It could just be my social awkwardness, OR it could be that this is a problem for all of civilized mankind.

When having a conversation over food, what is the proper thing to do when right after you put a bite in your mouth someone asks you a question?  Usually, my method is to chew until I have a manageable load in my mouth (WOW, what an innuendo!), then push it to one side and respond.  But even so, there’s always an awkward delay in the response.  I usually smile and point to my mouth like an idiot, hoping the other person realizes what has just happened.

My good luck tricks seemed to have worked once more for the Yankees—i.e. last night during the second Yankees-Angels game, I posted my elephant baseball picture AND, at a certain critical juncture, stopped watching.   (See earlier post re good luck “Talismans” and my personal effect on Yankees’ baseball.)

I won’t take all the credit for the victory—there was also Jeter, Cano, and Mariano, Jerry Hairston, Jr., A-Rod, and Damon (who made some really terrific catches), Melky Cabrera, Phil Coke, and Joba (who still seems a little pudgy boy to me especially when he celebrates), and Molina, who had a really hard job as catcher for A.J. Burnett, who also, as starter, deserves some credit, despite the way in which his wild pitches can drive a fan crazy.  (The frustration he causes is frankly not completely redeemed by the whipped cream pies.)

Then, there was just the Yankee grit, that somehow, so frequently, manages to just hang on and on and on.

Watching the videos of the end of the game this morning made me think (yes, it’s a cliché) of baseball as a paradigm of life.  Yes, again, yes, it’s a cliché.  Still, it seems somehow a more appropriate paradigm than a lot of other big sports.  (Which I have to confess don’t interest me enough to know much about them.  Still, I hate to think of any sports in which (i) people are repeatedly tackled and concussed, or (ii) forced to chase around constantly with little chance of achieving many goals, as better paradigms.)
What is unusual about baseball is simply how fast everything moves when it does, finally, move at all.   The replays of the last moments of last night’s October 17^th game against the Angels are particularly striking.  On the Yankees’ site, they show footage taken from nearly every angle, even one that simply shows Cabrera running, relatively quickly for a big guy, to first.

In case, you didn’t follow the game, in the thirteenth inning, with a man on first and second, Yankee Melky Cabrera hit a ball that bounced between first and second.  The Angels’ second baseman, Maicer Izturis, stopped the ball, then, trying for a double play, threw it hard and fast to Angels’ short stop Erik Aybar, who stood at second, and who frankly seems like a really a surly, cocky sort of guy (if you are a Yankee’s fan), who missed it.  The Angel’s third baseman, Chone Figgins, stopped Izturis’s throw, but bobbled the ball.  In the meantime, Hairston Jr., who’d been holding on third before Izturis’s error, dashed towards home. Hairston was immediately overrun by the rest of the Yankees’ team and quickly assumed a fetal position on the ground as they all energetically patted him.

The long and short of that detailed explanation is simply that, although it takes a long time to write it all down, the play actually happened in an incredibly short period of time:  boom (Cabrera connected with the ball), boom (Iztura stopped and immediately threw it), boom (it slid below Aymer’s glove), boom (Figgins bobbled it), boom (Hairston slid into home).  When the footage that just focuses on Cabrera is shown, you see from the way that he turns, delighted, that the run has already been scored even as he makes it to first base.

The speed of it all is especially amazing because most of baseball is so slow.  The pitcher stands and postures, eyes narrowing and re-narrowing, with little shakes or nods of the head to the catcher, the batter (if Jeter especially), re-tightens his gloves (two or three or four times), re-squares his shoulders, gently sways the bat,  everyone constantly repositions their stances (usually spitting or blowing a bubble at the same time in a sort of homage to old-time multi-tasking).  Everyone, pitcher, batter, catcher, batter, in and out fielders, both wait and prepares.  Even the audience waits, though it doesn’t prepare so much as eats and drinks, crosses its fingers and yells. So much waiting, so much preparation, so much eating and drinking, finger-crossing  and yelling.  And then, boom, boom, boom, boom.  The moment arrives and players are suddenly expect to act, react, not just to make decisions, but to carry them out – boom boom boom.

Okay, you get it.  This is where the paradigm part comes in. There are obvious parallels to situations in the marketplace–buying and selling on the stock market, buying and selling anything, anywhere.  And also to moving around a potentially dangerous world–driving a car, for example,  especially in, or around, an accident.  The way action unfolds in baseball parallels many emergency situations actually; an emergency, a threat, that can also turn into an opportunity (i.e. the near double-play that becomes a winning score for the opposite side.)

So many parallels:  the need to be able to act even in the midst of a mouthful! The need to keep a mouthful going in order to be able to act!  The blink factor!  Or, maybe it’s the not-blinking factor!  The waiting, the planning, the practice, and then the OMG moment, which never takes exactly the shape anticipated, and frequently involves both a solo effort AND team work, and if not exactly team work, at least the avoidance of collision.  (A-Rod and Mariano were a great example of that in the tenth inning when they both ran towards a flying bunt, which was then caught by Mariano.)

Ah, Mariano….

First, here are the answers to last Monday’s Quiz (August 24), “Breast Quotations…or That’s Saying a Mouthful!” :
1. Trystyn Underwood
2. Jan King
3. Rodney Dangerfield
4. Sally Struthers
5. William Congreve
6. Claire Sargent
7. Phyllis Diller
8. Ana Gasteyer
9. Linda Ellerbee
10. Penn Jillette

And now here is this week’s quiz “Garbage Truck is a Collective Noun” in honor of  New York City’s testing several new environmentally friendly garbage trucks:

1. According to EarthWorks Group’s The Recycler’s Handbook, in 1990, Americans bought about 62 million newspapers and threw out about 44 million of them. If just half of Americans’ newsprint was recycled every year, how many fewer garbage trucks would America need to collect its trash?
32
320
3,200
32,000
320,000

2. According to the Indiana Department of Education’s Waste Reduction Guide, in 1992 the United States threw away enough garbage every day to fill 63,000 garbage trucks hold 7 to 14 tons of trash. Annually, that would fill up enough garbage trucks to form a line that would reach how far?
From Earth halfway to the moon
From earth to Mars
From Earth to the moon
From Earth to the moon and back
From Earth to Venus

3. By 1915, what percentage of all major United States cities had municipal garbage collection service?
9%
34%
52%
70%
89%

4. Which of these is NOT a type of garbage truck system?
Bottom loader
Front loader
Pneumatic collection
Rear loader
Side loader

5. In what year did the Garwood Load Packer employ a garbage compactor in the truck via hydraulic presses that could then double the trash capacity of a garbage truck?
1918
1928
1938
1948
1958

6. Who invented the system by which wheeled garbage containers called “dumpsters” would be mechanically dumped into the garbage truck?
Barney Compost
Charles Lutter
Frederick Ashcan
George Dempster
Millard Rastebin

7. According to the Wall Street Journal, in Tainan, residents bring out their garbage to be collected only when they hear the music that blares from the speakers of the garbage trucks as they make their rounds. The government has started using  those loudspeakers on the trucks to teach the  people English phrases. What country is Tainan in?
China
Japan
South Korea
Taiwan
Viet Nam

8. What is the name of the British design (later called Rotopress) in which the garbage truck uses a huge rotating drum, much like a cement mixer truck, along with a serrated rotating helical shaft for boring into the garbage and grinding down and compacting it?
Corkscrew
Dibble
Jackhammer
Mangler
Shark

9. What percentage of garbage trucks in the United States are over 10 years old?
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%

10. How many miles does the average U.S. garbage truck travel in a year?
5,000 miles
25,000 miles
55,000 miles
77,000 miles
105,000 miles

11. Using about 8,600 gallons of fuel each year, what is the gas mileage of the average United States garbage truck?
*less than 3 miles per gallon
6-10 miles per gallon
11-15 miles per gallon
16-20 miles per gallon
21-25 miles per gallon

12. How many garbage collection, garbage transfer, and recycling vehicles are in the United States today?
9,000
79,000
179,000
379,000
709,000

13. 91% of all the garbage trucks in the United States are diesel-fueled, emitting large quantities of gases, fine particulates, and dozens of toxic contaminants. They generate noise levels high enough to cause “serious hearing damage.” The average diesel garbage truck costs over $170,000 and since it is not retired for about 12 years, tends to perhaps not run as efficiently. Cleaner fuels along with quieter noise technology would greatly improve this important function to society. There are 700 natural gas garbage trucks operating in the U.S. using either liquid natural gas or compressed natural gas. Natural gas trucks help reduce dependence on foreign oil and help make progress toward hydrogen fuel cell technology, a sustainable, pollution-free, renewable fuel and power source. How much cleaner and quieter are natural gas trucks than diesel trucks?
30%
45%
60%
75%
90%

The answers will appear next Monday, but if you just can’t wait til next week, you can find the answers here:
http://www.sploofus.com/triviaquiz/garbage_truck_is_a_collective_noun.html

It’s a great trivia web site, and if you join up please mention my user name “billkozy” as a referral, so that I get lots of points worth no money whatsoever. Just bragging rights I guess.

6/17/09

We sat in Dairy Queen
eating mouthfuls of our treats.
(Mine happened to be a Oreo Fudge Earthquake,
well something like that.
Yes I know, very fattening,
but I made sure to share with the rest of my siblings.)
He came and sat at the table next to us.
Big blue eyes with those long lashes
and those adorable chubby cheeks.
Blond hair and smiling.
I smiled back at him and he looked at back at all of us.
Four kids and two adults,
oh so many people.

We just sat there and smiled at each other for a while,
until my mother asked how old this cutie was.
The proud mom told us about two years old.
We then smiled some more.
His eyes big, staring in amazement.

It was soon time to leave Dairy Queen.
My stomach full,
I felt like an idiot smiling at this little boy,
but I kept grinning.
We stood up to leave and the little boy spoke,
“Bye kids.”
He made my day.

why are so many opera singers big and fat? does it help their singing or is it a coincidence? I don’t know if it helps with the singing or whether it has to do with keeping one’s mouth open for too long that it leads to the habit of taking big mouthfuls. I can see though how a big fat tummy can develop if diet can’t be controlled. perhaps an unintended consequence of opera singing?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

How do I say this without you telling me that I should’ve told you?

I guess it’s late now and being not in the best of moods, I only have you to talk to.

It’s frustrating and it has been frustrating again tonight. At times, it worries me to death but I still can’t find the heart to yell at you because I know you’ve had a long day.

But if we are to share a life, a future, a family, perhaps you could give me a hand or at least try.

If it slips your mind, I hope you remember. If you fall into a deep sleep, I hope you’ll remember enough to wake up. Or at least make sure that you do something to prevent it from happening again.

So many times I’ve tried to reach you to talk to you but like the others, I’m forced to wonder why you never answer on the first, second, third call and so forth.

Silent mode. In a meeting. Nature calls. Battery’s dead. We’ve all been there done that. And yet, there is no one I’ve had the honour of being close to who gives as many excuses as you do. Heck, they aren’t even excuses. They have become a norm.

And frankly, it has gotten worse. How can I foresee it ever minimising really? At work, at play, at home, in the car, not in the car…the list is piling up.

It’s difficult to bear, when others start calling me to try and reach you. How am I to tell them that even I don’t have the privilege to get a hold of you?

And as always, I have a fear that your irresponsibility or plain indifference will come at a time when there’s no turning back. If ever anything happens and a split second makes all the difference, please remember that you can’t turn back time. There are no what ifs, as I’ve painfully learned.

There’s only one chance to live. One opportunity, to make sure everything goes right the first and last time around.

I believe that if this keeps going on, soon I won’t feel like calling you anymore.

Like a lover who shouts over the cliff. Hearing no echo, she is forced to swallow her tears and leave in silence. What of this wedding, she may ask?

What of this love, that forgets to reply?

What of this trust, that fails to pacify?

Can you honestly think it’s okay to go on like this? Can you honestly think that waiting is okay if I really loved you?

If you do, then make me wait.

Make me wait like you always do.

Make the world wait, if you can.

For time and tide waits for you.

The games and the computers, they’ll wait for you.

The 24hour mamaks, they’ll wait for you.

The one hour RM2.00 plugs, they’ll wait for you.

The alarm clocks that scream and yell, they’ll wait for you.

Everything will wait, as it should.

But I’ve had enough.

Night passes like day it shines, like night it sleeps.

Voices tuck in, songs silently cry in vain and dies. Nobody here but the souls of those who wait. It’s a new year for God’s sake and still we’re here.

Just a minute ago, I bumped into one that chose to hide. Sadly though, as I would’ve tried to make her feel better. If anything went wrong that is. But life says that even if you listen, others may not choose to speak. And so I wish her all the best, come what may, God bless.

It’s almost 2 and I’m recalling those words.

I’ve not been fair to you, he said.

Indeed you have not. Perhaps a real fight can only come from within. Never expect others to save you from what you can control. I often wonder, what power do I possess? Am I big enough, or am I still as small as I see myself?

What of this lost soul beside me, does he feel as small? It’s wrong to judge and yet my instincts tell me what I shouldn’t see. I can’t think I’m smarter, I can’t think I’m good. But somehow, hearing those blasting signal fire echo from below, and it’s 2am now (I mean who plays games at 2am instead of going home to his wife when work’s already done?), I certainly feel that something’s amiss.

Will I grow into something more, or do I only belong among the mediocre? That’s the question I have been asking myself for quite a while now. I never meant to give you any pressure. I don’t think I’ll be good enough for a housewife even. I’d love to work for as long as I can so I won’t wither away and die.

But it sometimes gets too much to bear when my obsession with details somehow makes people think that I should be left to tie up the loose ends.

Even if I’m constantly using whatever little intelligence I have left, will it only walk as far within the Vatican city but never beyond? That, is quite worrying.

I do look forward to any break that I can get now so that I can finally do some wife-to-be stuff. Plus, I hope I’m not putting my health on hold as too much work meant that my overdue medical check up has now expired.

Sometimes, I want to say a lot, but don’t feel like saying anything. Too tired, to even utter a word.

Please stop changing your mind. Give me back my weekends please. Please?