Day: September 30, 2013

Obligatory weekend notes.

I was finally back on the road for high school football Friday night. The game itself aside, it was kind of a mess. Thanks to a big construction project on the highways here in Indy, a drive that normally takes an hour, or just over, on a Friday night took 95 minutes. I rolled into the stadium with 7:00 left before kickoff. Fortunately, this school saves a seat for us so I had a spot in the press box. After the game, which the home team won handily, I spoke to their new coach, who is a great guy. When I got to my car and pushed play on my recorder,¹ 3:30 or so of the roughly four minutes we talked was complete silence. And since I asked the questions I thought were most important for my story up front, the quotes I planned on building my story around were gone. So what should have been a good story about a nice win ended up being kind of shitty. Not the funnest of nights.

S. was on-call this weekend, meaning she rounded on kids in the mornings. I got to sleep in just a little both days and by the time I was up, the girls were already up and playing. They’re in that collective phase now where they can go long stretches where they play great together, then go through a period where every 30 seconds someone is complaining, whining, or arguing about something another sister is doing. Both mornings we had more of the latter than the former. I have a hard time starting my days that way. It tends to make me short-tempered for the rest of the day. So a lot of Saturday and Sunday involved me angrily asking the girls questions like “How many times do I have to ask you not to do something before you listen to me?”

I’ve found the best way for me to deal with these mood swings is to avoid the girls, which makes me feel guilty about ignoring them. I’m reading a philosophy-type book now and just happened to come across a chapter last night about various styles of parenting. I realized that no matter what you do as a parent, you’re going to second-guess yourself and worry that something you did when you were angry, tired, distracted, or just not as attentive as your kids wanted you to be in that moment will somehow scar them for life.

I keep reminding myself that we, mostly, have the big things right. We’re around our kids, directing them towards positive activities, keeping them clothed and fed and clean, and making sure they take advantage of their educational opportunities. On the days when parenting is a chore, I think it’s useful to give myself these reminders. No one can be perfect. Just make sure that you’re doing enough positive to balance the weaker moments.

Colts win easily, which was good. You can’t take too much out of a game against Jacksonville, who are truly awful. But that is a team that beat the Colts in Indy a year ago, and for some reason has always given them fits, whether the Jaguars were good or bad. Large game this week against Seattle. I think that will be a bigger test of where the Colts are at than the San Francisco game.

I just checked Stubhub and the most expensive tickets for the Colts-Broncos game on Oct. 20 are sitting at just under $13,000. And those aren’t even great seats. I imagine that price is going to keep going up as long as the Broncos keep making a mockery of the game.

That game is going to be massive. Don’t think there’s not going to be some serious angst here in Indy in the week leading up to it. Hell, in a ten-minute trip to the grocery store last night, I already heard several angsty calls on a local post-game show. It’s not that people here are second guessing the decision to jettison Peyton. While there are some die hards doing just that, most people here are smart enough to understand just because he’s doing this in Denver does not mean he would be doing the same thing here, with a younger team and a less-stout offensive line. No, where the angst will come from is “Can we want the Colts to win and still cheer for Peyton?” Sports force us into us-or-them boxes, and I think people here are having a really hard time seeing Peyton as the bad guy, even if only for one night.

Baseball playoff predictions to come tomorrow, after tonight’s play-in game. I think we should call this a Super Wild Card game. Then, if Cleveland had lost yesterday, turning it into a three-way-tie for the final spot, we could call the double play in games Super Duper Wild Cards!