s affinity for what became our national pastime.

Nothing makes more sense than Lincoln’s assassins haunting a baseball team. I totally think that the Nats should capitalize on this somehow. Nationals Park needs something to give it character. This is the perfect opportunity! I’m thinking exorcism. I’m thinking a plaque, at least. I’m thinking anti-Booth chants. I thinking it will be fantastic.

I wasn’t really aware of the scandal surrounding USC and the Heisman and fines and stuff. I really don’t pay much attention to football if I can help it. I usually can’t remember who won the most recent Super Bowl (the Saints, right?), much less stuff about college football. But the more I heard about Bush returning the award, the more annoyed I got.

And it made me realize how much I appreciate baseball. Sure, baseball’s big with Little League and such, and I’m sure there are colleges where it’s big (probably Georgia Tech, given the number of Major Leaguers to come from there, and probably some schools in California), but really, you don’t hear about most baseball players until they’re in the majors. And I think that’s great. The whole culture of college football and basketball annoys me. I can’t help but feel like college football and basketball players who are playing at that elite level are focusing themselves a LOT more on athletics than academics. And though I’m all about extracurriculars in college (if you saw my schedule during college, you’d know), going to college is about academics.

I’ve read any number of articles about how impressive college athletes are, balancing athletics with their school lives. First of all, it strikes me as insane how much they travel. (How many classes do these people miss???) Second of all, there are TONS of people who balance extracurriculars with academics. I managed to graduate magna cum laude while also being the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper (for which we won an award, people!) (did you read that? “The Pulitzer Prizes of student journalism”. I am made of AWESOME), being active in a service fraternity (including serving on the exec board twice, plus once for my pledge class), studying abroad, participating in student theater, and working two jobs. And you know what? Most of my friends were similarly active. And yet, it’s student athletes who get the focus.

And baseball’s not like that. Sure, when players are drafted, a lot of them get a lot of money. And I’m sure that agents woo players and such. But the whole thing just feels less…corporate than other college sports. Which I think is a good thing.

Spam emails have new meaning for me. I was going through my work spam email when I noticed that a number offered Percocet for me without prescription. Ew, I thought. No way. Because now I have had firsthand experience with Percocet, thanks to my kidney stone.

Yes, I had a kidney stone. Yes, I am only 31 years old. My body has decided that I am, in effect, 50. (It actually decided that a while back, which led to me having a colonoscopy. Nothing like having one of those when you’re in your 20s!) Last Sunday night, I felt an odd pain in my lower left side. It went away after a while, and, being an optimist, I figured it would never come back. Yay!

Only that was not to be. About 45 minutes later, the pain came back. And it hurt worse. So I called the number on my insurance card and talked to a nurse, who told me to call my doctor, but since there weren’t any other symptoms, not to worry. Just take Advil. So I did. Which…didn’t help the pain so much. And then came the vomiting! When I called back with that update, I was told to head to the ER.

Now, I have to say, the time to hit the ER is apparently around midnight Sunday night of a holiday weekend. It was very quiet. I was seen immediately (making me two-for-two in ER visits this way; I only had to wait minimally the last time, when I had to get stitches on my thumb) and got to experience a CAT scan. Whee? Luckily, the pain had subsided again by that point, because that was slightly awkward. So I spent a fun 2.5 hours in the hospital, mostly reading (when I wasn’t curled into a little ball of pain). (Also, now I associate Roald Dahl with this, because I finished Going Solo and started The Irregulars, about his time in DC during World War II. So, that’s kind of weird.) The doctor was fab and everyone was lovely and I was home by 3 a.m.

And then I spent the next 3 days in a haze of pain, nausea, and sleep. A fab coworker came over and filled my prescriptions for me (and experienced the joy of me yarfing). Apparently, a side effect of Percocet is nausea. Now, I don’t know if it was the pain or the Percocet, but I could just not keep anything down there for a while. Which led to the incredibly TMI anti-nausea suppositories. I don’t want to think about it. But it’s at the point that I can only now start to think of juice without wanting to vomit.

But I slept a LOT and on Wednesday night passed the stone, which, according to my nurse coworkers I showed it to, is HUGE. The urologist I saw today was also somewhat impressed. (Want to see a blurry picture of it?) And now I have something like a 50% chance of getting another one. So, you know, something to look forward to.

Hopefully by that time, they’ll have something other than Percocet for the pain.

Around 1 on Wednesday afternoon, we got an email that there was a “disturbance” outside the building, and that we should stay inside. Naturally, I was intrigued, but it wasn’t until I heard coworkers talking about police cars swarming Georgia Avenue that I got up and headed to the windows on that side of the building.

So there, along with a bunch of coworkers, I watched as the police blocked off initially just the roads right around the Discovery Building…and then the next blocks. We watched as cops did the whole darting from place to place thing, guns held up. (I may have described this as “bad ass.” Because it totally was.) I took all this in and said that there must be someone in the Discovery Building with explosives, probably with hostages. (We were trying to figure out whether the building had been evacuated; we didn’t think so, but it turned out that they had evacuated to the other side of the building.)

And wow. I was right. It’s kind of hard t focus on work when you know that there could be an explosion across the street. But honestly, I never felt like I was in danger. Though it was a bit unnerving when I took the bridge from my building to the parking garage next door; despite the fact that the building I work in lay between us and the Discovery Building, the alley was blocked off, with cops and cop cars throughout. I paused to take this in (and maybe take a picture with my phone) when a voice came from below: “Ma’am! What are you doing? KEEP MOVING!” So I did.

Best part of the story? Because of the craziness, the parking garage wasn’t charging. Yay!