Eye on the Ball

"Keep your eye on the ball" I said.
"I was!" he said.














I apologize for my lack of posting. This blog came out of an excess of time and mental energy. Lately I've had a lack of both time and mental energy. End of the year. New cars. Lots of stuff. Things are bound to slow down eventually and when they do, I'll have things to write about.

Citrus

For Mother's Day my wife asked me for one simple thing. She just wanted a couple of citrus trees. Orange, lemon, whatever, just plant some trees next to the apple trees. She mentioned it all through the spring, and I always waved her off. I think she thought I forgot, but I didn't. The plan was to get them as an actual Mother's Day gift, and not just sometime in the month before hand and call them a gift and then have nothing for her on actual Mother's day. I'm a romantic like that. So after the 5K last weekend we loaded up the truck and bought one orange tree and one lemon tree. They're planted safely in the yard and seem to be doing well. The orange tree even has tiny oranges growing on it. I'm not sure they'll turn into edible fruit, but we're hopeful. Both of us keep saying that the very first thing we should have done when we moved into this house was to plant fruit trees. If we did that we'd have an orchard to pick fruit from instead of tiny trees to just watch grow. Take my  advice, plant some fruit trees this spring. It's never too early and in 20 year's you'll be happy you did it.

Race Day

A lot of stuff happened last week and into the weekend. Some of it I'll try and cover this week, some of it I'll leave.
Saturday morning saw the whole group of us up early to go race. Not a car race this time, but a running race, two of them actually. My middle two kids participated in the kids mile. My son was hoping to top his third place finish of last year, but the field was stacked and it wasn't meant to be. He raced well, and finished well, and set a good time. For my younger daughter, it was her first real race. A mile. Quite a long way. She did great. A little walking but she pushed on through her difficulty and finished solidly mid pack. She was tired, but she was happy to have done so well.
My older daughter stepped up the the 5K this year, and my wife tagged along with her to help keep pace and make sure that she didn't get lost. They both ran well and finished several minutes quicker than they were expecting. My daughter now has a personal record. A number that is out there for her to beat. It's a good thing. My wife commented that it was the most enjoyable 5k that she's ever run, which means a lot coming from someone who has run as fast as she has.
On the way home we stopped and bought doughnuts. It's not something we do very often, but it somehow seemed like the right thing to do after the race. The kids are all planning their next events. My son says he's ready for the 5k. I think he wants to beat his sister. My daughter wants to actually train because she was running 5k last spring without stopping for practice. She knows that with a little more practice she can eliminate those walking breaks and take a couple of minutes off her time. Competition runs strong in my kids and it makes my wife proud. Doing good is one thing. Wanting to do better, and working for it, is something else completely.

Healthy Baby.......Raccoons

We have a compost bin out back. Well, not so much a bin as an old bathtub with a piece of plywood over it. We're classy. Anyway, something has been getting into it for a while. It's not a huge deal really. We put old food out there and something eats it. I don't really care if it's a raccoon or a possum or maggots or bacteria. As long as you don't cause trouble outside of the compost bin, we can all live in peace.
Two weeks ago I had to go out to my truck right at dusk to get something out of it and a quick glance over to the bin revealed a large raccoon holding a piece of watermelon rind. Last week somebody tipped over the garbage can and nibbled on some cupcake wrappers. Things were clearly getting out of hand and I had resolutely decided to trap and relocate our increasingly annoying friend.
Today I got home from the store and the dog was going a bit bonkers in the garage. I went to check it out thinking that she had the raccoon cornered and there was a fight brewing. She was just looking up at the high shelves in the rafters. I put the groceries away and went back to the garage to get her so she could come inside and calm down. That's when I heard it. Noises. Little squeaking chortles. Baby raccoons. At least two of them. Huge problem.
Any of you who have been reading along know what happened last year with the baby heron that fell out of it's nest. If you've been reading back farther you have heard about the raccoons and the crow and all of the other stuff that I helped raise as a kid. If I trapped the mother raccoon and was somehow left with the babies, I'd have to raise them. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't.
Clearly I cannot trap the mother raccoon now. She has to stay alive and healthy and hanging around for long enough to get the babies big enough so that I can trap them all. I need her to be a successful parent. If she fails as a parent it will be bad for my marriage. I can't let that happen.
On the shelf below the one that holds a stack of squeaking chortling tires, I have put a bowl of food. I'll fill that bowl pretty much every day for the next month. I will do everything I can to keep that mother raccoon healthy and around to care for her babies. If all goes well, I'll trap them all in a month or so and send them to live someplace more appropriate than my garage. Until then, healthy mom, healthy baby.....racoons.

Soccer Sock Trick

It's soccer season again and I thought I'd pass along a trick that we've learned over the years. Soccer socks are really really long so that you can put them on, put your shin guards on, and flop the socks over the shin guards. They're pretty cool. The hitch is that they don't really make them in small sizes. If you're four or five and have tiny feet, it's very hard to put on the socks and then cram your feet into your shoes without having some sort of wrinkle or bump or other sock irregularity that causes discomfort and whining. We've discovered that you can simply cut the foot portion of the sock off and use regular socks in your shoes while still using the top portion of the sock to cover your shin guard. Happy feet makes for happy small soccer players. As an added bonus, they make excellent arm and leg warmers and work well for all sorts of dress up.

One on One

My daughter and I had fun at the motorcycle races last weekend. The track was great and the racing was great. I missed my wife and the other three kids, but by taking only my daughter, the whole event was much more relaxing. I didn't have to yell at anyone to stop hitting, yelling, wrestling, or not being nice. I didn't have to try and watch four people at once to make sure that they weren't wandering off. I could just sit and watch the races and keep my daughter in the corner of my vision and it was good. When it was time to eat, I asked her what she wanted, she decided, and that's what we had. Nobody complained that they wanted something else. Bed time happened when she got so tired that she was falling asleep watching the TV in the hotel room. It was nice.
Probably the most fun we had all weekend centered around the fact that our hotel room was a "suite". I put that in quotes because, though technically a suite with a microwave and a fridge, the hotel was a bit of a dive and in my mind suite is usually associated with something nice. It wasn't very nice. It did have that microwave though and we put it to use.
The races for the weekend are on Sunday, and Saturday is reserved for practice sessions and qualifying. We went to the track both days, but left a bit early on Saturday to avoid some of the hot day and to not get too tired out before Sunday. This found us cruising back to town at 2:30. Too early for dinner and not wanting to go out again, we decided to hit up the grocery store for some microwave food. I bought two microwave burritos and my daughter picked out some Hot Pockets. We chose popcorn for desert. I taught her how to rip the Hot Pocket box in half and use it as a plate (college style) so there were no dishes and no clean up. We found a few TV shows and eventually Raiders of the Lost Ark and we ate popcorn and talked and had a great time. It was a really nice weekend.

COTA

I'm not much for watching sports. When my wife turns on college football I usually remember that I have something to do in the garage or some pressing yard work. It's just not something that I usually enjoy. With one huge exception, I'd rather go do something than watch other people do something. That one exception is MotoGP.
For those of you who live under a rock, or in North America, MotoGP is the top level of motorcycle road racing. It's like Formula 1, but with 240 horse power motorcycles piloted by men with otherworldly abilities. It is, bar none, the best racing in the world. If it weren't for the fact that I really hate breaking bones I certainly would have followed these gentlemen onto a track at a much lower level. Maybe that's why I love it. Motorcycle racing is the one thing in my life that has eluded me, and it continues to hold my fascination. 
A decade ago the only way you could watch MotoGP live was to visit Europe or Malaysia. Then China built a track. In 2008 a deal was struck and the circus that is MotoGP came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It took every bit of willpower and not a few dirty looks from my wife to not go watch the races up at Indy. Last year though something changed. A couple of rich guys who wanted to become richer convinced the state of Texas that we needed a new road course. Not just another track, this was to be a world class venue that would hold Formula 1 races. A little chatting back and forth and it was decided that the track should be built to accommodate MotoGP as well. Circuit Of The Americas, or COTA, was built.
On Sunday will be the first running of MotoGP at COTA. My wife bought me tickets. Two tickets. I would have loved to take her, but someone has to watch the kids. I decided to take my oldest daughter instead. Hanging out with her is pretty easy. She has quick humor, good taste in music, and isn't too flaky. It's a little like bringing along a small adult that can't drive and is easily confused reading maps. We're going to have a good time. Maybe next year I'll go again and bring another one of the kids. Maybe I'll bring the whole family, I don't know, I need to see what it's like. 
I'm glad my life still enables me to have adventures and that my wife supports them. I'm also glad that I get to share them with my kids. Anything fun is always more fun when you get to poke someone with your elbow and point and yell "did you see that!"