That Cal!

"If people could stay out there seven days in the cold and the rain to have an opportunity to enjoy this night, then we're gonna do things that I've never done."--Coach Cal, pre Big Blue Madness

Dang, nowwww I almost wish I was going.

That sounds sarcastic of course -- as it should -- but here's the thing. It is almost, a little bit, true.

Now, it would be an understatement to say I am not a sportswriter. (Let me pause for a minute there while you catch your breath and stop holding your sides.)

I am trying to find nice ways to quantify the depth and breadth of that statement that don't involve me being publicly tarred and feathered.

For one thing, I sort of lump organized sports in with organized religion in that I think the Process can be a little ... polluting.

For another, I am more of an arts and letters/geek gal than a sports gal.

For a third thing, probably because of where I was raised, I am more of a football girl than basketball. I grew up in a "Friday Night Lights"-ish kind of town, to put it mildly. Where the boys had no necks, and now they all sell insurance. I have said before, I live in the wrong city -- and state -- for football to be a valid preference over basketball, but it's true. When I think of Soccer, I can only think of Harry Crews's characterization of soccer vis a vis the debate team in Feast of Snakes (and you'll just have to look that up).

And while I have gone to my share of basketball games -- usually in the name of being a good sport for a date -- I find it generally ... smelly. I don't really know if it's the sweat from the oversized athletes in a fairly confined space, or if it's the reek of the crowd, but I can never believe I'm the ONLY one who seems to notice it.

I only disclose all of this just to reinforce the oddity behind my dirty little confession, which is that... I am positively entranced by Coach Cal. Of course that might not sound very odd or especially confessional in a town that worships him -- possibly in a very unhealthy way-- but it is unusual for Me, because I have rarely had much of an opinion about basketball.

Sure, I vaguely thought Tubby should go. He seemed like a fine family man who ran a nice clean program, but the job description -- as I understood it -- was to go to the Final Four, and win it on a fairly regular basis. It's my understanding that he only really did that with an inherited team, while failing to build his own program. That's all I know.

As for his successor, well, same thing. It's my understanding that he did not win? Now, all that other stuff? Hell, they knew he was a hard dog to keep on the porch when they hired him.

When it came time to replace him, the only thing I said on that front was that I hoped this time they'd go with someone MARRIED, cause it seemed clear they wanted a First Lady as part of the gig. Which promptly got me labeled as... homophobic (?) My response to that was.... huh? All I said was "married." Personally, I wouldn't care who the Coach was married to, and if the First Lady was named Steve, that'd be fine by me.

---
Then Coach Cal came to town... and I fell for him, right along with everybody else.

Probably because I get the same false sense of intimacy everybody ELSE does from his Twitter and Facebook pages. Look! He's walking his dog, RIGHT DOWN THE STREET FROM WHERE I LIVE! Here he is, NOT unpacking boxes in the new house! Awww. Just like every other husband. I imagine a sort of MadMen Don Draper crossed with Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy. I would call this series "That Cal!" (Oh that Cal! He is so darn exasperating! And then I'd smile indulgently.)

Of course, in real life, I know perfectly well he doesn't actually talk like a 14-year-old girl, and he doesn't speak in exclamation points, and that he is not, in fact, my "friend," no matter what Facebook might suggest to the contrary.

Don't care.

I find myself engaging in extended conversations with people who call the office from outta town and then happen to ask my opinion of basketball because we'll be in the news for some reason and because I live here, they assume I must know everything about it. Then I start to think I know everything about it, and I'll find myself blurting out something defensive like, "Well you know Mike, he was never IMPLICATED in any of that, and I think you'll have to agree that the NCAA concluded....!"

(WHAT? "The NCAA concluded...?" Seriously? Just add that to the list of three words you never thought you'd hear from me.)

The Box is Back

I saw a link this morning that our beloved box wine from Front Porch Friday has been selected Wine of the WEEK by "Wine Experience." I was heretofore unfamiliar with their work, but now I might bookmark it.

Again, the link probably won't work, so here's what it says:

"Not only is this a tasty and drinkable Pinot Grigio but it’s made to go anywhere."

Tasty AND drinkable?

Say No Mo!

I also learned from them that it is not really a "box of wine," so much as it is "a Tetra Pak," which sounds more rugged and outdoorsy and less alcoholic-y.

But what I love more than anything is their disclaimers -- the likes of which would've never occurred to me as a critic/editor.

For example:

"When you read our thoughts, please remember that you may think differently."

I am not even sure about the "may" in that context. Does it mean "you may" as in "you are allowed" or does it mean "you may" as in "it could happen" that you would think differently than we do?

Also,

Wine consumption can have positive physical benefits or cause possible physical harm.

See, I thought all that was obvious, and am clearly in no way prepared for blogging in a post-McDonald's "this coffee is HOT" disclaimer era.

About an Hour

I see here (dimly) that I got my bifocals prescription back in August. You may notice (from all the typos), I haven't gotten around to getting that prescription filled yet... For a lotta reasons.

First: I'm still in denial. I just look above, or below, the rims of my current glasses, and I can still kinda see.

Second: I cannot stand the thought of picking out new frames, which I will likely have to have, because the lenses on my current glasses aren't big enough to support bifocals. I hate big glasses.

In college, I wore contacts more often than not until I came down with an eroded cornea and had to wear a patch over my right eye until it healed. I was geeky to start with, and the pirate look didn't improve things any. It was also the worst possible term to not be able to read. I was already struggling to keep up in my Hitler and Nazi Germany class, and after my friends burned out on leading me around, somebody in Student Life had to assign a workstudy student to read "The Psychopathic God" to me. Out loud. After that whole ordeal, I got new glasses, and as soon as I wore them into Cowan the first time, PhilStowers stood up and screamed "Sally Jesse Raphael! Sally Jesse Raphael!" I'm still scarred. I just saw his name on LinkedIn the other day when I hooked up with my friend Bob-O, and the first thing that popped into my head was Phil screaming in the dining hall. I swear to God, my glasses looked NOTHING like hers. Maybe he was making fun of my hair instead.

Third, I finally remembered to go to the eye doctor partly because LensCrafters sent me a reminder (they're not my eye doctor, but I do get the prescriptions filled there because obviously that "glasses in about an hour" is a real priority for me. A month later.) They also sent a $100 buck coupon. I couldn't really read it -- cause I need bifocals and all -- but I put it on the fridge as a reminder, where my Mom noticed it expired the day after I saw the doc. I'm not a coupon gal, but I'm also not a gal who'd throw away $100 bucks.

Fourth, everyone I know who has bifocals has had a hard time adjusting. And by "hard time adjusting," I mean, they fall down; they get crippling headaches; that kinda thing. No good can come of that.

So here I sit. Constantly misinterpreting everything I see in print. For example, I thought my friend Pam was going to "Meditation" tomorrow and it sounded like a serene day off. She's not, she's in MEDIATION tomorrow, for a client. I thought the Mayor of Chicago was suddenly very pro-Dairy when he declared some sort of "Butter Zone" today. But he didn't; it's a BUFFER zone.

And none of that's as bad as the mistakes I was making writing an article last week that related to lfucgUK -- though I think dropping the G might've been a typo and not a vision problem -- but it coulda just as easily been a Freudian slip.

Just glad I work in print and not radio.

Oh Disco Kroger

Oh DiscoKroger. You make it hard to love you sometimes.
That ice cream isn't even marked down. I don't even care much about ice cream, and if I was going to eat it, I'd probably get Graeter's coconut almond chunk (sometimes it's discontinued and sometimes it's "seasonal," which is stupid because coconut isn't seasonal, and DiscoKroger only ever seems to have raw cookie dough flavor anyway, which sounds disgusting to me, and vaguely salmonella-ish).

And butter-FLAVORED corn? Please.

It's almost enough to make me WALK to Krolex/Krandalls.

Corn on a Cup

This weekend was probably my last festival of the season, which made me sad.

I knew there'd be no funnelcakes, but I was at least hopeful for meat-on-a-stick. It was sold out.

A sign did promise "Corn on a Cup," and it had potential as a concept, but the execution needed tweaking. It was corn marinated in hot sauce, stirred in with cheese and chili pepper.... where they lost me was in topping the whole thing with a heaping spoonful of mayonnaise (which is like kryptonite to me, along with beets; there's not much I don't eat, buttttt.....)

Sub in sour cream for the mayo, and hit it with a lotta lime, and I think it might just be crazy enough to work.

All of the Above

Thanks to my friend Wyllie, I now know that you can click a little "x" box and tell Facebook why you don't want to see a particular ad anymore.

After which, you will just get more of them.

I've taken turns completing their multiple choice survey on every "meet hot christian single black men" ad with:
misleading
repetitive
offensive
uninteresting
irrelevant
and repetitive
(wait. did I say that?)

The only thing that changed was for one day, I got a lot of ads for "Latisse," which I think is supposed to grow my lashes out. I didn't know women had a lot of eyelash-insecurity, but apparently, 40-something women are especially vulnerable.

I guess I should just be glad it's not Boniva.

The Right Stuff

I ran across this link on pal Kimmy's facebook page today and it cracked me up. I'm sure the link won't post right, but you can get the gist from the headline alone:




What The Daily Mail article suggests is that there's something in the Pill that has made women turn from manly men to girlie men.

Taking the pill for past 40 years 'has put women off masculine men'By David Derbyshire

It ushered in the 1960s sexual revolution and gave women control over their own fertility.

But the Pill may also have changed women's taste in men, according to a study.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1218808/Contraceptive-pill-women-attracted-masculine-men--interested-boyish-looks.html#ixzz0TZ2rKfHe

All I can say is, my obsession with Sam Shepard is as stalwart as it ever was, and there's no one more manly, and less pretty than him. (I coulda posted his mugshot to really reinforce that fact, but I don't like it when that's done to me, so I typically don't do it to anyone else.)

Admittedly, it's probably the whole sordid Sam Shepard package that does it for me -- writer, drummer, almost irresponsibly tall (does he have a drinking problem toooo? Bring it.) -- but I can't think of a single pretty boy I consider remotely attractive.

(Brad Pitt only makes it worse when he tries to talk about architecture. He seems to make it thinks him deep, or smart. Please. I'll stick with Dwell Magazine thanks.)

The alarming thing was, when I looked for an image of my particular brand choice (which doesn't seem to have the girlie-man effect, and that's all I was going to say), I kept finding pictures of BABIES. Which definitely doesn't suggest a vote of confidence in the product.

(I finally just snapped an image of the lovely gift-pak the stooopid P.A. gave me on Thursday. I'm not going to be using it as a Clutch or anything.)