I Didn’t Think of That

Given that last season the Boston Red Sox were a painful disappointment, and that this past off season has seen them lose their President, their manager (in one of the biggest cheating scandals in league history) and their best player (to the friggin’ Dodgers in what is effectively an embarrassingly awful preemptive salary dump), you can probably forgive me for not being fully up to date on the day to day goings on in Red Sox Nation.

It turns out that today is the day that pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training, with the first practice scheduled for tomorrow.  We don’t have a manager, and we don’t have a Mookie, but it’s still nice to know that the official kick off to the 2020 season is here.

As I was reading a headline that mentioned the big news (as opposed to yesterday’s big news about the finalizing of the trade with the friggin’ Dodgers) I was struck by a revelation.  Light dawned on Marblehead, as the saying goes…..

I am going to be in Florida during Spring Training.

Oh.  My.  God.  After 40+ years of die hard Red Sox fandom, I will, for the first time ever, be in Florida during Spring Training.  Now we’re staying at a Disney resort so we won’t be renting a car, but maybe it’s worth researching a way to see if we could day trip down to Jet Blue park and catch a game.

Then reality set in.  I live in Massachusetts.  Massachusetts is a little tiny state.  You can pretty much drive from one end to the other in a couple of hours or so.  Florida isn’t a huge state, but it’s bigger than MA.  How much bigger though?  I went to Google Maps and looked up driving directions from Disney World to Jet Blue Park.  It’s about three hours.  It’s almost, but not quite, the same distance as driving from Fenway Park to Yankees Stadium.

The dream died then and there, but not before a question drifted through my tiny brain:

How much would an Uber from Orlando to Fort Meyers cost me?

Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Spring Training Baseball Dreams Shattered.  I’ll just have to settle for hanging out with The Mouse.

Saws-All and Other Fun Topics

My foot still hurts.  It is more or less a non-issue when I’m barefoot, but it hurts like the dickens when I have shoes on.  I think I’m a little swollen, but not a lot.  It’s actually a lot better than it was last week, but it’s still an issue.  I really don’t want to go to the doctor for this, but my resolve is weakening.

I was discussing Plantar Fasciitis (hence forth to be known as Plantar Fascist-itis in honor of our nazi putz of a president) with a friend today who has had it in both feet, one after the other.  His suggestion was to just get it over with and cut the bastard off now.  I’m not that far gone, but it’s something to keep in mind (yup yup).  It actually made me think of something from a few weeks ago.  My father in law and I were in a store looking for a tool to help install our new door lock.  Right at the front door with a whole stack of potential impulse buys was a Saws-All.  I almost got it.  Why?  I don’t know.  Now looking back I think I should have picked one up.  It would be a perfect cure for my friggin’ foot.

Yuck yuck yuck.

In the immortal words of the evil doctor in Hellraiser II, “I recommend… amputation.  No anesthetic at hand… shame.”

Yuck yuck yuck.

I don’t think I’ve seen that movie since the late 80’s or early 90’s so I can’t remember for sure if those two sentences (complete with the dramatic pauses) were from the same scene or not.  Probably not.  That was the first horror movie I ever saw, and it lead to my becoming a serious Clive Barker fan.  Not just movies, but novels (stop what you’re doing and go read Weaveworld.  Right now.  I’m serious.  Do it right now) and short stories and even a couple of plays.  It was at Brian G’s house.  I can’t remember who was there exactly, but despite all of the awesome, quotable lines it had (and there were countless) the one phrase that will never leave my memory and will always come to mind as soon as I think of that movie was someone in the room saying, as the movie ended, “rewind to when Julia comes out of the mattress!”

I just took this picture while I was putting the finishing touches on our chicken and a side of quinoa dinner tonight.  I thought I’d share because… why not.

Untitled

The RPM Challenge is 11 days away.  I haven’t given it thought one.  My next gig is also 11 days away.  I have given that many thoughts, most revolving around how much practice I need.  Note: I am sitting at my desk typing this blither instead of practicing.  I had a day off work to honor a great American even though our nation is in the hands of fascist pieces of dog shit and did I practice at all?  No.  I thought about it, but I didn’t do it.  I even thought about asking the other guys if they wanted to try and sneak in a rehearsal tonight seeing as we wouldn’t have to wait for my endless evening commute.  Nope.  Nothing.  I’m still physically beat from having to deal with shoveling on top of all of the previously discussed pains.  I’m getting better.  Don’t worry.  It just sucks to be me today.  It will suck less tomorrow.

My step son, Harry had the day off from school.  This was a mom’s house weekend so he woke up here this morning.  Mondays are dad days though so I knew he’d be leaving shortly after he woke up.  I did something sneaky to try and get him to stick around and hang out with me for a little while.  I watched a Marvel movie.  He was still asleep when I started but I figured he’d wake up and watch it with me.  It was Captain America: Civil War.  Awesome freakin’ movie.  It worked, but not as well as I’d hoped.  When he finally woke up (teenagers and sleeping late, ya know?) there was only 30-40 minutes left in the movie.  He stuck around a little after it was over.  He had some breakfast and watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb because… why not?  (sing it with me, doobie doobie doobah, doobie doobie doobah, A-Gent-P!!)

Speaking of Harry, we had a seriously great moment on Saturday that I think I want to share.  My wife and my step son both have February birthdays.  My wife thought that maybe it would be fun to celebrate her birthday at Disney World.  We started making plans.  Then she decided it would be better to wait a few weeks and bring my step son with us.  We booked a room in the Yacht Club for a few days and made all the park arrangements.  We did not tell my step son.  My step daughter won’t be available due to college, and Jen has a little Canadian get away planned with her already, but we ran the plans by her just in case and she was okay with it.  On Saturday we had a mini-pre-birthday-birthday celebration for Harry.  We gave him two presents: His park ticket and his luggage tag.  He never saw it coming.  Awesome.  He says he is really excited about it, even though he’s going to be stuck down there with two old people.  He’ll adjust.  It’s going to be fun, and I can’t wait to go away and hide from reality for a week.

Here’s hoping my foot feels better by then because if not it’s Off With His Foot!

Yuck yuck yuck.