Says Me!

A Night at the Symphony

It has been a long time since I've been to the symphony.  And even longer since I've been to the symphony in Prague (ok, fine, so I have only been to the symphony in Prague one other time, but it sounded so worldly).  We're talking about the Symphony here.  Not Tanglewood.  I was at Tanglewood last summer but that was different.  The whole "lie under the stars listening to Mozart" thing just isn't the same.  Why?  Because: 1) there are snacks, 2) you are under the stars, 3) you can surf the web while listening to the orchestra (so long as you type quietly and dim your screen), and 4) there are snacks.  The symphony, on the other hand, is all about being at the symphony.  It is all about wearing a bow tie and listing attentively and counting the movements so you don't clap at the wrong time. 

Most of all, the symphony is about the music.  Which is all well and good when the music is good.  But when the symphony is all about the music and the music is, in fact, bad, well, then, the symphony is all about badness.  And then all that is left is the bow tie and counting movements.  If you have ever tried to keep track of the number of movements in a truly bad piece of music, you know that it is nearly impossible.  Frankly, no one can count that slowly.  It is simple to count regularly occurring events (so long as they do not occur too quickly).  But the longer the events and the less regular they are, the harder it is to keep track.  Which is why it is impossible to keep count of horrific music.  Truly bad music has interminable movements that are, to put it kindly, irregular.  Keeping track of the crappy movements requires one of those clickers you see the ticket takers using at the baseball game.  I'll have to remember to bring one next time I go to the symphony.  With each upswing of the baton and the start of a movement, "click!"  No matter how interminable or irregular the movements, I will always be able to glance down at my silver symphometer and know precisely where I am in the sonata.

It would be even better if you could use the clicker to count down.  At the start of each piece you could preset your symphometer to the total number of movements and have each "click" subtract a movement.  Rather than clicking at the upswing of the baton, you could simply click every time the conductor cut the orchestra off.

Crescendo.  Crescendo.  Big chord.  Wild gesticulation.  Silence.  Click.

And when the symphometer read "0" you would know to applaud madly -- not out of appreciation for the piece just concluded, but out of joy at its conclusion.  Had it been mercifully short?  No chance.  But was it thankfully over?  Yes.  Finally.

I fear I may be sounding a bit negative about the symphony.  That is not my intention.  Although I will admit that my recounting of the evenings festivities is somewhat colored by the absolutely vomitous piece of music through which I had to suffer.  It was the posthumous world premier of a song cycle in Czech that almost assuredly was the story of someone being tortured, or perhaps about Czech cuisine.  The composer -- who will go unnamed because there was no way I was wasting precious gray matter to remember his name -- had a great love of all things percussive but seemed to hate violinists.  Despite violins being the mainstay of pretty much every great symphonic work in, say, forever, these poor Czech violinists were largely stage dressing, periodically plucking out some feeble little pizzicato nothing because, as you may recall, the composer preferred striking things to actually playing them.

If the music were not sufficiently grating, the song cycle was narrated by an Actress.  Not an "actress."  An "Actress."  A thespian.  Her enunciation was so precise, one feared her lips were going to bleed.  Actually, come to think of it, how do I know if her diction was good.  She was speaking Czech -- a fittingly percussive and grating language for said narration.  If I cared enough, I might have gone home and looked up the word "buch" in Czech.  I suspect it meant "book" and the cycle seemed to revolve around this book in some way or other, thus requiring the narrator to say book a great deal.  I might have intuited more of the Czech narration had I not been working so desperately hard at keeping count of the movements.  I did quite well until the 6h or 7th movement, during which time I had an outer-body experience that involved beating the narrator on the head and neck with a "buch."  As the endorphins rose in my system at the thought of giving the narrator my "feedback" on her musical interlude, I lost count.  Worse yet, I knew it.  I knew I had lost count.  Which left me at the mercy of all the other movement counters.  I could only hope that they were less distracted by the percussive Czech enunciation than I (which was a good bet seeing as, by and large, they were, in fact, Czech themselves).  I was at their mercy and would have to clap when they clapped. 

I looked around in hopes of spotting someone with a symphometer -- he I could trust to get the count right.  No luck.  I would have to go with the wisdom of the crowds.  I would applaud only when a majority of the Czech citizenry applauded.  And so, as each movement came to an end, I would sit in pre-rhapsodic anticipation, awaiting the joyful applause of relief that comes only when something truly fetid at long last abates.  As I am here to tell the tale, that final movement did ultimately come.  But minutes have ne'er stretched to hours like the measures of those final movements. 

Bravo.  Bravo.  Thou art complete.  Oh merciful intermission.  How I have longed for your cold long drink in the glow of rebirth.

My reward for surviving this colossal piece of symphonic refuse?  One of the greatest pieces of music ever written -- Beethoven's Eroica.  As intermission drew to a close and people made their way back to their seats, it became clear that the first piece of music had driven away a full half of the Prague audience.  Hadn't they looked at the program.  Beethoven's 3rd should be enough to get anyone back, no matter how battered and beaten they may be from the first half of the program. 

Even if the Prague audience had not read the program, they should have known to return.  The First Law of Symphonic Programming requires an inverse relationship between the putrescence of the first half of the program and the beauty of the second.  The more putrid the first, the more beautiful the second.  If the first half of the concert is Schoenberg, after the intermission you can count on Mozart.  If the first piece of the concert is Webern, look for a Bach concerto to follow.  And never the other way around.  The tripe must always come before the trifle.  Otherwise, honestly, who would stick around for the second half?  Masochists and neophytes.  Everyone else would know to promptly run away before the memories of a truly fabulous piece of music had been erased with cacophony and dissonance. 

And the Eroica is indeed a fabulous piece of music.  Beethoven did not slight any one section of the orchestra -- he wrote beautifully for each and every instrument.  The string players didn't just look relieved, they looked grateful.  And the percussionists were more than willing to share the spotlight in the name of music worth playing (and, frankly, percussionists are not exactly the "after you" types).  Rather than fighting a head bob as I dozed off in the first half, the second half of the concert was punctuated by a bouncing head and tapping foot.  I "learned" from my own father, with whom I enjoy classical music over the years, that it is perfectly fine to be moved by the music.  Truly great classical music induces involuntary muscle reaction -- conducting hands, rhythmic gesticulation, eyebrow raising.  A fabulous symphony can no more be enjoyed motionless than can a dixieland jazz concert.

That said, It is probably fair to note that not everyone would agree with the Hornik patriarch rules of classical music consumption.  There are those among us who might view it as distracting to sit next to a gesticulating concert-goer.  And among those who might find it distracting might be the Hornik family matriarchs.  Just as Grisha Hornik annoyed Rhea Hornik with his gesticulation, and Gerry Hornik annoyed (or rather, continues to annoy) Betsy Hornik with his gesticulation, I, David Hornik, annoyed Pamela Hornik with my own.  It is my birthright.  I come to my armchair conducting honestly. 

For the duration of the concert, I assisted in conducting the Prague Symphony -- I swayed and coaxed and urged the symphony through its paces, all the while keeping count.  As Beethoven's Third came to a close.  One does not lose count for Beethoven!  It would be far too disrespectful.  Symphometer or no symphometer, as I flailed about enjoying one of the greatest symphonies ever written, a quiet little voice ran in the back of my head (1, 1, 1, 1, 1 . . . 2, 2, 2, 2 . . . 3, 3, 3 . . . 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 . . . applaud!).  Admittedly, it is not quite as challenging or as complex as counting cards.  But the stakes are nearly as high.  There is nothing more embarrassing than vigorously applauding in what should be the silence between the third and fourth movements of the Eroica.  What do you take me for?  Some sort of Neanderthal? 

And so with the conclusion of Beethoven's Third, we headed home, mission accomplished.  Having committed a good three hours to the symphony, I could feel awfully darn good about myself.  Not only had I gotten to publicly and conspicuously enjoy a piece of classical music that is widely acknowledged by others as classical music you should publicly and conspicuously enjoy, I was also able to smugly deride a foreign composer's crowning musical achievement because, as we all know, I once played the violin.  I look forward to my next trip to Europe when, with any luck, I will be able to barely tolerate a great opera or internationally acclaimed dance troupe.  It is so worth the twelve hour flight.

No Airport for Hartford

Fifteen hours into my journey home and I'm wishing my toothpaste hadn't been confiscated.  What does security have against dental hygiene?  And what does the airline industry have against me?

This morning at 5:30am I dragged myself out of bed in the Berkshires in the western-most part of Massachusetts.  It was a beautiful, crisp day.  Ok, I have no idea if it was a beautiful day.  It was still dark.  But it was crisp as hell.  I'm pretty sure that's what they mean by crisp.  In New England, "crisp" is synonymous with "wicked cold," in much the same way Dunkin Donuts is synonymous with breakfast and Fenway Park is synonymous with the Taj Mahal. 

5:30 am and I hit the road.  Heading for the Hartford airport, it strikes me that Hartford Connecticut really doesn't deserves an airport.  Don't you think that a "city" should meet certain minimal criteria before it merits an airport?  For one, I think that if you don't have an NPR affiliate in your so-called "city," you don't deserve an airport.  And perhaps a sport team of some repute.  No, Triple A ball doesn't count.  You should, at least, have a Ruth's Chris steak house.  No self respecting city would be Ruth's Chris free (they cook their steaks in butter -- not margarine, butter).  No Ruth's Chris, No sports team, No NPR . . . NO AIRPORT.

But Hartford does have an airport.  Well, it isn't really an airport.  It is more like an overblown food court with too many exit doors.  I wonder if the locals come to the airport for lunch?  It wouldn't be too hard to get through security to the "Wicked Good Subs" (that is really what it's called).  Best I can tell, the Hartford security officers are recruited from the local football teams.  Land an all-city rushing record and you too can sit behind the x-ray machine and look for liquid contraband.  Wide receivers are the showboats -- they get to make the announcements -- "please take all laptops out of bags and place them on their own in gray tubs."  Former wide receivers are easy to spot in Hartford.  They're the one's with "please take all laptops out of bags and placed them on their own in gray tubs" written on their palms in black pen.  And linemen stand on the secure side of the detecto-gates waving travelers through with an affable smile (well worth taking all those steroids in Jr. High -- look how that payed off for you).  As for kickers, they get nothing.  Give me a break.  You'd be lucky to sell replacement toothpaste in the airport mini-mart after being kicker for the football team.  Please.

Upon arriving at the airport at the crack of dawn, I set about the task of clawing my way out of steerage and into the front of the plane.  My morning desperation took the form of first wrestling with the check-in kiosk and then wrestling with the check-in moron.  According to the kiosk, there were e-upgrades available.  Hurray, I could buy my way out of the back of the plane (it's a little bit like pre-school at the JCC -- you can buy your way out of helping out in the classroom).  I really don't understand what is "e" about an e-upgrade?  And why is it an upgrade at all when it costs you four hundred bucks?  That's called purchasing a first class ticket in my book.  But who am I to quibble over semantics.  At least I was going to get up to first class.  I gave the kiosk my credit card, which it happily consumed and charged me four hundred bucks to qualify for the "upgrade."  But when I attempted to get my new seat, I was stymied by the kiosk.  It would automate the process of buying the e-upgrades but apparently it would not automate the process of using those newly purchased upgrades to get me out of the cattle car. 

No worries.  The pleasant enough human in the airline uniform waved me over to rectify the situation.  I'm guessing he was once the Vice Principal of one of Hartford's lesser-performing middle schools.  The school was no doubt closed down when the inner city population fled for places less dominated by the insurance industry.  But Mr. Vice Principal didn't have the resources to relocate to Knoxville or Chatanooga, and so he did the best he could and signed on with one of Hartford's lesser-performing airlines -- It is where he feels comfortable.  He pulled up my records and set about the task of applying the e-upgrades.  But no matter how he tried, he could not figure out how to get me into first class.  After a quick call to his supervisor (the former underperforming Principal, no doubt), VP informed me that someone had "snagged" the last upgrade while he was struggling to understand the upgrade process.  It was pretty clear that no amount of protesting, foot stomping, or gratuitous swearing was going to get me into the first class cabin, so I calmly thanked him for trying and headed out to the gate (approximately 4 paces from the security checkpoint).   

Thankfully, the flight to Chicago was a quick one.  And there was plenty of room to spread out.  After all, how many people actually fly out of Hartford?  Best I could tell, the only folks flying out this morning were a handful of insurance executives, the University of Connecticut soccer team, and me.  That left me with a whole row to myself on the plane.  Not exactly first class -- I had to buy myself a snack pack -- but at least I wasn't sandwiched into a middle seat.   

In Chicago I decided to get proactive.  Skipping the counter altogether, I called the airline to check on a potential upgrade from Chicago to San Francisco.  Sure, my man in Hartford had failed me.  But I was sure I'd meet with much better success calling the folks in India.  After all, they are all about authority and results.  I got a perfectly lovely woman on the phone (Mary or Susan or some other made up American name) and explained my hope to put my unused e-upgrades to work.  "No problem Mr. Hornik.  Let me see what I can do for you."  And off she went into the hold-musak abyse while I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  When she returned, her pronouncement didn't surprise me.  Well, not entirely.  She informed me that she "wasn't able to upgrade me again on this leg of the trip." 

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Hornik.  We were only able to upgrade you from Hartford to Chicago, but our first class seats are sold out from Chicago to San Francisco."

All in all I think I was pretty darn calm given the circumstance.  The empty seat in first class that I kept eyeing longingly on my way to Chicago turned out to be my seat.  The Vice Principal was, in fact, sufficiently competent to get me a seat in first class, he just wasn't competent enough to know it.  The guy who had "snagged" the last seat in first class was none other than me. 

While breathing deeply, I asked "Mary" to kindly refund my e-upgrades because I had not, in fact, had the good fortune of enjoying them.  She did so.  I headed to the gate.  No first class seat.  Not the end of the world.  It was a relatively quick trip back from Chicago.  How much of a difference could it really make?

As we pulled away from the gate, I looked out my little porthole and wondered about those storm clouds.  I surmised that no amount of rain could deter a plane from flying out of Chicago.  After all, how could a little bit of rain impact an airport that was so used to dealing with snow.  We taxied.  And taxied.  And taxied.  All the while the storm clouds grew darker.  And darker.  And darker.  If our taxiing was not intended to give the clouds a chance to move in on us, it was nonetheless successful.  The rain began.  And we sat.  Soon enough we were treated to a pronouncement from the cockpit -- "ladies and gentlemen, as you can see we are a little bit delayed here waiting for the rain to pass.  Unfortunately, if we don't get out in the next fifteen minutes, we are going to have to taxi back to the gate to add some fuel for the journey." 

Now I am no aviation expert, but does it trouble you at all that a few extra minutes of taxiing are sufficient to deplete the fuel supply for a flight from Chicago to San Francisco?  I was always foolishly living under the dillusion that the planes on which I flew had enough extra fuel to circle their destination for a reasonable period of time, or to get to nearby airport should there be any trouble at the destination.  As I contemplated the idea that planes were fueled like formula-1 race cars -- just enough gas to make it over the finish line -- the skies exploded.  First hail then the Niagara falls.  Our plane stopped on the runway and waited it out.  Despite the cacophony of rain against the fuselage, a calm set in across the airport.  Looking out my window I saw disabled plane after disabled plane sitting still on the runway, outlined by blinking lights softened by the splashing downpour.  No one spoke for the entirety of the downpour.  They simply looked out their respective peep holes and waited.  At long last the rain subsided and we recommenced taxiing -- not to the runway for takeoff, but back to the gate for refueling. 

By this time I had been on the plane for four hours and had made it all the way from Gate 4 to Gate 6.  The flight attendants assured us that the fueling stop would take only a few minutes but in an effort to avoid a mutiny, she reopened the hatch and people streamed out of the plane in search of a full-sized bathroom and a king-sized Snickers bar.  I stayed put for fear of slowing our departure further and stared angrily at each member of the escaping horde in an effort to convey the fact that if they delayed the flight any further I would find them and beat them with an airline pillow (which we all know is about as soft as a tote bag full of sheet-music).  The ten minute refuel took thirty but miraculously everyone returned promptly and we were on our way.  Again.

As we pulled out onto the tarmac, foreboding clouds circled.  A drop or two of rain fell.  But our pilot was determined to get out before the next torrential downpour and out we got.  I suppose the rest of the trip was uneventful because I have no recollection of the movie, the chit chat, the airline magazine.  Just shy of midnight west coast time we landed.  I had been in transit for some twenty hours.  While I doubt I can avoid the Chicago airport for the rest of time, you won't see me in Hartford again any time soon. 

Next Time We're Skipping the Redeye

You know that fake sound people in movies make when they are really shocked by something.  It's a sound you can only make inhaling; no amount of trying will recreate the sound pushing air out.  As if you have been punched in the stomach, gasping for air to refill your lungs.  The sound is guttural.  Primeval. 

I always thought that sound was absurd.  Like so much in the movies, it struck me as something that did not exist in the wild.  It was a chicken hit (that's the sound in movies allegedly made when a fist hits human flesh -- in reality it is the sound made when a fist hits a Purdue chicken) or a whirring light saber or a screeching dinosaur.  It was fiction.

How wrong I was.

The shocked gasp does exist in the real world.  But it is reserved for only the very most shocking moments in one's life.  It is reserved for that second in time when you are walking along, not a care in the world, and suddenly your peaceful bliss is shattered.  Like a punch in the gut, you recoil, sucking in as much air as possible in hopes of regaining equilibrium.

Just yesterday I made that sound.  Not for show.  Not for laughs.  For real.

Two nights ago, Pamela, the kids and I flew to Boston on the redeye from the Bay Area.  The problem with the redeye is twofold.  First, the seats are not designed for sleeping.  They are designed for sitting.  They are seats.  Not beds.  Second, even if they were beds, they are beds that are only in the air for 5 hours.  If you deduct the taking off time and the landing time ("Ladies and Gentlemen, we're preparing for our final approach to Boston, so please put your seats and tray tables in the full upright and locked positions" is the redeye equivalent of "Wake up!"), you are left with maybe 4 and 1/2 hours of sleep.  Maybe. 

But we survived.  Landed in Boston.  Made it to my parents' house, and attempted to groggily march our way through the day without prematurely falling asleep.  Some of us did better at this than others.  By the time we headed out for dinner, I had one zombie-like crew.  But I thought I was immune.  I've pulled so many all-nighters over the last decade, four hours of restive slumber smacks of beauty rest to me.

We made our way to our standard family pizza joint.  The traffic was pretty monumental and, to my great dismay, all of my best short cuts were cut short by construction, fences, more traffic.  Seriously frustrating.  Add on top of that Boston drivers and by the time I got to the pizzeria, I was pretty burnt.  I dropped Pamela and the kids at the door but kept a sleeping four year old in the rental minivan with me.

As I headed for the restaurant's parking lot, I was treated to a demonstration of some of the most aggressive and most inconsiderate driving I've ever witnessed.  Had I merely been cut off a time or two, I'm sure I would have been unfazed.  But these particular drivers broke the laws in mind-bogglingly creative ways.  Who knew it was even possible to make a left hand turn from the right lane with oncoming traffic not just heading for the intersection but already in it?  I was equally impressed with the percussive use of the horn -- it takes years of training to accent traffic noise so subtley with long and short horn burst.  I probably should have paid closer attention.  He may well have been trying to send me a message in morse code (although, I fear the message would likely have been something to the effect of "move your ass, slowpoke").

The rain poured down on me as I searched around for a spot.  This parking lot was ruled by the same sort of anarchy that reigns on the Boston roads.  The lot was a tricky combination of potholes and cars parked in spots that aren't spots.  And each time I entertained the possibility of squeezing myself into an unspot, someone would swoop in and take it.  After a lifetime of circling, I found a spot surrounded by a moat and parked.  Jumping from the rental van to the other side of the ravine, I exhaled a breath of relief that I had lived to tell the tale of the parking lot. 

I ran across the road dodging cars adorned with Red Sox memorabilia and giant raindrops.  Triumphantly, I swung open the door of the restaurant and entered.  The crew had not waited for me to be seated, so I began scouring the restaurant for my family.  Having failed to spot them in my first go around, I took two more steps into the room and scanned the booths once again.  Halfway across the room I saw the first Hornik -- my wife sat at the head of the table.  I smiled and continued to look across the table.  My son.  My daughter.  A moment of realization.  And then the sound.

Half gasp.  Half choke.  The sound was loud enough to catch my wife's attention a hundred feet across the restaurant.  She gave me a curious look as if to say "what in the world are you up to" and then . . . .

I have no idea what my wife did next because I was too busy running as fast as I possibly could to retrieve my sleeping child from the parked minivan.  I pulled a couple of those OJ-Simpson-running-through-the-airport moves to bound through traffic and back across the roadway.  I careened over the moat, simultaneously unlocking the minivan door with my key fob.  I frantically thrust open the door and prepared myself to fend off the kidnapper who had undoubtedly discovered my son in the many many tens of seconds I had been gone.  And there he was . . . my four year old sleeping soundly.  Next time we're skipping the redeye. 

Squid All Around

Sarcasm cost me twelve bucks tonight.  That's right.  Twelve bucks.  But it was worth it.  I value few things quite as much as a well honed sense of irony and this evening was an incredible object lesson for my kids in the cost of missing the sarcasm gene. 

High up in the sierras is a special place.  A place where the air is clean.  The streets are well swept.  The music is soothing, if unmemorable.  The people are as white as the driven snow (apparently the sentry at the entrance way failed to deduce that we were Jews and let us through).  And the waiters take things literally, because, how else could one take things?  We call this land Squaw Village but, as my eldest pointed out, one might just as easily call it Duloc. 

Squaw Village is not your average resort town.  For one, it isn't a town.  At best, it is a super mall with a gondola.  In the winter, the Village is bustling with skiers hoping to relive the glories of the 1960 Olympics.  How glorious were those Olympics?  I have no idea.  I wasn't even alive back then.  Apparently they were sufficiently glorious to keep the Olympic torch burning some 46 years after the Olympics  had moved on to other far more exotic places.  Yet, like the Hanukkah candles, the Squaw Village Olympic torches burn on at the entrance way to the super mall, as if to say "we will celebrate our past glory until such time as we have some current glory -- perhaps at that time we will consider dowsing the flame that stands vigil over our present day mediocrity." 

Despite its history of athleticism and pageantry, and despite serving as a refuge to gravity loving stick wearers to this day, Squaw Village in the summer is Disneyland without the rides.  It is a destination without any destiny.  What is left.  A bad sports shop.  A make your own candle store.  Starbucks, of course.  The Tiki Room.  Oops, I'm sorry, wrong super mall.  And an impressive array of ethnic cuisine to satisfy the hungriest of shoppers.  They've got the Auld Dubliner pub, Mountain Nectar smoothie shop, Fireside Pizza Company next to ... yes ... the fire pit, and Mamasake sushi.

Now I suppose I should have known better than to go eat at a sushi restaurant in the mountains.  Perhaps the only thing stupider would be to dine at a Red Lobster in Ohio, of which I am also guilty, believe it or not (and it wasn't pretty).  But the kids are fans of Japanese food, so I was willing to overlook the "Raw at Squaw" surfboard in the window, suspend disbelief, and take my chances.  We chose to sit on the patio where the view of the pristine mountains was only slightly obstructed by the bungee jumping rig.  Our waiter came out to take our order and here's where I went wrong.  I failed to notice the pen written reminder on his hand to "call your mother."  No lie.  It may have given me a sense of who I was dealing with.  Then again, I probably would have taken it for irony.  Turns out that "RON"  are the only things that irony and moron have in common. 

When RON came to take our order, I made the mistake of thinking he was a human being.  I joked with my kids, in that stupid dad way you joke with kids, "you guys all want squid, right?"  The kids groaned.  To which I responded, "excellent, four squids."  Not to be left out of this hard hitting hyjinx, Pamela added "count me in."  I turned to RON and said "squid all around."  The kids laughed.  Pamela laughed.  I laughed.  RON said "OK, six squid" in that dead pan way one would say "six squid" if he was either a great waiter playing along or actually taking an order.  When he brought out the edamame, he said "your six squid are coming right up," earning him my greater admiration and a better tip for continuing to play along with the joke.  This guy was good.  He cracked me up.

A short time later, another waiter arrived at our table with a plate of sushi and said "your Ika."  I looked at him quizzically and waved him off.  The only sushi we had ordered was the incredibly unadverturesome California Roll.  He headed back inside.  Pamela, faster on the uptake then I, looked at me and said "I think that's our squid."  That was preposterous.  I snickered at the prospect and dismissed it.  But sure enough, the other waiter returned with the plate of sushi to remind me that I had ordered squid.  I laughed and explained to him that when I had supposedly "ordered" squid, I had done so jokingly and never actually wanted squid for the kids.  He seemed very confused but, since I would not allow him to leave the squid behind, he turned around and headed back into the restaurant with his tray of rejected fish.  The whole table erupted in giggles.  The only thing funnier than the prospect of the kids eating squid was it actually being delivered to the table. 

Alas, our giggling was interrupted by the return of RON.  He was angry.  He explained to us that "when you order squid, I bring you squid."  To him it seemed a very logical policy and he was frankly at a complete loss as to why we could possibly think any differently.  I attempted to smooth things over by reassuring him that it was no problem at all and that I was sorry for any confusion.  RON tromped back into the restaurant and we all giggled once more.  However, RON quickly returned, this time plate of squid in hand.  He instructed me that "you might as well eat this since I'm putting it on your bill."  I assured him that there was no one at the table who was going to be eating squid and that he should take it back to the kitchen.  Begrudgingly he, like the poor fool before him who had attempted to pawn his squid off on us, left squid in hand to the kitchen.

I wish I had some triumphant conclusion to this tale -- one in which RON's manager and I have a good laugh about the naivete of RON and he gives us a free desert for the inconvenience.  Alas, instead, after the pleadings of Pamela and the kids to not make a scene (apparently they are under the impression that I have the capacity to make a scene), I simply paid the bill and headed to Ben and Jerry's.  Unlike RON, the scooping girls at Ben and Jerry's lived up to my Disneyland expectations.  They were no rocket scientists.  But rest assured, had I ordered squid ice cream, they would not have handed me a cone of Phish Food and insisted that I pay.

Prozac is my co-pilot

It wasn't until I was comfortably settled in the back of the cab cruising down the highway that I noticed my taxi driver's insulated travel mug.  "PROZAC: fluoxetine hydrochloride."  Prozac.  Now there are lots of folks out there on Prozac.  Lose your job -- Prozac.  Get a bad test score -- Prozac.  Stub your toe -- Prozac.  But then there's the crew Prozac was made for.  The folks who took all the pills in the medicine cabinet at once, or stay in bed for 2 months, or, I don't know, drive themselves into a tree because life's not worth living.  So which was my guy?  Was he a Russian immigrant with a Ph.D. who could only get a job driving a cab and was using the Prozac to take the edge off (and who could blame him)?  Or was he the kid in school who occasionally brought weapons to the playground because who didn't feel safer on a suburban Jr. High School bleacher with a switch blade or low caliber pistol?

I suppose someone could have given him the mug.  He might have picked up some pharmaceutical sales rep at the airport on the way to his first appointment of the day.  And that sales rep could have reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a Prozac coffee mug and a Cialis pen and thought it was a fair substitute for a reasonable tip.  In which case the only truly fair substitute would have been the Prozac itself to help curb the cab driver's deep, unflinching hostility towards all men in polyester.  Luckily, no matter how bitter he may still have been about the pharmaceutical rep's misguided return to the barter system, it would likely have been hard to confuse me for a low rent drug peddler, so I was probably safe.

Did my cab driver perhaps find the Prozac mug discarded in the back of his cab?  Surely a piece of the taxi driver "compensation package" is the abandoned crap that is left behind by harried customers on their way to bustling places with bustling people in bustling offices.  No doubt the forgotten laptops are recovered more times than not.  But what about the middling stuff?  The Lord of the Rings trilogy DVD's purchased at airports and still in their slick plastic bags that once were tucked neatly and securely into their outside backpack pockets.  The iPod Shuffles discarded on the seats beside angry teenage boys whose mothers have yelled that their music is going to damage their hearing.  The peanut M&Ms from alluring kiosks with posters of JLo, tattoo magazines and imprisoned men making a living a buck forty-nine at a pop.  And the bags of schwag from conferences, so dutifully collected over two days of walking the hundred thousand square foot trade show floors, including the insulated Prozac coffee mugs won with the spin of a Wheel of Fortune (does anyone actually win the weekend for two at the Rio in Vegas?). 

Maybe he got the mug from his therapist who had a rainbow of anti-depresant cookware lying around?  He'd tell her how his extraordinarily hairy back had always made him feel slightly lower on the evolutionary ladder.  Or how he found himself unnaturally drawn to bald heads -- constantly fighting the urge to rub the smooth orbs as they bob in front of him on line at the grocery store.  He'd recount how his children never found him funny; how they were so embarrassed by him that they would plead with his ex-wife to drop them off at school dances lest they have to endure his loud and mostly inappropriate double entendres as they sprinted for the gym door.  When his half hour was up he would slink to the door feeling just a little bit more demoralized than when he had arrived.  Periodically, as he passed through the waiting room, he would grab a pen or post-it pad or mug from the "Up For Grabs" shelf in an effort to make himself feel slightly less taken by the experience. 

No matter how many perfectly logical explanations I could concoct for my cab driver's anti-psychotic travel mug, I took little comfort in any of them.  With each lurching lane change, I envisioned our cab careening into the median, barrel rolling down the 101 and coming to a rest, belly side up, amidst dozens of dented luxury cars.  The twenty minute trip home seemed interminable.  As the cab rolled to a stop in front of my house and I carefully collected all of my belongings from the back seat, I took one last glance at the Prozac mug and thanked modern medicine -- or is that modern chemistry -- for getting me home safe and sound.   

Four Peas In A Pod

Nature.  Nature.  Nature.  That is what I say to you people who are still asking yourselves "is it nature or is it nurture?"  It's nature.  Trust me.  How else could 4 children made up of the same essential genetic material be so different?  It is not because we are somehow differentially parenting each of our children.  Trust me, we are far too tired and/or lazy to nurture them differently.  This is a "one parenting style fits all" household.  If our parenting style doesn't work for you, spare me the whining and tell it to your therapist. 

The incredible diversity of personalities we have in the Hornik house continues to surprise and amuse me.  For example, as a general matter, it is unquestionably more fun to have a variety of opinions around the dinner table.  It spices things up.  Our dinner time conversations rarely take the form of four heads nodding in violent agreement with the wisdom I impart after a long day at work collecting said wisdom.  The far more likely reaction to any statement I may make a dinner is "daddy, that's stupid" or "daddy, don't be ridiculous."  It frankly doesn't matter one iota on what I'm opining, the nay-sayers are quick to jump to the attack.  Luckily, for every nay-sayer there is at least one supporter around the table.  Not because he or she agrees with me.  Oh no.  It is far more about disagreeing with their sibling than about agreeing with me.  But with four kids sitting around the table, for every one of my defenders there is at least another combatant who thinks I'm an idiot.  Thus leaving the final kid vote to decide who they dislike more at the moment -- me and my one supporter or their two siblings who have chosen to stand against me.  Odds are I'm outvoted three to two.  (Or, rather, four to two.  Pamela will always side with the child majority regardless of the topic.  It is one of the many techniques she uses to handily maintains her status as favorite parent.)

Our dinner conversations often reveal additional clear differences among the children.  For example, just this week I had an interesting conversation with the troops about what car I should buy each of them when he or she turns 16.  The conversation was prompted by my 8 year old informing me that he would appreciate it if I would buy him a Porsche when he was old enough to drive.  I thought it was a bold request.  And I suppose there is no time like the present to being one's personal campaign for a Porsche.  If he can consistently maintain his insistence upon a Porsche until the time he actually turns 16, he will have been bugging me to buy him a Porsche for literally half of his life.  That said, of my four children, my eight year old is the least likely recipient of a Porsche.  He will get the heaviest, slowest, tank of a car that I can find.  If I can get away with buying him a Flinstones car he has to propel with his feet, I'll do that.  No, there is no Porsche in my eight year old's future.  I guess he'll have half a lifetime to prepare for the disappointment. 

In reaction to my 8 year old's Porsche request, my 4 year old decided he too would start lobbying for his first car.  His pronouncement was, "daddy, I'm going to get a limo so I can drive around all my friends."  I don't imagine that his request is any more likely to occur than the 8 year old's.  But I certainly did like the communal nature of his request.  Who wouldn't have liked a friend in high school who had a limo.  Imagine the weekend trips to the movies, rock concerts, the grocery store.  Everything is more festive in a limo.  My 4 year old would be the life of the party by virtue of his vehicle alone.  I certainly appreciate his forward thinking.

My 6 year old would have nothing to do with the limo.  She scoffed at the 4 year old's inflated sense of social life.  She informed me that she didn't need a big car to accommodate a lot of people.  She was going to get a "bug car, so that I can take Julia to go shopping."  (Julia would be my daughter's best friend.)  Can you believe that?  My daughter is Barbi.  Or is she my wife?  Either way, I am deeply concerned.  Believe me, it will be cheeper to buy my 8 year old a Porsche than to buy my 6 year old a bug car to go shopping.

Oddly enough, my only sensible child when it came to car preference was my 10 year old.  He would have nothing to do with the conversion.  Perhaps he thought it was premature.  Or just presumptuous.  Either way, he didn't offer up his chosen vehicle.  He was having nothing of the "I'm going to drive a XXX when I grow up" conversation.  And when I asked him what he wanted to drive when he got his license, he told said very matter-of-factly that he would drive a Honda.  Good for him.  Clearly he is already preparing for a life of poverty as an actor.  If he gets a Honda, he'll be able to hang onto it for 20 years while he's waiting tables.  Very sensible.  I like his thinking.

My 10 year old's determined march towards broadway is always top of mind for him.  It was given yet another nod this Halloween when he chose to dress as the Phantom of the Opera.  While Danny Zuko was nice last year, that costume didn't really capture his inner most theater geek.  The Phantom, on the other hand, really sang to him.  One aspect of my 10 year old's experience last Halloween was reprieved however.  He very much liked the idea of Halloween as performance art.  Accordingly, he recruited his good friend to dress as Christine and once again pulled along a wagon with appropriate theme music.  This year, however, I was instructed to acquire dry ice, so as to give the appropriate foggy haze emanating from whence the organ music came.  Very dramatic.  Very theater geek.

Halloween was yet another opportunity for my children to demonstrate their marked differences.  In the face of the Phantom of the Opera, my 8 year old was torn.  Would he be a baseball player again this year?  Or perhaps a professional skateboarder (thus dressing exactly the same way he dresses every day, only this time carrying a skate board)?  No, my 8 year old chose the coolest costume he could imagine -- he dressed up as the lead singer from Green Day.  He wore all black, had me apply excessive amounts of eye liner, affixed fake lip piercings and sported those dog-collar-like spikey bracelets.  There would, however, be no toting around Green Day music for my second son.  Halloween isn't performance art for him.  It is an opportunity to act even cooler than he attempts to act each day and, in reward, get large amounts of candy for it.  I tried to emphasize that while he did indeed look very cool, that lip piercings and tattoos were both quite painful and unhygienic and therefore not to be adopted in his everyday life.  I'm sure my speechafying had a profound impact on his future self-destructive behavior.

The Phantom and Green Day Guy were accompanied by Alice in Wonderland.  While I suppose that there are some troubling drug and pedophilia connotations to Alice in Wonderland, I was happy to take my 6 year old's costume at its purest and most innocent.  She did Tenniel's original Alice drawings proud.  Although, now that I think about it, she may have been more a nod to Disney than Tenniel.  Either way, she was adorable and innocent and not nearly as disturbing as her punk rocker brother, thank goodness.  I have no doubt this is the last Halloween of innocence for my daughter.  As it was, this Halloween she was choosing between Alice in Wonderland and Hillary Duff.  Next Halloween, no doubt, she'll be choosing between Hillary Duff and Wendy O'Williams.  God help me.

My fourth trick or treater was himself conflicted.  He could not make up his mind between dressing as a knight of the round table and a pirate.  On the good side, both got to carry swords.  On the bad side, decisions are not my 4 year old's strong suit.  As a result, he determined to be a Pirate Knight.  He wore a medieval crested outfit with a pirate's hat and carried a jolly roger.  Using what was left of the Green Day eyeliner, I gave him a handlebar mustache.  interestingly, apparently one's costume is determined entirely by head gear and facial hair.  Not a single person commented on his conflicting costume pieces.  Rather, they said things like "what a cute pirate" or "look at the little pirate."  Come on people.  He's not a pirate.  He's a pirate knight.  Have you no sense of irony?  Or is it confusion?  Whatever it was, I can tell you this, it was pretty darn cute.  Frankly, my 4 year old could have dressed as a lizard dog or an astronaut ventriloquist or rabbi plumber and he would have been pretty darn cute.  That's just who he is.

So it is all about nature.  Mark my words.  No amount of differential nurturing in the world could possible create a Porsche driving rock star, limo driving pirate knight, bug car driving story book heroine, and Honda driving diva.  That could only be nature.  The very same nature that created the Chinese hairless crested and the platypus.

Vacation Laceration

The perils of Hornik family vacations can not be overstated. Danger lurks in every corner for a family of klutzes, neurotics, weaklings and all around wimps. And, despite some rumors to the contrary, the Horniks are just that. As a results, leisure time provides just enough window of opportunity for general misfortune to befall us with disturbing frequency. For the skeptics among you, let me chronicle the misfortunes that have befallen us to date in Cape Cod (although I highly doubt that there is anyone reading right now saying to themselves, “that can't possibly be — the Hornik family seem so robust and athletic to me,” so I suppose this is more an act of self-flagellation than investigative journalism).

Let’s ease into the pain that is vacation on the Cape with your run-of-the-mill beach ailments. Apparently the Hornik clan is blessed with an anatomical malady that I like to call “proximus thigh maximus” — we have fat thighs and they rub together causing chafing and burning when lubricated with salt water. Now when I say “we,” I am clearly not referring to my wife, because only a complete idiot would include his wife in a sentence about fat, rubbing thighs. First and foremost, I am not a complete idiot and, secondly, my wife’s thighs are extraordinarily small and could not possibly chafe even if she tried to rub them together like a cricket. The rest of us, however, have some big-ass rubbing thighs, causing us to walk back from the beach as if we have spent the day riding bareback across the open range on our trusty steeds.

The Hornik family also seems to have significant foot problems on our summer vacations. No part of our feet is immune. We inevitably forget to sunscreen our feet, resulting in lobster-red foot tops. This is not the worst place to get sunburned, but it does make it tricky to wear shoes, thus increasing the vulnerability of the bottoms of our feet. Without shoes, the beach is like a minefield. Scattered throughout the beach are razor-sharp shell shards that are clearly drawn to Hornik feet like metal shavings to a magnet. To look at the bottoms of our feet one might assume that we had recently engaged in some ludicrous glass walking ritual. Slashed and hacked, Hornik beach feet are not a pretty sight. And without shoes, the walk across late afternoon beach sand is like crossing a lava field. The pain of the burning sand rivals the sting of each new shell cut. The faster you move, the quicker the fire walk, but the greater the likelihood of additional lacerations — a Faustian bargain at best.

At home our feet take refuge. We soak them in the tub. We put them up on the coffee table. We anoint them with soothing antibiotic ointment. But even our home is no asylum, as my son discovered shortly into our vacation. Having arrived home after a strenuous day of reading at the beach, he rushed over the threshold, headed for the mildewy couches. But before he could get there he felt a jab at the bottom of his foot. He looked down and discovered that he had stepped on a bee. Not a live bee, mind you — a dead one. In a final act of defiance as he passed away in the sauna-like sun room, the bee lay himself out before the door, stinger aloft. It was a long shot, but if all went well he could inflict some post-mortem pain upon the family that had trapped him in this inhospitable clime. Had my son been wearing shoes, the bee’s ploy would have been derailed. Alas, the burnt tops and slashed bottoms of my son’s feet made shoes a torture device in their own right. So he marched into the house barefoot and sprung the trap (the bee had clearly been virtuous during its short lifetime and was being rewarded for his good deeds). Not only did my son get stung by a dead bee, but the stinger was lodged in his foot, causing it to swell and ache for days to come. (It would appear that this kamikaze bee technique is well known to the stinging insect community of Cape Cod as my same son sat on a wasp later in the week but emerged unscathed thanks to a pair of jeans and less impressive positioning — apparently the hornet was less virtuous than the bee at the doorstep.)

The rest of our bodies are by no means immune to vacation maladies. Our delicate skin is brutalized by sea water, suntan lotion and biting flies. In an effort to avoid both skin cancer and, more importantly, those God-awful long sleeve sun suits you see overprotected children wearing at the beach, each vacation morning involves the application of layers upon layers of sunscreen. Applying layers upon layers of sunscreen on a 3 1/2 year old is a bit like catching a greased pig — the target of your affection is constantly moving, and the more successful you are at the task at hand the more slippery he becomes. It’s not surprising I miss his feet tops. I’m lucky if I manage to cover more than 75% of his body while wrestling his little body to the ground and then dodging his well-timed punches and kicks.

After the suntan lotion comes the bug repellent. In an effort to avoid being eaten alive by the biting flies that congregate around the beached seaweed, we apply bug repellent on top of the layers and layers of sun screen. Sure it stinks to high heaven, but that’s how you know it is working. If it smelled like a bouquet of flowers, how would it possibly keep away flies? And on those few days in which, out of laziness or forgetfulness or simple neglect, we have failed to slather the kids with bug goop, they have returned home with big, raised fly welts a plenty — the kind that itch so badly you scratch them until they bleed, causing you to have big, raised, scabby fly welts. But the bug repellent is not without its downside. The kids are clearly allergic to the stuff, so in exchange for avoiding a few big, raised fly welts, they get a body full of tiny itchy pimple-like bumps across their backs, their fronts, their arms, their legs — pretty much everywhere. Big itchy bumps or little itchy bumps, that’s the choice. So far the kids are opting for little itchy bumps, but as the rash spreads the scales may yet tip.

Once covered in sundry lotions, we’re off to the beach, where perils lurk around every sand dune. Along with the Ginsu shells, rocks of various sizes create dangers of their own. During one day this week, as the tide was coming in, the kids and I jumped in and about the crashing waves. Unfortunately, the tide had come in to a point such that the waves were crashing at the base of the beach’s incline, precisely where all of the rocks and rubble had gathered from the earlier outgoing tide. The waves struck this rock basin with sufficient force to churn up the piles of rocks at the base of the seashore. When thrown into motion by tons of undulating sea water, it turns out that rocks can pick up a fair amount of momentum pretty quickly. This ankle deep water was thick with churned up stones. No matter where you ran, bang, your feet were brutalized. No one escaped ankle bruises and the worst of us emerged from the waves limping and bloodied.

Retreating from the water’s edge, the kids convinced me to partake in a summertime ritual. This ritual has been carried on by generation upon generation of beach goers. It is the calling of the sand. You can hear it echoed on beaches worldwide . . . “bring your young to the shore and bury them!” And that is precisely what I did. Unfortunately, my kids decided to increase the difficulty of the task by having me bury them standing up rather than lying down. The lying down burial is a piece of cake. It takes a relatively small amount of sand to mummify a prone body. But it takes exponentially more sand to grow a hill of sufficient height to engulf even the shortest of children (which I have). The task would have been nigh impossible with your typical little plastic yellow shovel. Luckily, I was armed with bigger artillery than that. I had a sand shovel that seemed better suited to home construction than child covering. So I figured I was up to the challenge. And indeed I was. The only problem is that along with my contractor’s sand shovel should have come a pair of standard issue work gloves. They would have saved my hands from the indignity of three colossal blisters. But this being vacation and not Habitat for Humanity, I had no such luck and emerged from the child burial impaired for days to come. If you thought a popped blister burned under ordinary circumstances, you should add a little sea water to the mix. That was the last burial of the season. (As a side note, when burying a child, show some caution when patting down the sand in and around your child's neck — while a strike to the neck may not always draw blood, I am told it stings a bit.)

In an effort to recover from our cuts, bruises and blisters, my wife and I handed my parents a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and headed to Nantucket for one peaceful evening. The ferry ride was fine — no slipping on the poop deck. Our dinner was fine — no food poisoning to speak of. Our bed and breakfast was passable — no bed bugs or shower falls (although our room air-conditioner did periodically, without warning and without apparent cause, make a sound akin to a 1920’s biplane passing overhead, which made uninterrupted sleep somewhat mythical). It turned out, however, that walking proved a bigger problem than we had anticipated. My wife and I strolled toward the center of town musing at the near uniformity of Nantucket automobiles. Apparently the older your Jeep, the bigger the status symbol on Nantucket. In fact, the locals took such umbrage with one of their neighbor’s new Hummer that they had affixed a “I Have A Small Penis” sign to its bumper. But had it been a 1978 Jeep Wrangler with rusting tailpipe, they would likely have embraced its oldness and sameness with great zeal. They may even have awarded its driver a pair of pinkish culottes or whale print cotton pants, either of which would have been just as ghastly hideous as every other island resident’s legware.

But none of that was of any consequence to us as we meandered our way towards town, unencumbered by our typical posse of little Horniks. We had a rare day of relaxation and relative quiet, and we were enjoying it — until it happened. The sidewalk literally parted before us, consuming one of my wife’s feet and causing her to tumble like a marionette (OK, in reality she lost her footing on a relatively minute crack in the sidewalk, but if I told that story she would look like quite the doofus, so I’m going to stick with the sidewalk opening up thing). My wife fell to the ground, gashing her knee and — horror of horrors — scraping her toe nails. By the time she stood up, her knee was dripping with blood as if she had been in a skateboarding accident. But she was far more concerned with whether or not anyone had seen her trip than the severity of her wounds. Only when I assured her that the view of her tumble had been well obscured by the Jeep Grand Cherokees to our left and right did she begin to feel the pain of the fall. Worse yet, she began to feel the pain of her scuffed pedicure which would have been an embarrassment anywhere but was particularly acute in Nantucket. Unfortunately, there was little we could do about the toe nails. The good folks at the White Elephant, however, not only served us a delicious lunch overlooking the harbor but brought us antibacterial ointment and a couple of big Band-Aids with our lobster chowder. Now that’s service!

We returned to the beach house somewhat rested and somewhat tattered but in good spirits. Similarly, the kids had survived a night without us — they were somewhat rested and somewhat tattered but in good spirits. My parents, on the other hand, were less rested and somewhat more tattered but nonetheless in relatively good spirits. So, give or take a minor footwear accident, our trip to Nantucket was a success. Unfortunately, the merriment of our return was brought to a crashing halt upon the discovery that my son could not find his new Red Sox cap. We searched throughout the house for the hat but to no avail — he begrudgingly went to the beach without it but not without sulking the entire time he was there.

Being the devoted father that I am, after dinner as the troops settled in for a long night of weather reports and local sports coverage, I continued the great hat search. I looked behind beds. I looked under couches. I searched drawers. But to no avail. Jokingly, one of my kids suggested that the chipmunk living in our house may have stolen the hat (yes, there was a chipmunk living in the house again this summer — commemorating it, you can now buy Chatham Chipmunk t-shirts). Leaving no stone unturned, I decided to look in the chipmunk’s favorite hiding place under the stairs. I pulled away the bookcase blocking the stairwell and peeked in, hoping to find the hat and numerous other treasures that had gone missing but unnoticed. No such luck. All that was under there was the same old crap (literally and figuratively) that had been under there the year before when I had trapped the first couple of chipmunk house guests (this summer I managed to trap three of them — it’s a bad trend that suggests next summer I’ll be trapping four).

In frustration, I lunged out of the stairwell, wondering where to look next. And then I felt it. A jolt of pain in my head. The severity of the pain was sufficient to induce a sort of guttural grunt and cause me to fall to the floor. As I lay on the floor, I contemplated two things: 1) would I ever be able to stand again, and 2) where the fuck was that hat? While I heard my wife ask, “Are you OK?” it didn’t strike me as a priority to actually answer the question. Apparently my wife didn’t find this particularly comforting and sprinted through the dining room to find me lying on the floor holding a bloody sock on my head. I frankly have no idea where the sock came from, nor do I remember holding it against my head. In fact, I didn’t realize until then that I was actually bleeding. Yet, I was. Profusely. It turns out that the rungs of the stairs come to dagger-like points along their bottom edge. A gentle tap against them would likely have caused a laceration. Thrusting one’s head into them with great vigor, on the other hand, was certain to do significant damage. And it did. The question of the evening quickly turned from “what happened to the hat?” to “should I go to the hospital for stitches or not?” When the bleeding ultimately stopped and my dizziness subsided (more or less), I decided that stitches were unnecessary, a decision I will undoubtedly regret if I ever have the misfortune of going bald. That cut is going to leave one hell of a scar. And to this day we never found the hat.

Since no one could top my bloodied scalp, the remainder of our vacation has been relatively uneventful. Sure, we’ve had more shell cuts, more chafing, more sunburn, more fly bites, more rashes. But the bleeding has pretty much subsided at this point. And as we head back home from Cape Cod tomorrow, I am already looking forward to next summer. There’s just nothing better than relaxing at the beach.

The Battle of Mr. Nice Guy

Readers of my blog might think that I am inclined to dwell on the negative.  After all, how could I take a magical Little League season -- a season of skills-based instruction and exemplary sportsmanship -- and write only about the turmoil caused by mentally deficient coaches?  How could I experience the unending joy of winning, winning, winning, and focus on those little speed-bumps in our path to total league domination?  How could I possibly think ill thoughts about anything when the boys are on an unprecedented tear through the coach pitch division? 

I apologize if my baseball posts have reflected anything but optimism and positivity.  I am nothing if not optimistic and positive about the thrill of Little League.  And it pains me as much as all of you that gigantic Neanderthal moron bastards get in the way of an old fashion baseball season.  So in an effort to restore your faith (and mine) in that hallowed institution that is Little League, let me recount for you our second to last game of the season -- Mr. Nice Guy vs. Mr. Nice Guy. 

As with the famed RNG -- "Rule Nazi Game" for the uninitiated -- in advance of playing we received a scouting report on the Mets (name unchanged to protect the deserving).  The scouting report read something like "I know the Mets' coach and he is a fantastic guy.  It will be great.  We will all have fun.  The boys will learn a lot.  The parents will cheer respectfully.  The coaches will shake our hands vigorously at the end of the game.  No one will threaten and/or harass us as we coach third base.  Nothing to worry about here, people.  Just a great example of first and second graders enjoying the game of baseball . . . . Oh yeah, and our boys should have no problem crushing them.  Play ball."

I have known the Mets' coach for a long time.  Let's call him Coach Matt (at least in part because his name is Matt).  Coach Matt is arguably the nicest, most supportive, fantastically energetic Little League coach there is.  He absolutely loves the game of baseball and his love of the game is infectious.  He is the personification of Little League coaching done right.  He is, for all intents and purposes, Mr. Little League.  The only coach I have ever met who holds a candle to Coach Matt is our head coach, Coach Jordan (I have called him Coach Jordan because: 1) it has a nice ring to it, 2) it grows tiresome to keep on writing "our head coach" or "our awesome head coach" over and over again; and 3) because his mother spent a lot of time agonizing over what to call him before picking Jordan, so who am I to question?).  If Coach Matt is Mr. Baseball then Coach Jordan is Mr. Hot Dogs and Mr. Apple Pie (no physique-bashing intended).  These guys take their hats off during the singing of the national anthem and they even know the words.  No mumbling "and the rockets red blare, the bombs burst in despair, gave proof to the sight that our that our flag had no hair . . . ."  Matt and Jordan are the real McCoy. 

As we prepared for the battle of the nice guys, Coach Matt came over to say hello and shake our hands.  He exuded a sort of genuine pleasantness one can only pull off if he is either a world class con man or, indeed, genuinely pleasant.  I tried hard to hang with these extraordinarily nice guys, yet I exuded a sort of smarmy fakeness one can only pull off if he is either a third rate con man or, indeed, smarmy and fake.  After pleasantries were exchanged and I was outed for the louse that I truly am, we got on with the game.

The battle of the nice guys is nearly as disorienting as the battle of the Rule Nazis.  When Rule Nazis play, you know their gambit.  They go out of their way to seek advantage at any cost.  With extreme nice guys, the opposite is true.  They go out of their way to not even give the appearance of seeking advantage.  They go out of their way to gain disadvantage as a badge of good sportsmanship. 

"Your player was safe." 
"I really couldn't see -- let's call him out." 
"But tie goes to the runner so let's call him safe." 
"True but given that my batter threw his bat, let's call him out." 
"But it was only the first time . . . we'll just give him a warning." 
"No, I'm pretty sure he threw the bat last at bat as well so he's definitely out." 
"I'm willing to give him a second warning . . . that's fine with me."

And so it goes again and again.  Coach Matt extending the olive branch.  Coach Jordan extending the olive tree.  Coach Matt extending the olive grove.  You get the picture.

It reminds me a bit of when I first moved back to California from New York.  In New York, the failure to drive aggressively is tantamount to stepping to the back of the line.  If you are not aggressive, you will literally never be able to merge onto a freeway.  You will never be able to get a parking space at the mall.  You will never get out of your driveway.  In contrast, aggressive driving in California is a bit like farting at the dinner table -- it is an inexcusable breach of etiquette.  Only in California could you have so darn many four way stops without constant multi-car pile ups.  Drivers calmly wait their turn to go.  No accidents.  No problem. 

When I first got back to California from New York, four way stops were like the sample tray at grocery store -- mine for the taking.  Everyone would hem and haw about who would go next and I would just go.  It was a bonanza.  No waiting, just driving.  To the New Yorker, the Californian four way stops is the equivalent of a yield.  Sure, Californians would think I was rude for jumping ahead in the stop sign pecking order, but what did I care?  I was coming from New York where jumping ahead was a way of life.  Frankly, so was being rude.  It took months to get those bad habits out of my system.  But man did I save a lot of time at four way stops during those first few months back in California.

Coach Matt and Coach Jordan took four way stop etiquette to an extreme.  You know those guys who clearly get to the four way stop before you do but still insist on you going first.  That's Matt and Jordan.  And those how our Little League game went.  If you were allowed 6 pitches, they'd give you 8.  If there was a hint of a thought of a question that a runner didn't get to the next base quickly enough, back he went.  If a fielder even pondered stepping into the base path, the runner advanced.  That's how the whole game went.  I can only imagine what would happen if these two arrived in a doorway at the same time ("after you" "no, after you" "no, after you" "no, after you" "no, after you"...). 

In the end, one team did have to win and the other did have to lose.  But if ever there was a game that wasn't about winning or losing but how the kids played the game it was this battle of the nice guys.  If pushed, Coach Jordan might admit that his team was victorious.  But he would no doubt say something like "it was a well fought battle" or "but for better hitting and better fielding we would never have won."  To which Coach Matt would no doubt say "no, no, your team was so well trained, they deserved to win" or "we never had a chance."  And so it would go.  The snack would get eaten.  Parents would pick up and head home.  The sun would set.  The sun would rise.  New teams would gather.  Yet still, "no, really, I'm quite sure that if you had a full week between games your boys would have won."  "I really doubt that.  They were quite overmatched."  "I just don't see that.  Far more luck than skill."  "Far more skill than luck."  "Ok, more luck than skill."  "No no.  More skill than luck."  "Perhaps a bit of luck."  "A bit of skill."  " A bit of luck."  "A bit of skill."  "A bit of luck."  "A bit of . . . ."

Who's the Rule Nazi Now?

I don't know whether my last post was ironic or profetic. Or was it just pathetic? Alas, stones having been thrown, my fellow coaches and I arrived at our little league game on Saturday jubilant in the glow of a crystal clear sky and a team full of giddy second graders, only to discover that I apparently live in a glass house. Rather than suffer at the hands of the latest set of Rule Nazis, this time around apparently we were the Rule Nazis. At least that's how the Bears saw it (name changed once again to protect the guilty).

Having spent a few years on the little league fields, I have developed a powerful sort of bat sense. A bit like "gaydar," I can smell an asshole coach a mile away. They reveal themselves quickly and clearly. They are the guys who yell at their kids, not to their kids. They order rather than instruct. They get mad about errors. They get mad about strike outs. They just get mad. And they have no idea that they are assholes, so they do nothing to hide their assholic tendencies. They would likely describe themselves as "competitive" and view their "realism" as good for the kids. Like the Rule Nazis, they are indeed another breed of troubling coach -- not overly concerned with the rules, per se, but rather just plain jerks -- simply put, they are Butt Head Coaches.

Saturday's BHC revealed himself quickly. Gathering his kids on the field for some infield practice, he began working the troupes. Nothing unusual there. Perhaps a little snipe here or a little jab there but basically he was doing his thing warming up his kids. With a few minutes to go before the game was to start, our head coach meandered up to the BHC and asked if our kids could grab five minutes of infield practice before the game started. Looking down at his watch the BHC said "yeah, I've got two more minutes." Our head coach smiled and gave back a "thanks coach." And he meant it. Positivity all the way. But not me. I heard the real message there. The real message was "how dare you ask -- you'll get the field when I give you the field." And so it was. By the time the Bears were done with their warmup there was no point in trying to get in some raps, so we started the game.

No worries. Our kids were ready to go. They were a little too ready. They jumped all over each and every ball. If they didn't get the out, they saved the extra base. In ever instance they showed poise, an understanding of the game, and an uncharacteristic degree of coordination. They were just plain playing great and we were thrilled. Through the first three innings, the Bears were scoreless. Our kids were really jelling.

I should stop for a second and give some team history. This well oiled machine was not always so well oiled. Indeed, careful scrutiny of the Wikipedia reveals a picture of the 2004 team next to the term "Hapless." As first graders, our boys stumbled, bumbled and lost their way through the season. They managed to pull out a single victory. And while it was no fun to lose and lose and lose, the unwavering positivity of the head coach kept the boys running back on the field with energy and excitement every game. They had a great season despite . . . how shall I put it? . . . sucking. Big time. So no one was more surprised than we when a year later each and every awkward, distracted first grader had turned into a throwing, catching, concentrating second grader (ok, concentrating may be a little bit of a stretch -- but there have been a lot fewer gloves on the heads and sit down strikes in the outfield this year than last). We parents had prepared ourselves for another year of "great effort," "nice hustle," "we don't even keep track of the score," "you'll get the next one," "you guys were looking great out there" . . . you get the picture. Given the history, the parents cheered with even greater zeal from the sidelines. Everyone loves an underdog and our theme song had gone from "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" to "Who Let The Dogs Out?" in a single season. We were all enjoying it.

With that history behind us, I walked over to coach third base. This was a change of scenery for me. I'm a first base coach at heart. I live to scream "run, run, run," and "stop watching the ball and run." It is a relatively unthinking job made for a loudmouth like myself. Third base, on the other hand, is a challenge. It takes more skill. It takes some judgment. Do you send the kids? Do you hold them? Do you have any control over them whatsoever? I was up for the challenge. What I didn't realize was that I was being sent into a war zone. The Bears sat along the third base line and their coaches were growing increasingly disgruntled with the way the game was going. With our boys leading by something like 15 to 0, they were not happy campers. And they were absolutely convinced that my fellow coaches and I were exacerbating the problem by being overly aggressive coaches. Yes, that's right, we were the Rule Nazis.

Calling me a RN may be fair. I don't actually know the rules but I am certainly a loud mouth. And I am not nearly as nice as my fellow coaches. But calling the rest of the crowd RNs is a bit like calling Mother Theresa a selfish bitch. I recently had a conversation with one of my fellow coaches that went something like this.

Him: Did you go to the Positive Coaching Alliance training?

Me: No, I didn't make it.

Him: That's a shame, it was really great.

Now I know who actually goes to the Positive Coaching Alliance trainings. I always wondered. Our head coach is such a great guy that I am absolutely convinced he spends his spare mental cycles coming up with new ways to say "you blew it" in a positive way. He says things like "nice job, you really got in front of that ball" and "way to keep it to two bases." His storehouse of positive coaching one liners is like a bottomless pit. I envy him his patience, his character and his immense creativity.

As the Bears' coach took to the field between innings, he angrily grunted "nice sportsmanship" in my general direction. Judging by his tone, I suspected he had intended it sarcastically, so I inquired as to what I had done wrong. The Bears were angry because we were encouraging our kids to run the bases aggressively despite the fact that we were beating their team by a dozen or two runs. It was a reasonable point and, thus, I stopped encouraging my kids to run hard. But a few slipped by nonetheless, scoring in the process. We went further ahead still. As I headed back to my bench at the end of the inning, the Bears' coach grumbled something derogatory in my general direction again. I didn't bother responding.

But when I headed back to coach third base the next inning, I was once again confronted by the harumphing BHC. Rather than leave well enough alone, I asked the BHC, "what is it we are doing wrong?" This infuriated him. He stopped in his tracks and began lecturing me on the need to slow my kids from scoring so many runs. I suppose it is worth mentioning at this point that the BHC was probably 6 foot 4 and maybe 320 pounds. I, on the other hand, am about half that -- ok, maybe not 3 foot 2, but at 5 foot 4 it looked like the Bears' coach could reach down and literally rip my head off. This guy's neck was the size of my thigh. If he didn't play football in college, he missed his calling. He was just plane huge.

As the BHC continued to lecture me on the finer points of sportsmanship, he slowly walked closer and closer to me. Being a stupid man, I stood my ground. After all, I wasn't doing anything wrong. Why should I back off? Just because this guy was the size of a SubZero and growing increasingly volatile? What's the likelihood that he hauls off and smacks me, anyway? Seemed pretty low to me at the time. Then again, I wasn't really thinking about it. I was too busy being indignant. Who was this guy to question our couching ethics? So I stared right back up at his great hunk of a head looming above me. Apparently for a brief moment the parents on our sideline were fairly convinced that I was about to get pummelled. But there was nothing they could do. The combined girth of our respective team parents would barely have slowed him. Luckily, the BHC decided not to end my life (at least not that day). Rather, he hissed with blood-chilling venom, "stop showing up my boys," and turned to continue his lumbering march into the outfield.

For the remainder of the game I engaged in the near-impossible task of slowing down second grade base runners. No matter how huge the hit, no matter how bumbling the fielding, I would hold my runners to a single base per at bat. The kids would look at me, my arms forcefully raised in the "stop" signal, with expressions ranging from shock to horror to general disbelief. They wanted to make the most of their hits and I wasn't letting them. While no explanation could possible justify the injustice to these kids, I did my best to say things like "great listening" and "nice base running" as each rolled around to third base. Instead of quickly finishing out the inning with the maximum allowable runs, the boys had to get their points the old fashioned way -- one at a time. But eventually the kids did max out their runs and were sent to the field.

We creeped along that way for a couple innings until the game mercifully ended -- final score: a bunch to a couple. The families cheered from the sidelines. The kids jumped up and down. But we coaches kept our celebrating to a bare minimum, so as not to further enrage the BHC. With great care, we walked to the other side to congratulate the boys and their coaches for a game well played but the BHC was nowhere to be found. He was far too upset about our bad sportsmanship to shake our hands. Who can blame him.

The Sweet Taste of Victory and Fruit Gushers

Men are psychotic.  No, really psychotic. 

I'm not just blowing smoke here people.  This is fact.  My conclusions are drawn from two years of careful observation on the little league field.  Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.  I took "Sociological Research Methodology" (a class I would not have taken in a billion years but for it being absolutely 100% required for me to receive my degree).  Thanks to that glorious piece of academic bliss, I know the precise methodology required to perform a definitive participant observation study -- you must 1) participate and 2) observe (in some instances it is also acceptable to 1) observe and 2) participate -- but that is the exception, not the rule).  Thus, in the name of science, I have coached my 7 year old's little league team for the last two years, all the while taking careful mental note of the primeval behavior of men at the helm of teams of uncoordinated, distracted, overly-sensitive, spastic little boys.  My conclusion -- men are psychotic.

Earlier this week I received an email from one of my fellow little league coaches entitled "Scouting Report."  It was not quite the player by player dossier of strengths and weaknesses that we had hoped for, but it did contain some useful G2.  Apparently the friend of my fellow coach had recently played the team we were to face later in the week.  The word on the street was that this team -- let's call them the Blues to protect the guilty -- had superb skills and a hyper-competitive coach.  This got us all riled up.  We just couldn't countenance a hyper-competitive coach.  That was just crazy.  Who was he to care about winning over the love of the game.  Who was he to push his little players to succeed at the cost of a nurturing environment for the kids.  Who was he to require anabolic steroids of his mini Giambi's (ok, that may just have been a rumor -- alright, I started that rumor -- but I'm almost certain it is true).  We had no choice but to do as our scout requested -- we had to "bury them," the little bastards. 

I'll give it to our scout, he was dead on.  The Blues were the top of the coach pitch heap.  As first and second graders go, these kids were some serious athletes.  Most of the time the players actually hit the ball when it was pitched to them.  And often times when fielding the ball, the kids had the presence of mind to throw the ball to another player.  On several occasions, the Blues also caught the ball.  And in a few rare instances, the players on the Blues managed to pull together the unthinkable; not only fielding the ball but then throwing it to another player who then caught the ball, getting our player out.  This impressive show of not completely sucking really had my team on the run.  But we powered right back at them by managing to not completely suck ourselves.  Our players sort of fielded.  Our players sort of hit.  Our players sort of ran.  All in all it sort of looked like baseball.

Sadly, not only was our scout right about the mad skills demonstrated by the Blues, he was also right about the general madness demonstrated by the Blues' coach.  Every so often you run into one of these guys who takes the game so seriously that you wonder to yourself "which of those poor little kids is crazy guy's son?"  This particular Crazy Guy had an intensity about the game that one rarely sees outside of Fenway Park.  He was all "shake it off" this and "get one for me" that.  The kids on the Blues couldn't help but cower in their cleats in right-center field.  And this being the tenth game of the season, the Blues knew full well what was coming.  Crazy Guy was in fact a particularly pernicious form of Crazy Guy that I like to call the Rule Nazi.  And not just any Rule Nazi, he was the very best Rule Nazi he could possible be.  He set the bar for Rule Nazis. 

How do you spot a Rule Nazi?  He's the guy saying things like "the base path is arbitrary, but may not veer more than three feet from a player holding the ball" or "there's no controversy here -- the runner advances automatically when the ball exceeds 20 feet from the field of play."  I, on the other hand, am clearly no Rule Nazi.  I am the guy saying to the other team's Rule Nazi "so does that mean my player is safe?"  One might think that this would endear me to said Rule Nazi because I am so clearly manipulable.  Yet it does no such thing.  Rather, it creates vast contempt from the Rule Nazi because I am so laxadasical about the sport that the players on my team can not possibly be learning the game appropriately.  My favorite comment from this particular Rule Nazi came mid way through the game when his fellow coach had the audacity to call our play safe in a close play.  Apparently the RN (no, he didn't suddenly become a Registered Nurse, but I got tired of writing "Rule Nazi" over and over again) took issue with the call but after getting little satisfaction from his fellow coach despite several attempts to argue one of the more arcane points in the little league rule book, the exasperated RN spat at the other coach "I'll have to explain it to you later."  Roughly translated, what the RN actually said was,  "you pathetic moron -- I will explain America's pastime to you after this inning, assuming you haven't so severely handicapped our team as to make it useless to continue on with the game." 

While this week's RN was a piece of work for sure, he was at least a pure technocrat.  By and large he was not interested in manipulating his extreme knowledge of the rule book in his team's favor.  On the other hand, last year my team faced the worst of all possible worlds -- a self-serving RN.  This particular RN had very strong opinions about the rules when application of those rules gave his team an advantage.  When applying the same rules disadvantaged his team, however, this RN made up exceptions to the rules.  After several instances of this unabashed . . . shall we say . . . cheating, my co-coach could take it no longer.  He started yelling at the other coach about his inconsistency.  The other coach would have none of it and yelled back at my co-coach.  Slowly the two coaches inched towards each-other, all the while yelling, setting a fantastic example for our team full of first graders.  The argument escalated as the two coaches got closer and closer to each other.  But it was not until I saw several of the other dads on my sideline get up out of their lawn chairs to offer their "support" to my co-coach that I had visions of a made for TV movie.  I sprang into action and did what I do best -- I appeased the other coach thus infuriating all the parents on our side of the isle.  I did, however, manage to help us all narrowly escape the evening news.

There's nothing like facing a RN to get the parents on the sidelines riled up.  Our most recent encounter with the Blues was no exception.  With each little nitpickey call the RN insisted upon making, the crowds rallied around the team.  Going into the fifth inning, the score was all tied up and the mom's on the sideline were nearly apoplectic (my nine year old dubbed them the Desperate Coaches' Wives).  in a moment of supreme confidence, my fellow coach goaded the RN into playing a final tie-breaking inning.  The gamble was a big one.  A bit like tossing a coin.  Our boys seemed as likely to completely stumble as they were to prevail.  But the call was not mine to make and, thus, we marched into the 6th inning 6 to 6 or 40 to 40 or some tie score that needed to be broken. 

Our team was up first.  With some power, some luck, and some crappy fielding, we scored a few runs and were now officially ahead.  The moms were on their feet.  The dads were on their toes.  We coaches were on full alert, barking commands to each and every fielder.  "Joe, two steps to the left."  "Steven, back up . . . back up . . . back up."  "Noah, wake up."  The first Blue stepped to the plate and whacked a good one in the general direction of our second baseman who managed to reach out and swipe it from the sky.  One down.  The moms screamed and screeched.  Next batter up.  A little blooper to our pitcher.  Mind you the typical role of the pitcher is to catch balls returned from the catcher when the ball isn't hit.  The pitcher then hands the balls to the coach who's pitching for the other team.  Not exactly a high pressure role and designed entirely to lull the pitcher into complacency.  But there was no complacency that day with all ten of the coaches on the sideline pepping up the slouching field crew.  (Ok, ten is a bit of an exaggeration but there are literally five dads coaching a team of a dozen kids.  Overkill?  This is Palo Alto.  There's no such thing as overkill.  This aside is really just intended to add suspense to this nail biter of a tale.  I digress.)  To recap, when we left off there was one out and a blooper to the pitcher.  What happened next?  What happened next?  In an act of uncharacteristic precision, our pitcher sprinted to the ball, fielded it cleanly (a one in ten sort of occurrence) and shot a rocket straight to our first baseman.  Two down.

I should point out to you right now another indication that men are pathetic.  Before each game our head coach circulates a lineup sheet.  It lists not only the batting order but the fielding positions of the players for the typical 5 inning game.  Our head coach this year is perhaps the nicest human being you have ever met and therefore, against his better judgment, he actually, honestly, for real rotates the kids to all positions.  The mere fact that a kid may end up playing first base without the ability to actually catch the ball is of no consequence -- it is a learning experience.  However, even our fantastic head coach is human.  Learning is for the first five innings of the game.  Should the game get to a sixth tied inning with a RN at the helm on the other side, rotation is out the door.  Fielders are placed according to talent, not equity.  In other words, we stacked the deck.  Damn tootin' we stacked the deck.  So did the RN.  So would you have.  It was tied going into the sixth.  What choice did we have?  But I digress again.  To re-recap, sixth inning, we're ahead by a couple, two down.

About now the contrast between the two sets of parents was marked.  On our sides the moms were absolutely loosing their minds (the dads were on their feet as well but they still seemed to have general control of their faculties).  They were screaming relevant things -- "great D boys, great D."  They were screaming less relevant things -- "Win one for the Gipper!"  They were just screaming.  On the other side of the field, the Blues' family members were rapidly making their way through the 5 Stages of Grief.  Anger and Denial were long gone.  By the third batter, most of the Blues' parents were settled into the complacent world of Acceptance.  But not the RN.  He was a "can do" sort of a guy and was screaming at his batter with greater vigor than ever. "Shake it off."  "Let's see a good one."  Fine instructions for his troupes.  We would have given the same instructions to our boys.  But we were too busy screaming things like "ready positions guys," "let's see some more of that" and  "two down boys . . . don't screw this up." 

Positive coaching is a real art.  Have you ever spent a couple hours dominated by mistakes, screw ups, confusion, distraction and just plain old errors and only been allowed to say positive things?  It's a bitch.  I imagine that it must be easier if you are a better person than I (our head coach is certainly a better guy than I am and he seems completely at ease never pointing out the negative).  But if you are basically a cynic, it is a challenge.  To my mind the logical comment when a kid drops a ball is "don't drop the ball next time" not "you sure got under that one."  When a kid strikes out the logical comment is "keep your eye on the ball" not "nice looking swings."  When a kid gets out because he walks to first, I think one should probably say "run next time," not "good hit."  This is, of course, absolute evidence that I have no business coaching a little league team, so I just try hard (often times unssuccesfully) to keep my mouth shutt.  Of course it is even more difficult to be Mr. Positive Coach Guy when facing a RN who you really really really want to crush like a bug. 

In any event, where was I?  Oh yeah, two down, one to go, general frenzy.  The next guy got out and we won.  The kids and parents went crazy.  The Blues sang.  The RN wept.  All was well in the world.

Gosh, that was not that satisfying after paragraphs of buildup, huh?  Ok, fine.  The third kid from the Blues, flop sweat and all, steps to the plate.  By now the Desperate Coaches' Wives were absolutely ruthless; no respite from the noise to give the batter a fighting chance at maintaining his composure.  Instead, it was like an indoor football stadium during a crucial drive -- the cheers from the moms were deafening.  The kid took a few practice swings and the jubilation on our side moderated a bit.  This kid had a huge swing that would really make the ball fly if he connected (truth be told, I have no idea if the kid could even swing the bat but what joy is there in winning the game by fielding some lame blooper, so I'll assume he was the Blues' best batter).  The first pitch was sent fouled.  He let the second go.  Then came the dream pitch.  It was right down the pipe, a little low as the little leaguers like it (all the easier to pop up).  The batter rapped a solid hit in the general direction of second base.  Our fielder sprinted for the ball, getting there in the nick of time.  He knocked it down, bobbled it a second, regained his composure and tossed it to first base.  The Blues' batter not only had a mighty swing but was swift afoot (ok, again, I'm just making this up -- he could have been crawling for all I can remember) and nearly beat the ball to first base.  But he didn't.  The ball beat him, our first baseman hung onto it, and the runner was out.  End of game.  Midtown Roundtable Pizza A's were victorious.

The kids literally lost their minds.  They ran to the sideline screaming and throwing their gloves and hats.  The Desperate Coaches' Wives danced and squealed in celebration.  The coaching staff bellowed with pride.  General pandaemonium ensued.  Regaining our composure, the kids and coaches gathered for the single loudest "2, 4, 6, 8" in the history of Palo Alto little league.  The kids shook the Blues hands with, shall we say, vigor.  And as I shook hands with the other coaches I gave the RN a little extra squeeze as if to say, "ha ha, our kids are better than your kids!"  It was petty but it felt good.  In triumph we all retired to the sideline for a snack of Fruit Gushers and Capri Sun.  Ah the sweet sweet taste of victory and Fruit Gushers.  Sure, men are psychotic.  But what would you have us do?  Lose?  I don't think so.