Making It Up As I Go Along #370

WEDNESDAY...
— First day at work goes better than I feared. I didn’t sleep much last night... less than four hours... and was afraid I’d be fuzzy in the brain and too busy to be able to think. But neither happens and I get through alright.
— A little TV in the evening and early to bed for some pre-sleep reading.

THURSDAY...
— Tougher day of work and I start running out of gas with a few hours to go.
— To the Works for supper with Nick, Webb, Melissa and others. Good burger and nice hot, sunny day.

FRIDAY...
— Very tired most of the day. Was barely able to stay up to 2:00 AM (unusual when I’m switching to night shift mode) and I snoozed some on the sofa in the morning before going to bed for my afternoon nap. Work is fine though and Annick, Phil and I get pizza for supper.

SATURDAY...
— Up around 11:30 and hang out around the house with only a short afternoon nap.
— Meet Ian for a few drinks and chat before taking him to the airport and returning to the office for the night shift.
— Pretty quiet night. For the last few hours of the shift, I'm completely alone in the NPS building. Weird to be the only person holding down the fort in a five story building

SUNDAY...
— About 4.5 hours sleep today. Then up and laze around until it’s time to meet mom for supper. We park in the Market, pop in to Roots for a purse for mom, and eat at the Fish Market Restaurant.
— Go for a walk after we eat. Over to the Chateau hotel and along the canal for a bit. Nice day.

MONDAY...
— Catch up on sleep. Get about 8.5 hours worth tonight.
— Watch some TV, work out my shoulder, and go to slowpitch. We have a good game, 19-6 victory with the bats really doing things plus some pretty solid defence. The team is looking pretty good this summer and I get my first homer of the season.

TUESDAY...
— Lunch with mom and Melissa. We go to Red Lobster. After that I bring mom to the airport and drive home the back country way on a nice sunny day.
— Softball this evening. I fill in for an RCMP team. Pretty casual stuff but some fun.


Soccer Season
Soccer is a sport with a reputation for passion. We all know about the emotions that sometimes run too high in the stands of European football stadiums. The World Cup shows how seriously the game is taken throughout the world. And there is even an example of this passion that lives much closer to you and me. Just around the corner, there in your suburban hideaway. I talk about... the Soccer Mom.

The passion of the Soccer Mom has hit the big leagues. You know that’s the case when you’ve reached bumper sticker levels. I guess, to be completely clear, they’re no longer stickers and they no longer are set aside for just the bumper. In the case of the Soccer Mom, we have a magnetised soccer ball decal that is stuck anywhere upon the vehicle. But I figure bumper sticker more easily conveys the message than car magnet.

But it’s only a select few messages that become big enough in stature to warrant vehicular advertising of your beliefs. You’ve got the religious... Jesus Fish... What Would Jesus Drive... Jesus Loves Me... Honk if You Love Jesus... and so on.

Then you’ve got the political... Conservative Party... Liberal Party... Marijuana Party (a Volkswagen Van would seem bare without it).

There’s the cause oriented. Magnets in the shape of ribbons to show that your car supports breast cancer research.

There’s the patriotic... which could also fall into political... as the We Support Our Troops logos always strike me as a bit on the mean spirited... “how dare you question the validity of war”... side of things.

And there’s those that proclaim your travels. Newfoundland flags, the Fleur de lis, Virginia is for Lovers... and so on.

Well, of all sports, soccer has pushed through into the game. In typical Soccer Mom fashion, this means you see the ball slapped about half way up the back hatch of their Grand Caravan.

That said, Soccer Mom is the label given to virtually any such parent. There are just about as many Soccer Dads too. But then you get into the sanitized label of Soccer Parent... and that just doesn’t bring home the crispness of the reality of the situation. Soccer Parent brings a hint of rationality to the equation. It sounds like a happy family who simply has children playing a wonderful game on a sunny August day. Such parents do exist... and it’s a warm and fuzzy feeling that comes over one to think of the healthy family unit which has parents bringing children to the greenery of the field, with leaves on nearby trees fluttering and birds singing blissfully.

Those with magnets on the Grand Caravan... proclaiming their status within the soccer world... are a darker, more ominous lot.

Soccer Mom’s are not to be messed with. The only thing that matters to a Soccer Mom is getting their child to the Soccer game. And that their child plays more than the other children... and that the officials calling the game are fair to their child (which is code for saying, only make calls that favour my child).

Yesterday we dealt with Soccer Moms... both the female and male version of it. An ordinary person who pays little attention would assume that if there’s a clash of field usage in a public space between a group of soccer playing children and softball playing adults... the softballers are the bad guys. This may be true sometimes... but I’m hear to tell you that is often not the case.

Yesterday, we were playing a game of softball on one of those crumby fields that is too multi-purpose in it’s makeup... making it useless for all uses. A dirt softball infield with a big grass expanse that doubles as outfield and soccer pitch. We had the field from 4:45 to 6:00. Seems simple enough.

Until the Soccer Mom’s show up. Reasonablity would say if one group has the field until 6:00... and another group has rights to the field at 6:00... that conflict can be avoided.

At 5:35 they came. First a trickle, like the few scouting killer bees that proceed the swarm. And already they appear agitated. Grown ups in their space, with bats! And hard balls! We are intruders upon their space.

By 5:45, it is decided by the growing numbers, that they have first rights. The dirt infield is all we need, the grass is soccer country, and we are to be driven out. A mom... literally and figuratively in the Soccer Mom labelling... walks out onto the grass in the middle of our action and questions our right to be there. While she does this, another mom... this one is a father Soccer Mom... walks out from the left field area, straight into centre field, sticking coloured plastic markers into the ground. Markers that are under the guise of youth soccer equipment but, in reality, are land claim stakes.

Children kick their ball within twenty feet of our left fielder and parents prepare the field for their match, all while the original mom continues to discuss the matter of 6:00 with our softball leader. You’d think the discussion of 6:00 would be a simple one... “is it 6:00 yet?”... “no it isn’t”... “very well, we’ll get out of your way while you finish up.”

What a gloriously human conversation that would be. I’d feel at peace with the world if adults spoke to each other that way. But sadly, the world doesn’t work like this. The real conversation went more like... “We have this field at 6:00.”... “we’re done at 6:00"... “why are you here anyway?”... “we have the place rented from 4:45 to 6:00"... “yes, cause we play here at 6:00"... “we’ll be done by then”... “why aren’t you playing over there, at that other field?”... and so on, and so on.

Soccer Mom’s are bullies. Their magnetic decal of a soccer ball, which is proudly adorning the hatch of many a Caravan, is as much a symbol of “don’t mess with me” as the Harley Davidson patches on the back of the leather jackets of those twenty bikers who just rode into town. Fear both equally. And for those dog owners out there, looking for a place to throw the ball for the pouch to fetch, stay out of the parks... it’s soccer season!

Making It Up As I Go Along #369

MONDAY...
— Work is a course today... so I’m in for 8:00 instead of 6:00. Nice day.
— We win our first slow pitch game. 15-8... good stuff although I make a stupid error in the last inning.

TUESDAY...
— More course followed by two hours of CPSIC work. So sort of a slow, dull day followed by two hours of being busy.
— A few groceries on the way home.

WEDNESDAY...
— Long day of the course. Then home after some running around with Nick and Steve. Sheila and Nicole come over for the hockey game and pizza. Dud game with Pittsburgh winning 6-2.

THURSDAY...
— This course must soon end. My abilities to focus is almost gone.
— Small nap once home... a little review... and off the fastpitch for 9:00. I’m not pleased with my play. Two plays at SS that I should have handled better and runs scored in those innings that wouldn’t have had I made the plays. We lose 6-3. I go 1 for 3 at bat with a double.

FRIDAY...
— Tired of the course. It’s been interesting but draining as well... and I’m not used to hanging out with the same 25 people each day.
— Traffic is another thing driving me crazy. I’m going to the office and leaving in peak traffic times. From the time I leave today after course, getting to the bank and grocery store then home... it takes me about an hour and a half. That’s too many people in the way and too much traffic on the road to go 20 km, stop at the bank, and get five or six things at the store in an hour and a half. Blah.
— Relax tonight. Watch a movie and nap a little.

SATURDAY...
— Rainy day means I’m in the house catching up on shows I recorded on the PVR.

SUNDAY...
— There is no such thing as a good toilet paper commercial. They are all stupid.
— Go to Star Trek with Sheila and Nicole. Fun movie... I like it.
— Conservative Party have begun taking shots at Ignatieff. And it’s hilariously bad... “just visiting”... ba ha ha! You know there’s no ammunition when the angle is “this guy isn’t really a Canadian.” So now Harper has decided Mulroney isn’t a Conservative and Ignatieff isn’t Canadian. A fine leader Stevey Harper makes.

MONDAY...
— Holiday Monday. Watch some baseball and TV... go meet Laura, Janice and Cara Lea for supper and drinks.
— Ball game after that. Slow pitch. We lose even though I thought we were ahead going into the last inning. Blah.


Gum Wrapper Taunting
Too many people in my world last week. Just too many.

I’ve become used to the CPSIC way of life. That is to say, I’m driving to work with few others on the road and working in a section with only a few others. The night shift has only two to four people in the building for much of the time, and downtime has me going out doing things when most others are at work.

So last week was difficult for me. In on a course for five straight days. Each morning having to drive in the heat of the traffic. Yes the extra two hours of morning sleep were welcomed but then, each day, the drive in would take more than a half an hour.

Ottawa traffic reminds me of caravans of camels wandering through the desert. A long line of vehicles slowly roping through the concrete wasteland which ribbons through the city. For much of the trip, you continue one looking at the back end of the same car the whole way.

It can be most tiresome to look out my windshield at the silly personalized licence plate. To see the bobbing head of the driver as they continuously prob their glove compartment or middle consol... seeing them forget that red lights do eventually turn green and watching them pull away at the last second, leaving me at the next red when I should be up there, further ahead in my trek across the land.

But never fear, the Ottawa morning caravan brings you back behind the head bobber once again, for the journey is far and, like those desert camels, the cars must pace themselves... slowly meandering along the way.

On this past week, I had to deal with these traffic caravans twice a day, all five days. The CPSIC shift gives no more than two trips through such traffic. Oh how I missed the avoidance of others on the roads of the city.

All five days this week, I also sat with many others. Used to sustained contact with no more than five or six, suddenly I’ve been thrust into a world of twenty-five... one of whom (the course instructor) would never cease to talk. Hours upon hours of another’s voice. It reverberates through my brain still.

And once day two ended, my internal clock was telling me I was off for the next twenty-four hours. Time to stay up late and get into night mode. But day three came and I had to still get up early... and still sloth my way through the asphalt camel train... and arrive to all those people still there, bouncing into my personal space and still talking of those things that slip out of the brain soon after they entered. I have had a week of forgotten socializing.

Day four came and I felt it should be my last. All work weeks are now four days long. Yet still I went home that night, dragging my way behind another head bobbing forgetful camel rider. A gum wrapper flicked from their slightly lowered window slaps off my windshield. They taunt me for being constantly twenty feet in front of me on this slug’s race home. And through this all, I still must endure a fifth day. Five days. Oh how a sick day would be a welcomed change rather than go through this yet again. But a sick day would make the course irrelevant, and the previous four days sacrifice... worthless.

Funny how it works. I worked an extra day this past week, yet was actually at work for eight fewer hours than normal. And the lighter work load made me more tired. For a full day after the week was over, I had only the energy to climb out of bed and to the sofa.

Tomorrow brings back the CPSIC schedule. Back to the life I’ve come to know. Where the camels upon the highways will be hours behind, and I’ll be galloping the trail unimpeded like a stallion... no gum wrappers to taunt me. Tomorrow’s race to work will not be close... sweet victory.