things that need fixin round here

This has certainly been an interesting month. Broken water heater, broken clothes dryer, transmission in need of repair...mouth that needs fixin!

You know how the other day I wrote those posts about people saying inappropriate things in public?

I be the first one to say we have to be mindful of what we say when we're in public since we're just never sure who is listening.

You'd think I'd follow my own advice!

Even in a more private setting.

Have you ever put your foot in it?

Would you like to hear what moi did the other night?!

Fresh after the "ink dried on my posts so to speak" oh my!

The repair man was here to repair our dryer. While he was doing what repair men do we were chatting about our kids and sports.

Baseball is a way of life in our part of the south for most boys from age 9-18. The repair guy has a son who plays ball- our son Eric God rest his soul was a terrific ball player when he was coming up thru our community/local school system. So naturally our conversation turned to things like what positions his son prefers, parent rolls, team politics, costs, the pro's and con's of playing on a travel team and coaches.

At one point during the conversation when we were discussing coaches I mentioned that one of Eric's former coaches really didn't do anything for me since he was lacked personality.  It was not my intention to attack "the man" it was "the coaches abilities" I had questions about. Coaches need to know how to communicate and to inspire, coaches need to know their sport, they need to be disciplined. This man lacked these qualities which made him ineffective as a coach. 

At this point I should have remembered what the former owners of this house told me years ago...." most everyone in the south is related so be careful what you say."

Wanna guess what happened next right?

The repairman said. "That coach is my wife's cousin!"

Help! I have a foot in my mouth.....

Then to my relief with a lopsided grin he added "He's not my idea of a coach either!"

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my trip to D.C with the family

Our trip to DC was great, the drive is just under three hours so it really is a good trip to do for us. Just close enough but not to much of a hassle if you time the traffic right to get there without thinking your driving in a parking lot.

Me, my husband, our son and my mom borrowed our daughter's mini van and with Bill at the wheel we  headed up for a few days to meet my brother and niece and do some sight seeing. 

Matthew works five days on and five days off at his job, he's having a little snooze after working some very long 12 hour tours.

My mother is reading a text message! I believe it was my brother calling me old but saying it was my niece writing the texts. You know why? He's older of course!

I know I should have did my roots but instead of making excused of why I'm so grey; I'll tell you the back story of why my brother Paul and my Goddaughter Amanda who live in Hawaii were going to DC. Actually they started their trip in New York visiting with my brother Gerard and my sister in law Denise and kiddies, Syd, Gerard and Alex. Then they popped on an Amtrak to DC for the second half of their trip for a little sight seeing before heading to Virginia for a visit with Mom and us.

We arrived at the hotel within twenty minutes of them and went directly to the nearest Irish Pub, sorry no pictures of that my camera batteries were dead that minute and my replacements were around the corner in the hotel. God bless my brother who spotted the Pub on his two block walk from Union Station to the Washington Court Hotel where we stayed.

Yeh!  My niece Amanda  had this picture of the Pub door on her camera! I'm so happy to be able to add this to my post.

The hotel was very nice by the way, clean and reasonably priced. Our only problem was and how can I put this delicately, the walls were "thin" either that or the ladies in the next room lets just call them Mona were very uninhibited, morning, noon and night; bless their hearts!

So then to get off to sight seeing, Mom begged off since being pushed around DC in a wheel chair was just not her cup of tea we headed off in the direction of the Smithsonian's with our hearts set on the American History one. This is us in front of it, actually this picture shows the building across the street.

In the Presidents section of the museum they had these cool street signs the glowed against the dark back round when I took this picture I thought this might be a nice desk top background if you were a president freak or a road sign enthusiast.

Then we were off and walking after they kicked us out of the museum at 5:30. And the next day there was more walking and some driving in the van.... this is what we saw.

This is the Achieves, the building is so huge, much like everything in DC that from the sidewalk this was all that would fit in the picture frame of my digital camera, there are tons of stairs and a whole lot more building missing from the picture, the building is incredible.

Paul and Matthew dwarfed by the rotunda of the Capital Building...looks so huge doesn't it?

Here's Matthew and Amanda, I see the family resemblance don't you?

Me and my brother Paul hanging near the Washington Monument;  I didn't notice any cracks or tilting.

We wanted to get some pictures of the Washington Monument, just in case. With all the news of cracks and repairs...well you never know!

My brother was very impressed with the grass in DC, he dubbed it the "big grass". I guess living on a small island such as Oahu, most everything looks big here. My husband mows tons of grass weekly...not so impressed *giggle*

I grabbed this picture from one block over and you can just see parts of the White House peeking up threw the trees. 

My brother Paul and Amanda on the grass  with the Washington Monument in the background.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial you can see the reflecting pool is getting a make over. It struck me how large it really is when the huge machines that were excavating it appeared to look more like Tonka toys from above!

And good ole President Lincoln, looking so majestic overseeing all that construction and all the throngs of tourists, he really is a beautiful monument.

And don't think Mom sat in the hotel the whole time, we did get her out and about...

Even at 83 a woman's gotta eat so we put Mom on the Metro, see Matthew was her driver and we all went down to Chinatown for dinner. We had a great meal there. Actually it should be mentioned DC is a very handicapped friendly city the corners have ramps and the metro stations have elevators so we didn't have to much of a problem navigating her around other than we were unfamiliar with the location of the elevators.

So anyway Mom's meal was spectacular, she ordered steamed oysters in black bean sauce WOW was it a sight! And this time I did have my camera.

There was a lot more to see but alas not enough time, back to the house for us there was a large TV and a baseball world series game that needed to be seen. The next day my daughter and family are coming so there's another post needing to be written. There's food, birthday cake, and a hike on my property and some awesome photography by my grandson Xavier that needs to be shared.

Until then.....

my son and baseball - I remember

I was watching the Brewers-Cardinals playoff baseball game last night and when the umpire got hit by a pitch, when a memory washed over me. This happens sometimes after you loose a child a memory from a time when life was sweet and times were just perfect, sometimes these memories just need to be shared.

Eric started playing baseball when he was about nine with all of his buddies from our community. When he was about eleven or so he became a pitcher. He was quite good at it too and that's just not his mother talking. He pitched on local teams- at all age groups, JV & Varsity, AAU,and American Legion and a bunch of others I can't even remember the names but the point is he loved it.

We spent many many years traveling around our state going from tournament to tournament with the teams he played on. Eating dinner at ten or eleven at night staying in hotels, we have many cherished memories of our time with our son and our baseball family.

At one particular game Eric was pitching and he threw an off speed pitch into the plate, the ball bounced up and clipped the umpire in the chin. Somehow the ball slipped under the mask and being that pitchers can be wild as teenagers and catchers can't catch everything, that poor umpire went down like a ton of bricks.

The noisy ball park went silent as we all watched as the umpire laid flat on his back un-moving the catcher leaning over him.  You could have hear a pin drop and I watched my son on the pitchers mound freeze for a moment. Then as if in slow motion he headed in the direction of home plate concern etched all over his face. All of us holding our breaths with eye's still glued to the umpire splayed on the ground we heard through the deafening silence these words  in a cracking voice "THAT was a BALL."