Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Nuts And Weenies

When I was working, I scavenged my breakfasts and lunches myself, and Dave took care of everything else. I ate exactly the same thing for breakfast and lunch because thinking irks me. On my days off I'd skip breakfast (too fussy) and have a peanut-butter sandwich for lunch (folded over, to save the hassle of precise bread-to-bread placement). Then the big dinner fairy showed up with a heaped plate of eighteen different vegetables, a slab of perfectly-cooked meat of some kind and all the food groups abundantly represented, including butter, salt and alcohol. We never get sick. All the vitamins are bound to be in there somewhere.

If Dave gets hungry of an afternoon, he might call out, "you want a little nosh?" and I'll say, sure. A little something would be nice. Then ten minutes later out he comes with a plate of sliced apples, an orange, salami-cream-cheese-chili-pepper rollups, olives, crackers and cheese, with a spray of celery and carrots hanging off the side, all arranged so attractively that Druids could use it to line up the equinox. The man's a whiz. Also, he doesn't want to eat the same thing twice.

That whole variety thing goes to pieces during the World Series. For however many days it takes, we eat salted peanuts in the shell, Crackerjacks, hot dogs and beer. I really understand the game, having been well coached in softball. You can learn a lot from the end of the bench. In fact, you will not find anyone with my particular dearth of skills who understands this game any better than I do. I love it. Not enough to watch it all season, though. Every year there is some upstart team that I've never heard of that makes a run at the pennant. By the time I start paying attention, it will be down to something like New York versus the Amarillo Crabwhackers. Amarillo Crabwhackers? I'll say, and Dave says, sure, they used to be the Minot Wheatwatchers. Oh.

I'm a Red Sox fan. I lived in Boston during the '75 World Series, when Carlton Fisk waved his hit fair and hopped up and down and clapped all the way around the bases. I've even done a remodeling job on my memory so that I was there at Fenway watching, although I was really in Somerville in front of the TV, but you could hear the whole town roar at once. They didn't win that year, of course. There's a pain associated with being a Red Sox fan that is almost exquisite, a beautiful ache. It's a concrete shoe for the heart. Victorians used to think there was something pale and sexy about tuberculosis sufferers, and I feel the same way about Boston fans. Yankee fans do not have the emotional stamina to withstand what a Boston fan can withstand. Staying with the tuberculosis-victim analogy, Yankees fans are, um, rich fancy boys who will not die.

October 26, 2010
The Red Sox messed up a few years ago when they accidentally won the whole thing, which wasn't nearly as thrilling as getting into that series at all by coming back from 0-3 and beating the Yankees for four straight games. Since then there hasn't been much to interfere with the purity of our suffering. This year the Texas Rangers humiliated the Yankees to get in the series, and they'll be meeting San Francisco. I don't care who wins as long as the Yankees didn't. We've got the giant bag of peanuts ready to go.

But this year the diet got screwed up early. About five minutes before winter, we got our first ripe tomato of the year, in October. That's it: fifteen tomatoes all season, and we've put them to their highest and best use. That means we've already had BLTs every night for a couple weeks. When we run out of Ts, the Series will start. In deference to our age, we've reined in the menu by eliminating Crackerjacks. So it's just peanuts and hot dogs and beer from Oct. 27 for about a week. I've got a massive case of diarrhea penciled in for the 29th through Election Day. I don't care who wins, but my lower GI tract hopes they can do it in four games.

31 comments:

  1. I'm a Tigers girl myself, but my second favorite team is whoever is playing the Yankers.

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  2. Sometimes I wonder where your brain comes up with those lines, like "a remodeling job on my memory," or "a concrete shoe for the heart." It amazes me, makes me smile, and puts a spring in my step for the whole day!

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  3. First snow of the year, here in Minnie, I'm reading your funny stuff, and the world feels really good. Thank you.

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  4. Hey, I was a Bo' Sox fan for years too...until the Blue Jays came on the scene. Being just down the road and all, I had a national obligation to cheer for them for a year or two. Now I'm older and just don't care...it's just the sound of the game, the occasional beautiful play, no matter who makes it. Yep, as long as it isn't the Yankees. And I only watch the World Serious too, for all the same reasons. But I have to say, I'm liking that young Lincecum and his swoopy slider!

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  5. I want that chair. Insanely covetous of that chair, that's me.

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  6. Great Wordsmithing as always. Thanks so much!

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  7. pale and interesting, like poor Keats! :-) wonderful.

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  8. In my far-distant youth, my home town had a home team. It was called "The Senators." I even recall going to some of their games, at stadiums that no longer exist, until the team also ceased to exist. Now we have a team called "The Nationals," who have a new stadium, but it's just not the same...The only thing that hasn't changed is that I will NEVER be a Yankees fan! Maybe it's because my parents were fond of musicals, and I was exposed to "Damn Yankees" at a fairly young age. Somehow, the message stuck with this budding Senators fan! Elaine

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  9. Oh man, all this baseball talk has me nostalgic. I went to the first two world series games in '88, Dodgers v. A's in Los Angeles. This was the one where Curt Gibson had been benched because of his ankle (I think his ankle), and last inning, he came up to bat and smashed the final home run that led the Dodgers to victory. He limped around the bases, and it was THE COOLEST thing I'd ever seen.

    But now I'm hungry for a BLT.

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  10. Hey, if we vote for the basketball player for Oregon governor, will we all get free tickets to the Blazers? Holding my ballot until I find out.

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  11. Hmmmmm...upon seeing the title, and given the approaching, laughable mid-term elections, I thought I would be reading a political post. Imagine my surprise. In my book, peanuts, hot dogs and beer are three of the four food groups. All you need is condiments, and you're nutritionally complete.

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  12. Murr, if thinking irks you, where the heck do these blog posts come from? The vapours?

    BTW, my favorite veggie cookbook, Too Many Tomatoes . . . , says, "Some aficionados grow tomatoes just to have the green ones. . . .," a good thing this year in the Pacific Northwest. They feature "Fried Green Tomatoes," with ONLY 1/2-inch sliced green tomatoes dredged in sugar and flour, cooled in fridge, and fried in butter; and my fav, "Gurried Green Tomatoes," I mean "Curried." Think sauted onion, curry powder, S & P, and sliced green tomatoes, fried up in a savory batch. Easy and good.

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  13. I agree with everyone about your fabulous wordsmithing, yet again (loved "of an afternoon"). Whatever mental muscles I use when I'm impressed are REALLY getting fatigued with you!

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  14. A Red Sox fan, eh? I knew you were special. I became one as a consequence of my two years at BU, and lived through the failed 86 World Series and the Buckner wobble. For a newbie that was a killer to endure. Such depression on the T the morning after the Mets took it. "Just...wait...till....next...year..." the subway driver invoked over the intercom as we pulled into Government Center. Nearly 20 next-years later I watch the Sox clinch the win from an Irish Pub in central Mexico -- how aprospo.

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  15. I am a Red Sox fan only by virtue of Boston being the first place I visited in the US. Your food diet sounds like mine when the Six Nations rugby or the rugby world cup is on. And they have lovely legs.

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  16. I got hung up on the fact that your husband cooks! Great, healthy meals.
    Where did you meet him, does he have brothers, are they single by any chance? And I know this is a downer, but I don't watch sports. I'm either involved or not, and if I'm not doing it, I'm not watching someone else do it either.

    So that is a deal-breaker with a lot of guys, and so I leave you to your chair, your week of living vicariously, and wait for your next blog.

    I guess I'll go fold a peatnutbutter sandwich in half, while I wait.

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  17. wow, i just love the food, i eat alot.. hehehe.. but right now am having a problem with my health. But God will help...

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  18. I hate baseball, and almost all ball sports mystify me, but secretly I want to be able to understand. I'd love to join in when people are talking about ball games and be able to come up with witty quips about different teams and their chances this year. But I can't do this, so I just fidget and look uncomfortable when other people talk the sports talk. It's as bad in the U.K. as it was in the U.S. -- different sports, but the same passion. And all of it elusive to a sports idiot like me.

    But that chair looks great. And I seriously covet those boot-slippers.

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  19. I'm sort of wondering where one gets a Dave. I can only imagine having such a wizard around during curling watching season!

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  20. My SF Giants are up 2 games. I would love to see two more and then back to eating well. I'm sick of pizza and hot dogs and beer! Dave sounds astounding! Do you rent him out ever?

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  21. Due to the number of requests, I'm looking into pricing for Dave. I'll get back to you.

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  22. Oh, yeah... I can see Dave getting the big bucks in the Rent-A-Hubby trade. I'm so easy. That's really all I want. Bring me a well-balanced meal. While football players get all the attention for their "tight ends," I prefer the really hot forearms of the baseball players. Really couldn't care less about the game though, but since I'm from SF, Go Giants@

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  23. Just popping back in to wonder if anyone let Texas know there is a World Serious going on because they don't seem to have shown up yet...not that I'm cheering for them.

    And to say that I completely agree with Madame DeFarge about rugby players.

    Also, don't need a Dave but do admire yours. That man o' mine also cooks (and lets me watch baseball when he'd rather watch hockey). Good stuff!

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  24. Oh yes, Fragrant, that series with Kurt Gibson smashing a grand slam and pumping his fist while lurching around the base path with a broken ankle--I believe I had to be a Dodgers fan then, since the Red Sox were in the toilet as usual.

    And Barbara Breuderlin--were you around for my curling post?

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  25. Okay, I am told it was KIRK Gibson, and it was a two-run homer, but he was wounded and sick and handsome as hell, so that's what matters.

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  26. Confession time: I just look at their nicely positioned butts when they're waving the bat around getting ready to smack the ball. It is as close to having a mating display as humans get. One of my favorite things in life is watching Bill scuff his feet in the dust, wind up and then clang the ball against the chain link fence in church softball league.

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  27. Oh yes, Fragrant, that series with Kurt Gibson smashing a grand slam and pumping his fist while lurching around the base path with a broken ankle--I believe I had to be a Dodgers fan then, since the Red Sox were in the toilet as usual.

    And Barbara Breuderlin--were you around for my curling post?

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  28. Just popping back in to wonder if anyone let Texas know there is a World Serious going on because they don't seem to have shown up yet...not that I'm cheering for them.

    And to say that I completely agree with Madame DeFarge about rugby players.

    Also, don't need a Dave but do admire yours. That man o' mine also cooks (and lets me watch baseball when he'd rather watch hockey). Good stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Murr, if thinking irks you, where the heck do these blog posts come from? The vapours?

    BTW, my favorite veggie cookbook, Too Many Tomatoes . . . , says, "Some aficionados grow tomatoes just to have the green ones. . . .," a good thing this year in the Pacific Northwest. They feature "Fried Green Tomatoes," with ONLY 1/2-inch sliced green tomatoes dredged in sugar and flour, cooled in fridge, and fried in butter; and my fav, "Gurried Green Tomatoes," I mean "Curried." Think sauted onion, curry powder, S & P, and sliced green tomatoes, fried up in a savory batch. Easy and good.

    ReplyDelete
  30. In my far-distant youth, my home town had a home team. It was called "The Senators." I even recall going to some of their games, at stadiums that no longer exist, until the team also ceased to exist. Now we have a team called "The Nationals," who have a new stadium, but it's just not the same...The only thing that hasn't changed is that I will NEVER be a Yankees fan! Maybe it's because my parents were fond of musicals, and I was exposed to "Damn Yankees" at a fairly young age. Somehow, the message stuck with this budding Senators fan! Elaine

    ReplyDelete