A few of my KC friends asked how the kickball thing was going. Well, it’s going, that’s for sure! Since this isn’t an entirely private site, I’ll share only some of what has filled the last month or so for me.
As coordinator, my job is to make sure we get everyone registered by the deadline,[1] recruit coaches, put the teams together, order and distribute uniforms and equipment, communicate with the CYO office about when our teams can/can not play games, sort and approve practice time requests, making sure all participants have all their healthcare paperwork submitted, and put out any fires that develop along the way.
Once, summer trips to Kansas City were the norm for me. Just about every summer I would sneak away for a weekend that, famously, included the four B’s: baseball, Boulevard beer, barbecue, and buddies.[1] But as the girls got a little older, it became more difficult to get away. Buying a lake house where we spent most of our summer weekends added another layer of difficulty to making that trip during school vacation.
A quick run through the books I read last month.
Arcadia - Lauren Groff. I really wanted to like this book. It received great acclaim in 2012 when it was published, so it’s been on my To Read list for ages. Unfortunately, Groff’s writing style just didn’t connect with me.
The book mostly takes place on a hippie commune in upstate New York, from the early 1970s through the 1980s, then jumps ahead to the near future.
What up, fools?!?! It’s that time! Time for an epic Olympic notebook unloading!
Not the most timely first edition this year, as I’m waiting nine full days into the games to get to this. So we’ll race through some of the things I jotted down 6–9 days ago that aren’t exactly fresh.
Opening Ceremonies. Watching these things with kids is kind of the best. Because Olympics opening ceremonies are always wacky, and lend themselves to tons of questions.
Summer is done. At least the school vacation part, that is. The girls went back to school this morning. They were excited to see their friends, find their school supplies on their desks, and get back into their routines, I think. There certainly wasn’t any grumpiness this morning. I bet that changes early next week. Sixth, fourth, and second grades this year. Good times.
School Shoes So how was the summer of 2016?
This will be a week of catch up. Before I begin diving into all the things that I’m behind on, first a confirmation that yes, I am keeping some casual notes as I watch the Olympics. There will be Olympics posts over the next couple weeks!1
But now let’s knock out the first, and biggest, piece of catch up: the camps and birthday of two weeks ago.
As you may recall, we dropped M off at summer camp three Sundays ago.
So after this month,no more VCRs will be produced. Wait, they were still making VCRs? I guess there are probably some folks out there with shelves full of movies - purchased or taped from TV, professional and personal - who were never interested in buying them all again in a digital format, or didn’t want to invest the time and effort to convert them to digital.
I know I still have some tapes stored in a cabinet in our basement.
We are deep into baseball’s silly season: the 7–10 days before the trade deadline. In the era of Twitter, fake “insiders,” who create accounts with names that look very similar to real “insiders” like Buster Olney and Tim Kirkjian, claim to break made-up deals that get the webz a buzzin’.
That made it the perfect time for this “profile” of an account set up to parody both the fake and legit writers who are peddling rumors.
It’s a weird day in our house. Today is M’s 12th birthday, but she’s not here to celebrate. We dropped her off for her first-ever week at a summer camp yesterday. So our phones, or rather her phone, will not ring with calls from relatives looking to talk to her and wish her a happy birthday. There’s no special dinner planned for tonight, or cake for dessert. Kid birthdays are supposed to be big, all-encompassing days all about them but today our house is quiet.
It’s been awhile since I wrote about the Royals. The biggest reason for that is because the last time I wrote exclusively about them, they went in the shitter for the next week. My life without superstition would be empty and meaningless.
But here we are on July 21, the trade deadline is 10 days away, and the Royals sit 47–47, nine games out of first place, six games out of the Wild Card spot.
Summer continues to fly by. We’re just three-and-a-half weeks from school beginning. Today is our annual trip an hour north to watch the girls’ cousin show his pigs at his county fair. Taking the city kids to the county fair is always fun!
Last week we watched Apollo 13. The act of watching it was nearly as epic as the flight of Apollo 13. One of the girls learned about the flight at school way back in the winter.
Well, that was a pretty good All-Star Game. I mean, it wasn’t the total Royals takeover from last year. But Ned Yost was still making the lineup and calling the shots, Kelvin Herrera had a nice 1–2–3 inning in relief, and Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez had the two biggest hits of the night. Off former Royal Johnny Cueto for added KC flavor.
It was a good, competitive game to watch that really summed up where baseball is today: the team that got to the middle of the game with the lead had an immense advantage as they rolled out one dominant reliever after another.
June Books Time for our mid-month review of last month’s books.
Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me - Steven Hyden. I’ve been waiting for this one for quite awhile. Hyden has been my favorite music writer for some time now, going back to when he wrote for the AV Club and Pitchfork. His Grantland profile of The War on Drugs before the release of their masterpiece Lost In The Dream album is the modern standard for the epic band piece.
This morning I was thinking about where we were in the summer calendar. Then I took a look and realized the girls go back to school one month from today. Yikes! So much still to do. We better get cracking.
This weekend was much better than last, at least weather-wise. Perfect lake weather during the days as we hosted our good friends the Heberts. Saturday night was clear and pleasant as we dropped anchor to watch our lake’s annual fireworks show.
Between swim practices and meets, family visiting, daily errands, and general laziness, I somehow started two posts late last week that I never got around to posting. So much for using interesting links as the jumping-off point for my own writing! We’ll get there, pop. We’ll get there.
Anyway, a couple sports notes.
KD to GS Man, color me shocked when Kevin Durant announced he was signing with Golden State on Monday.
We had big plans for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately Mother Nature got in the way.
The Fourth of July weekend is normally a family gathering time at our lake house. This year we had our family from Boston coming in, along with most of the locals. Which meant we added a one-year-old to the mix. Plus two babies. In a small house. And then it rained most of the weekend.
This is year 13 of this site.[1] That’s kind of crazy. Over the past maybe year or so I have, for the first time ever, struggled to find things to write about. It’s not because I lack time. I have plenty of that. It’s not that I don’t want to write. That’s still something I feel compelled to do at times. And since I don’t enjoy phone conversations, this site has always been my way of staying in touch with friends who are scattered about the country.
We’ve been lucky through our first two lake weekends of the summer. Excellent weather both times: hot, but not oppressive, and free from rain. Excellent company both times, kids relatively well behaved each weekend.
This past weekend was a little extra special, though. L finally went tubing.
To reset, despite being our most athletic, most daring kid, L has had issues on boats and water. It all goes back to a ride she took on a friend’s boat four years ago.
I’ve written about storms a few times in this site’s history. Here are three past examples:
Some New Action
Storm Chasing
The Lost Week
Time for another entry in one of my favorite things to write about.
It’s been awhile since we spent a night in the basement. We broke that drought last night.
For two days the weather folks had been warning of serious storms Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
The girls and I are headed down to the lake today to take care of some administrative tasks and hopefully get a swim or two in if the weather holds. Seems like the perfect day to clear out the queue of links I’ve hoarded over the past three weeks. We’ll begin with a couple older, and lengthy, pieces I held on to for our Boston trip.
To kick things off, Tom Verducci’s wonderful profile of Vin Scully.