Most Bloggable

Friday Night:
Had the boys over for Scotch and a Movie: We did Bourne Identity (yes, AGAIN for me), Punch Pizza, and some delightful Glen-somethings. We were pushed to Bourne by a video from the Jimmy Kimmel show showing Sarah Silverman singing a song about... loving... Matt Damon. It's quite worth the view... but for mature ears only. Youtube has it.

As usual it was a fun evening of laughter, and a good tonic to end the week with (I'll update on work in a post to follow).

Saturday: THE DAY.
Part 1: The Disco.
From 9:30-11 we were at Bella and Isaac's school for their big winter party. The gym was all done up as a disco, teachers were being Dee-jays and singing along with YMCA, Who let the dogs out, I like to move it... the hits. Bella started by wearing one of my old shiny disco shirts, but somehow it moved to my body almost immediately, while she looks much more demure in black.

Isaac was actually overwhelmed for the first 45 minutes - clinging to us and taking a real "wait and see" approach. Trepidation be damned, he did insist on reaching out and being held by many others - he just loves to make the rounds. Fortunately, he found his dancing feet and started to cut a rug like mad, doing a spinning dervish dance, then doing a sideways gallop (not unlike a lemur) across the floor, then planting for more spins.

He took a good nap once we got home... and Bella fueled up for lunch because we needed to be strong for....


Part 2: The Rally
Yes, we went downtown for the Barak Obama Rally at Target Center. We knew it would be big - over 20,000 people were expected, full capacity for the arena. We showed up right when doors opened at 1:30, which meant we were at the very end of a line that had formed at around 7 that morning.

We had a spot in a skyway around 4 blocks away from the entrance, at 8th street going over 1st Ave. It was very wide and bright, and Isaac decided it was time to run. We went up and down the full length of that skyway at least 20 times, and he showed no signs of tiring. He did press the emergency call buttons TWICE, and we had to explain to the operator it was NOT an emergency, sorry!

He also made a few friends in the line - a pair of African American women in line behind us, a young man with a very colorful emblem on his oversized pants (he kept running up and slapping his behind), a lutheran grandmother, a trio of hyper kids who were climbing up the walls, and many others. One of us held the line with the other monitored his progress. Bella sometimes ran with Isaac, sometimes stayed in the line and drew.

We finally got INTO the center by 3:30, and got some nosebleed seats up very very high. The rally got started by 4 and Obama came out and spoke at 4:30, going for almost an hour to the rapt crowd. Bella was pretty tired and bored of the proceedings, and Isaac spent most of the time in the laps of the same ladies we met in line earlier - he loved them, and they let him play with their cellphones - it was a match made in heaven.

And while the acoustics were TERRIBLE where we were sitting so his speech was borderline unintelligible to my ears, we were enraptured by his presence - the man has AMAZING charisma, and I couldn't help but feel I was in the midst of history in the making.

Since Bella was such a good sport (4 hours of boring grown-up stuff), we gave her a new Webkin - the frog covered in hearts. She's thinking of calling it "Scott".

Part 3: The Banquet
While Pamela and Kids settled in for the night, (we tried to get sitters, but we struck out on 6 different options, so took it as a sign), I was off to the 25th anniversary Save the Met Hot Stove League Banquet.

I may have blogged about this in the past: This was a benefit that was started 26 years ago to save Met Stadium, and when that failed, it became a benefit for some underprivileged little league teams, but mostly an excuse for true lovers of baseball to congregate, swap stories about the game, and eat ballpark food. Two things that must be clarified: Yes it's the 25th anniversary, because they accidentally had two 9th annual banquets. Second, yes, I've gone to either 24 or 25 of these things as a bonding thing with my Dad, despite the fact I have not ever truly taken to the sport in "that way".

But you don't really need to love the sport to appreciate a good story, and there were so many great stories being told over the years... that the banquet has become sort of a cultural touchpoint for me; I feel lucky to be invited to this much the same as one might feel honored to participate in a Japanese Green Tea ceremony, or visit a Latin Mass. It may not be your religion, but you can feel holiness.

Local News Legend Dave Moore was the original EmCee, until he passed, and the hat has passed a few times... The guests included players, umpires, coaches, owners, agents, writers, and poets. You were always going to get some interesting stories.

So after 25/26 years, they've decided to call it quits - this thing never makes money, and it's a labor of love for the founders, who really are too busy for this sort of thing. And it was an amazing lineup: Tony Oliva, Clark Griffith, Mike Veeck, Bill "Spaceman" Lee... The stories were just crazy, including Mike Veeck telling us ALL about his legendary "Disco Destruction at Comiskey Park" back in 1979, when he dynamited 18000 disco records and scorched the infield, forfeiting the game...

Or Tony O telling about how in Cuba, they learn Baseball in the womb, and how when he was recruited for the majors in the early 1960s how he didn't even know people played baseball in the US - he thought the apotheosis of baseball was to play in the Havana leagues... and how happy he is to have found a home in Minnesota, where he remains. Or Bill Lee talking about... you know what I can't even tell you what he was talking about because he was crazy all over the map. We were all laughing and gasping for air with disbelief at what was coming out of his mouth...

Sorry I can't be more specific, but look the man up online if you want to know about him. Wikipedia notes "In 1988, he ran for President of the United States on the Canadian Political Rhinoceros Party ticket, but failed to appear on the ballot in any state. His slogan for the election was "No guns. No butter. Both can kill.""

Sunday: The Brunch
Our former neighbors from across the street came by for a brunch at our house this morning: Bella had playmates all morning, and we had great conversation and a lot of bacon and pancakes. It was actually pretty low-key... But you can see how the weekend was a bit on the busy side. I probably could blog a few more pages of details on all of the events!