Mountain breeze

It's Saturday! Oh boy, my little vacation from work is over, Buddy is finally doing the laundry that he brought home. The clothes have overtaken the laundry room and there is a bit of an odor..nec sias pas?

Good news...BP Grandpop is out of the hospital and looking forward to his 86th birthday in two weeks. Whoa...that's a lot of candles.

The big leftie is preparing to return to school tomorrow...with clean clothes, I assume. He has found alternate living arrangements for next year and will live with members of the golf team and his freshman year room mate. Is he happy? yep, today he is. I am not sure what courses he is taking, but will eventually hear as the semester begins. Over the break, he shared with us that he is going to go to law school....huh? Really?

Ok, this week, it is law school. We can add this to his astronaut, fire man, super hero, and marine biologist days. Although, he seems to like talking about legal matters and is politically in tuned. When did that happen? Usually he watches Sports Center, but the kid sat through the Presidential debates for a class assignment. I am going to congratulate this professor for inspiring him. Who says that you don't learn anything in college? 

And so, with the big kids departure, I will be sad that he is gone, but happy that he is continuing to live his dream. Legitimate practices are set to begin at midnight and go until 3 am. Who does this? I'll tell you....crazy people do it....yeah, crazy....a bit twisted. As far as I am concerned, midnight is the time for REM sleep and not throwing a baseball. If it was me, I would have my glove on my right hand and a Starbucks grande bold coffee in my left hand. Believe me, I would not spill this cup....

 Let's ponder this another step....practice is until 3 am...what do you do if you have an 8 am class? Skip it? Sleep in it? Go and put your head down and drool on the desk? Is this why you don't see many student athletes with honors? Perhaps, although I must confess....when I played tennis in college (sorry to go there), I believe that I could have had honors if I was not so tired from practices and matches...just sayin'...I did score Dean's List a few times but not a lot....ok, maybe three times...or maybe four...would you believe twice? 

 

With that said, I have to check to make sure that there is enough laundry detergent and dryer sheets for Buddy's clothes to smell like a mountain breeze...Have a great day!

Moving Day

Hello
It's been a busy few days as the preparations for college continue. On Saturday, Dad picked up the rental van  to move the furniture back to college. It spent the week in the garage and has lost its lease...time to go. Then I took the big kid shopping to buy things for the house. What things? Well, we headed to the Dollar Store and naturally spent more than a dollar. After filling four bags we moved onto.....

HHGregg, Lowe's and Target searching for a little fridge for his bedroom. Why does he need a bedroom refrigerator when he has a big one on the first floor? I dunno....why not? His response was that he did not want to share his Gatorades.....hmmm....

Then it was time to load the van and the SUV and take the three hour trip to campus. It was a tough trip since I could not see out the back window since the car was overloaded but Tink and I made it unscathed and parked in front of the "dream house".....and a dream it is....

As I looked at the house from the street, my mind reverted to my college days and I would have killed for this house. It has a front porch, four bedrooms, a decent size kitchen, big living room, and back enclosed porch and morning room. It was and still is....a wonderful place to live and attend college. Wow...BPM is overwhelmed....

Then I walked in and saw the dirt, cracked windows, mold, dust, one bathroom, and back door that had a one inch gap at the bottom. Reality hit...whew....glad that I was not going to live there.

It was time to move the furniture while the infamous sofa was waiting its turn in the rain to squeeze through the opening. Dad did not think that we could get it through but somehow with a few maneuvers, we managed to push it through and dropped it in the living room. As we worked to carry the rest of the bedroom furniture up the stairs, I could again see the beauty of living here for the next three years. The back yard is huge and there are six other houses that lead to the yard including the home of more of his team mates. This is a place where the guys can hang out while someone cooks burgers and Dog plays the guitar. Oh yeah, Buddy wanted to buy a ping pong table for beer pong, then quickly changed his mind. I think he was talking out loud and forgot who he was speaking to. As his mother, I was not going to endorse a beer pong table on the front porch. I still do not know the rules of the game and am sure that the idea is not a good one.


So, on to his bedroom. This room is in the front of the house. We squeezed the bed in and some of my $20 furniture. Einstein's mom's sweet television fit perfectly in the corner of the room as Buddy quickly set up the computer games. The mini fridge, broken dresser, and free book shelves were added. Rather than placing books on the shelves, he lovingly placed his sneakers. By the way, I did not move any books in....hmm....what the heck...not even a dictionary....does this spell "trouble" or "trubble"?


Now, let's briefly chat about the room mates. Dog took the first floor bedroom next to the kitchen. it is the biggest room but he has his musical equipment and will have to climb the stairs to use the bathroom OR run out back and use a tree.

OC will have the room directly across from Buddy. He wants to squeeze a queen size bed in the room (good luck getting it up the stairs). The bed will fit, but not much else. His parents shipped his trick out truck across country where one of the team mates picked it up at the train station for him last week. The team mate has been driving it ever since. OC will arrive from California today and will see hundreds of extra miles on his truck.


The Gopher (transfer from the Midwest) will hit town later this week while Dog returns over the weekend. I was happy that we moved Buddy in yesterday. There was no traffic and we breezed in and out without difficulty. Dad will bring him back to campus on Friday after his shoulder and eye appointment. Then he is gone.....more about that later....got little tear balls in my eyes right now....


Have a great day!

PS: While doing ten loads of his laundry last week.....I found the "jersey" from Ohio. Now we can send it back and tear the $250.00 bill for it.

 

Sunday!

Good morning...it's the last Sunday in July and I am feeling tight. What dose "tight" mean? Well, tight means that I am feeling a bit of anxiety because my slow, quiet, hot summer is coming to an end as I watch the Back-to-School ads on television. I love the heat....love the pace....love the freedom....and love having the kids home with me.

Sure, I know that I may complain a bit about ant-laced sneakers, mounds of laundry, a trail of crumbs from the kitchen to the bedrooms, and the cars left without gas...but really....it is the only time that we can have some family time without the pressures of school and baseball. I also get to sneak a hug or two in when no one is paying attention....

And so, what is going on in BPM's life? Oy! The big kid must have called a dozen times yesterday when he realized that his dorm room room mate was going to be the married with one kid crazy pitching coach. he had a meltdown because he did not want to room with a coach. In fact, he was pretty salty when he called six or seven times about it. The reason he was assigned the coach as his room mate was due to the assignments being made in alphabetical order.

Now, he is calling with statements like: "I can't believe that I have to room with the coach...." "This is the craziest thing ever..." "I am not spending time in the room....no way..."

Finally, I had to put an end to the rants and said: "Dude, do you think that he wants to room with you? Think about it...he got the raw end of the deal. Feel sorry for him and not yourself...." Hey, teach him the Skittles Challenge game....

Click....

I guess he did not want to consider the comfort and feelings of the coach. Nope, it was all about him. Isn't it always?


On to the end of the afternoon as I received a  call from the leftie..."Mom, I told the coach that we were room mates and he had a fit....he said: 'no way'" And that is all it took. The coach and Buddy now have their own dorm rooms and life is good.

Let's consider the coach now. Once he found out that he had to stay with a knucklehead like Buddy, he threw a fit (sound familiar) and changed the assignments. I could say: "hey, what's wrong with living with my son in close quarters?" But I won't....'cause I have had to stay in hotel rooms with him and I get it. Coach....I felt your pain. Use your influence to make the change so that you are comfortable. Guess what? Both the Coach and Buddy have private rooms now....this was a stroke of luck and big kid should be counting his blessings....Meanwhile, yesterday I had to live with his crazed phone calls about sharing a room. Can anyone spell 'entitled?' or 'spoiled' ?

Let's go back in time when I shared a small bedroom with my two sisters, Big Sis and Scooby. Yep, there we were in this tiny room together....Finally Big Sis got her own little closet of a room and Scoob was my room mate. She was actually very easy to live with. She has a laid back personality as we added Peter Frampton posters to the wall. I think that she may have had a David Cassidy, but I blocked it out.


I would not change the years in the little bedroom because I learned to live in a small space and get along with others. Scoob, Big Sis and I remain very tight and it all started in the days in the little room in the front of the house....By the way, there was no air conditioning....the room was small and hot...we learned to be quite forgiving in those days. One note....we had eight people in the house and one bathroom (that's a few postings in the future)....

And so, life continues to teach us lessons in patience, kindness, and understanding. It is unpredictable and uncertain....Memo to my children: This is the way that it goes...some days you are assigned to a private room and other times you are stuck in close quarters with a person who will some day become your best friend. Get over yourself and learn that life is not fair...but everything always works out.

Later!

More monkey news

Good Morning!
It's a rainy day in the northeast and I have a few minutes to share this video with you. In yesterday's post, I mentioned how I had the privilege of watching my first cowboy monkey rodeo. Well, thanks to the big kid, here is a video of the show.

Why do I want to share it? Isn't it a bit odd watching a monkey riding on a dog around a baseball field? Perhaps....but if you know me, you know that I love animals and am fascinated by primates. I loved watching the tv shows Mutual of Omaha and Jacques Cousteau. How about Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges and Flipper? Oh yeah, the Little Rascals had a monkey. I desperately wanted one as a kid too. What was wrong with my life? BP Grandmom would not let us have a monkey. Six kids and a monkey? We would have had the coolest house in the region. I swear I would have taken care of the monkey. I would have called him "Banana". Isn't that a great name for a monkey? Come on, mom!

Conversely, I guess if I liked to sit in the jungle and enjoyed mosquitoes, I would have been a Jane Goodall instead of a bullpen mom. Further, if I did not get sea sick on boats or claustrophobic under water, I would have worked with the Cousteau group. Sadly, it was not my destiny to live in Africa and observe the animals nor scuba and find various species of barracudas, therefore, I have to be content watching them in movies and on television.  If you click on the video, you can see why I went crazy on Thursday night when the dog and monkey ran onto the field. 

And so, I will cut this post short. There is a moving sale around the corner and the big leftie wants me to check out the furniture since he needs a few pieces for his house in August. Yes, he is moving into a house. Oy! In the future, I will post the list of rules for his house starting with rule number 1: no underage drinking! I will print the rules, laminate them, and decoupage them onto a hard piece of wood to hang in the bathroom. Perhaps it will get their attention.