Random as I want to be

Top Ten Tuesday
I know for a lot of you it's snowing, but here by the Bay spring is in the air. On Sunday -- oh lord! -- you couldn't help but get high on great big gulps of it. While I was out on the soccer field in Berkeley it was making me giddy (despite the fact that I was developing a debilitating blister on the pad of my big toe), and I had visions of the John Muir Trail and spring training and long, sweaty bicycle rides. The Bay Area is a very-very-very good place, but yesterday it was even better. It was intoxicating.

...Speaking of intoxicating, I had a few beers at Triple Rock with a handful of high school classmates on Saturday night. I'm talking about people I hadn't seen, for the most part, in 20 years or more, so it was sort of a high school mini-reunion, and I am the kind of girl who eschews class reunions because... well, because I was never THERE like other people were there in the first place, and also because I'm the kind of girl who tries to camouflage herself into a corner of the room at parties.

But this was just a few people, and they were people I already knew I liked. No weird unresolved high school issues or secret crushes or bitter rivalries or anything, so I was looking forward to it. And then, goddamit, right before I left the house I was hit with a sudden bout of butterflies. If I were a more girly girl I imagine I would've changed my Outfit many times or Done Something with my hair or, I don't know, experimented with one of those miraculous anti-aging products advertised online, the ones that show wrinkly grandma skin “before” and porcelain college-girl skin “after.” But, shoot. I don't wear Outfits or Do Things with my hair, and it was too late even for miracles. So instead I just paced around in circles a bit before I left, whimpering about how inexplicably freaked out I was. I resolved to go, and left, and then realized I'd forgotten my wallet. Went back up the stairs, grabbed it, and then...off I went ---

--- and thank god I was right about these being people I actually liked, and it wasn't even too freaky that they were all 40-ish, and not one of them said, "Jesus Christ, sunglasses could've prevented those wrinkles!" or "How lame it is that you've never published a novel or climbed Mt. Everest or cured cancer or saved the whales!" or "Did you just say you don't have money to pay for your kids to go to college?"

And so... that was good.

One question one of my old buddies asked me was, "Is it too late to donate to the Nick Masi thing?" No no no no no! It is not too late!

The latest crappy news, as I understand it, is that Anthem is about to cut off Nick's morning occupational therapy appointments, and the State of Maine is threatening to end the coverage that handles the bulk of the medical bills that get paid. (The good news is, another old friend of Nick's is a super-lawyer and she recently heard about his plight and is going to help weed through his insurance coverage docs and appeals and denials and everything else in order to see if she can help. Hooray for Kristin B!)

But meanwhile, Nick's bills are mounting and he still hasn't been able to purchase the medical equipment he needs. Any little bit anyone can contribute is appreciated! The DONATE button, by the way, is still over in the right-hand sidebar, but the Wall of Awesomeness has moved to it's permanent home, here.

Speaking of awesome... at Saturday morning scrimmage, some boy laughed at Kai when she fell down trying to get the ball from him. She did not like that. Later that same scrimmage, a first: Kai was shoulder-to-shoulder with another kid, leaning into him and fighting for the ball. Her arm went up a little, still close to her body, and then out (a long, steady, almost-not-even-illegal push) and she fought the kid until one of them knocked the ball out of bounds. MY girl!

While we were at soccer that morning, Hugh and Caiman drove to I-dunno-where to buy a real live drum kit. And now it's all set up in Caiman's room, and when Granny was over for Sunday night dinner she said something like, "How long will you be able to stand it?" And I said, "Stand what?" because I really didn't know what she was talking about for a second, even though he ws banging away pretty ferociously, and then I said, "Oh, the drums?"

I don't mind it at all! Caiman has rhythm; he's spent enough time pounding on stuff that it actually sounds like drumming, not noise. And when he does mess up, he pauses and begins again and I feel happy that he's striving for something, the way he does with skate tricks and not much else.

Speaking of music: I discovered that an old college friend has a really great blog, mostly on music with a little bit o' movies and literature and other stuff. Darren has great taste in music, if you ask me, and he's a really good writer, and best of all he's freakin' hilarious. Which you wouldn't know from the blog, because it's not that kind of blog, but trust me. Check it out, and know that there will be a happy new link to it over on my right-hand sidebar from now on: This Is Just A Modern Rock Blog.

And speaking of freakin' hilarious... Hugh and Caiman are working on their rendition of Sellotape by FOTC. Awesome!

Jim Rice made the Hall of Fame today! He was a huge part of my team of heroes, the 1975-1979 Boston Red Sox. (He played with the Sox a lot longer than that, but it was '75-'79 that I was freakishly devoted. Then I moved to California and began my long, slow fall from grace...)

And, last but not least... I am beginning my countdown to Obama's inauguration... NOW!

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In the mood for random questions? Come on... I miss you!

1. Three things you love about spring.
2. When was the last time you had a couple of beers?
3. Have you been to any high school reunions?
4. Do you (or have you ever had) a good old-fashioned rival?
5. What's your secret plan for not getting too old too fast?
6. What childhood ambition would make you feel like a rock star?
7. It's never too late to _____________.
8. Call the foul or play on?
9. Who is your favorite drummer?
10. What's something you got good at only after trying really hard?
11. Something that made you laugh in the past 48 hours?
12. Are you watching Season 2 of Flight of the Conchords? (And if so, can we come over? We have no HBO!)
13. Did you have any heroes when you were 10? Who?
14. January 20, 2009, noon EST: where will you be?