The Manda Celebrates July 4th

I love minor league baseball. LOVE.

There is nothing more entertaining than going to a minor league game at the local hometown stadium, which is what my dad and I did this evening to celebrate the 4th of July.

There was a dude there in a cow costume, promoting a local country music station, and that was the least weird thing I saw all evening. Not sure what it would take to get me in a cow costume on a humid Carolina night, but hey, times is hard.

The cow also got in on the post- 4th inning "tradition" that allows all the children in the stadium to chase the team mascot across the outfield. You have not lived until you've seen about 300 toddlers chasing a man in a crawdad suit across a baseball diamond.

Other between-inning fun included a race in pedal cars, a "dance-off" on top of a dugout, and a race in which pairs of people dressed as hamburger buns scrambled to assemble a faux giant burger.

And at minor league games, at least around here, there also seems to be a disproportionate number of women who evoke one of my favorite quotes from Bull Durham: "Who dresses you? Don't you think this is a little much for the Carolina League?"

Think really big hair and too many sequins.

Best patriotic moment: while Lee Greenwood's recording of "God Bless the USA" played over the PA system, a dude in a giant foam cowboy hat (and his assistants) launched hot dogs into the crowd with a slingshot.

Much as I love the Red Sox, they just don't offer that kind of entertainment value at Fenway Park.

The Manda Looks Forward to the Burn Notice Season Premiere

Some people will tell you that drinking games are passe, and they may be right. At the same time, a good drinking game can create camraderie among members of your team and allow them to show off what they know in a relaxed setting, and they're a good way to celebrate the season premiere of a show you really enjoy.

When you're developing a drinking game, it's important to work within the ouevre of the show itself, capitalizing on the in-jokes and recurring plot points as much as possible. It's also important to choose the right beverage. In this case, the game's creators (K-Rock, NayNay and The Manda) suggest a nice mojito. Bottled beer will do in a pinch. And if you don't drink alcohol, we recommend a yogurt-based smoothie-- perhaps mango.

When you see one of these things happen in the show, you drink once:

-- voiceover explaining a trick of the spy trade (twice if the voiceover begins, "When you're a spy...")
-- montage of sexy beach people in Miami
-- Sam refers to a "special lady" (twice if it's a buddy who turns out to be female)
-- Fiona makes reference to buying shoes
-- Sam orders a mojito
-- An actual U.S. government employee appears on camera
-- Michael eats yogurt (twice if someone else eats Michael's yogurt; three times if the yogurt in question was Michael's last)
-- Madeline complains about Michael not calling or coming to visit
-- Caption appears at the bottom of the screen (twice if the caption then changes to accomodate a comment from one of the characters)
-- Reference to Eastern Europe or Afghanistan
-- Shirtless Michael

Other mandatory double drinks include:
-- Michael actually kills someone himself
-- Someone uses or modifies a cellphone for a non-calling purpose
-- Michael and Fiona kiss

And the triple drink:
-- Michael and Fiona have sex

The Manda Attempts to Improve Her Home (Update)

So literally minutes after giving up on The Other Local Home Improvement Warehouse, I got a callback from an HVAC (heating, venting and air conditioning) dude a friend from work had recommended. "Hi Amanda, are you home? I can come out and have a look this afternoon."

And NOW I have an estimate for new furnace and central air that I believe to be reasonable, based on my research and a contractor who seems like a nice enough fellow (who kinda resembles the guy who plays Owen on "Grey's Anatomy"). I can have this system installed next week and relax in cool, pollen-free comfort.

Yay! I'm getting air conditioning! Yay!

The Manda Attempts to Improve Her Home

The Other Local Home Improvement Warehouse has me on hold. I've been on hold for about 15 minutes, and my cellphone is running out of battery power, but I'm getting desperate here. This is about the fifth call I've made today in an attempt to get estimates on what it will cost to install central air here at Little Blue.

"No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater-- than central air," or so Kevin Smith told us in Dogma.

I can buy that.

But getting a contractor to return a phone call seems to require an act of God hisownself. And while I like to think we're on speaking terms, I'm not sure my karma is good enough to call in that kind of favor. (I have an eclectic theology.)

So anyway, I'm calling all these people, and hoping they'll call me back and we can pencil something in. It's like dating, but at least I have hope that I'll end up with something useful when it's all over.

And don't even get me started on the landscaping. Really, don't. Conversations about landscaping have led me to nearly decapitate reasonably nice people (this is metaphorical decapitation, though, so don't call the cops or anything, either). My "green" mower is fine, but for the space I'm dealing with, I need to call in a pro to get this all under control. And I'm thinking of getting a mower that is decidedly less green because it's all just beyond me; I assume this is how parents of infants feel when they realize that Huggies are so much easier than cloth diapers.

Yes, I know I'm part of the problem.

I'm taking some solace in knowing that at least my yard is currently friendly to my local wildlife, or as the Humane Scoiety calls them, my "wild neighbors." So if anyone asks, I can claim I'm humane, not just lazy.

Wild neighbors means something different here in the 'burbs than it did in the city. I've traded the crazy girl (in the next building over) who woke up my deaf cat with the sound of her slamming doors and shrieking at her boyfriend in the alleyway for bunnies and the resident skunk.

The garageless garage band has been replaced by a groundhog whom I mistook for an otter on first sighting. And the thing is, if my "meadow" in the backyard is appealing enough, then maybe the groundhog will stay in my yard, near his home under the shed. Maybe he won't wander over to my next door neighbor's garden and get himself shot.

I guess a retired dude on his deck with a shotgun and a beer qualifies as a wild neighbor as well.

The Manda Reflects on Chaos Theory

Some signs your life has gone off the rails:

You find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning. This alone is a pretty good indicator. If you find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning with a mostly-drunk companion, that's another good indicator.

If you find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike at 2:00 in the morning trying to dissuade your mostly drunk companion not to eat a hamburger that she herownself has characterized as "bogus," then you can expect to find yourself fleeing the scene of a broken toilet in a BP station somewhere on I-95 at around 7:30 that same morning. While life has indeed gone off the rails, it will be fun to watch your companion totter hurriedly across the parking lot on 4 inch red heels as she escapes from the scene of what may very well be a crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Not that that ever happened.

Another good indicator that something has gone horribly wrong might be, say, operating power tools in your kitchen at some small hour of the morning. Perhaps the scene involves a misguided attempt to assemble that cabinet that has sat dormant in its box since you brought it home from the Christmas Tree Shop three months ago.

Of course, the instructions didn't make any damn sense, so genius here put the doors and sides on before the countertop. Now I can't get the countertop on the thing because the screwdriver is too long, and the drill is too large. These are not dirty euphemisms-- my life isn't that interesting-- this is the actual state of my kitchen at this moment, which appears to be about 3:15 a.m.

So now it's 3:17 in the morning and I'm wide awake, trying to figure out if its worthwhile to disassemble the cabinet to get this top on it, or if I should wait until morning and go see if the Local Home Improvement Warehouse has a shorter screwdriver. Or perhaps I go off the map and drill holes in the upper surface, bolt the top down as best I can and trust that I'll have the surface covered with an assortment of mail, wine bottles and other crap within a matter of days.

It's not like anyone has seen the top of the kitchen table since last August.

The Manda Starts a Garden

So this is me mowing the grass in my backyard for the very first time. I've gotten some flack for the hat. Apparently once a Southern woman reaches a certain age she's supposed to wear funny hats and grow vegetables in the dirt. At least that's what The Suz tells me, no doubt inispired by multiple viewings of Steel Magnolias. As I tend to prefer movies where gangsters are seeking revenge for one thing or another to films about lovely young women who die tragically shortly after marrying the man of their dreams, I have no evidence to indicate that I should be living my life according to the tenets of a "chick flick."

This should come as a surprise to nobody, but it may offer some explanation as to why I have to mow my own damn grass.

In truth, though, I do seem to be getting more Southern the longer I live up North. Tonight I made dinner for NayNay (I enjoy this nickname because it's also the word my pseudo-godson uses to describe nudity) and that included fried squash, black eyed peas, turnip greens and pork chops. I stopped short of cornbread on account of extreme laziness. This exotic selection went over well with my friend who responded with the obligatory, "I don't know why..." But, again, I think we've narrowed down at least one reason above.

Turnip greens from a can suck, though, and I'm now preparing the ground for my first vegetable garden in 32 years. I don't think the first one counted so much, though, since my dad was doing all the heavy lifting, and I was just wandering around in the rows eating cherry tomatoes-- or tommy toes in the local parlance.

It's addictive, though. I've got eggplants and peppers sprouting in the living room as we speak. The UPS dude delivered my blueberry bushes this afternoon, and it's all I can do not to go out and dig a hole for them right now. I won't though, because it's dark. Gotta be some bad juju in planting a garden at night. At the very least, it seems unwholesome.

I have a selection of herbs in the front window. Cilantro for salsa once the tomatoes come in. Chives if they'll ever actually grow. Basil for pretty much anything I can think of. Mint for mojitos of course. Although the way things are going, I might end up learning what the crap a julep actually is.

So far, I've managed not to kill anything. Can't get the lavender to sprout, though. Yesterday I discovered why:

Rejected Yankee Candle Fragrances

An ongoing list of possible choices:

French Onion Soup-- onions, garlic, with a hint of beefy goodness

Easter Egg-- vinegar and sulphur in a pink decorative container

'79 Camaro-- ass, grass, and cash. Nobody rides for free.

Wet Dog-- soap and fur

High School Hallway- Axe, ass, chalk dust

Barbecue

Sour Cream and Onion

Xtreme Nacho Cheese

The Manda Goes to Harvard- Part Two

One of my favorite pleasures-- there's very little guilt in my life-- is reading the missed connections section on Craigslist. It feeds my overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude.

To the woman sitting at the table next to mine at Pinocchio's pizza in Harvard Square. You were talking to a friend about how this fall was a really difficult time for you personally and emotionally. I felt bad for you, assuming that you'd faced a hefty loss of some kind. A breakup. Death of a loved one. Job loss.

And then you said this: "Well, I didn't get to vote in the election. I moved here and started the new job on November 3. And New York lost my absentee ballot. So I didn't get to vote in the election and that was really hard for me."

It took every ounce of self control I had not to leap across two tables and attempt to wrap my hands around your neck.

I didn't get to vote in the election either. I spent election day sitting in a waiting room in a hospital 900 miles away from my precinct praying for a miracle that didn't happen. THAT is a difficult time personally and emotionally. THAT is existential crisis and soul-crushing grief.

And honey, it's not like New York or Massachusetts are swing states anyway.

The Manda Goes to Harvard

Intellectually, I'm no slouch. I ran the rat race of academic competition for a long time. In high school I scrambled for grades and activities alongside the best of them in my quest for admission to The College of My Choice. I spent the first three years at The College of My Choice working like crazy, playing that sick little game that was so popular with us in those days, "My Life is Busier Than Your Life." That was, of course, just code for "I Am More Important Than You Are and Will Achieve Success in Life That You Can Only Dream About."

I don't think I had as much fun in college as you're supposed to have. But then some events took place that pretty much obliterated the plans I had made for myself. Once the crushing disappointment passed, I realized that I no longer had anything to prove to anyone. It was liberating.

I found some new friends and developed an appreciation for microbrews-- this was the mid 90's after tall. I pulled all nighters to crank out papers because we just had to go see some band play at some bar. My last semester, I took a class with some grad students and found them pointless and boring with their giant volumes of Roland Barthes tucked into their backpacks.

It's not that I don't love learning. I do. I did the grad school thing twice. The first time I went to "a top five program" according to the disbelieving grad students clutching their Roland Barthes anthologies for support. But I chose both of the programs I attended because they placed more than a little value on practical application, because what I don't love is learning for the sake of lording it over other people to make them feel small.

Not that I'm suggesting that most people do this intentionally. But I went to a seminar at Harvard today-- it's a two week course on comedy and film-- and it brought these ideas back to me. It was like being in class with those grad students again, vying for the professor's attention and approval, hearing them stretch their vocabularies to use words like "postmodern" and "meta-analysis."

That's all great, but how's about you give me something I can use to get 28 bored teenagers to forget about who's going to hook up at the big party this weekend and how blotto they're going to get?

In all fairness, I think I got a little bit of that from the day's lesson as well, but in an environment that is so purely academic, you have to look for the useful stuff a little bit harder.

I had to hike across the campus back to the parking garage. I felt out of place among the students in their skinny jeans and emo hair, carrying overloaded backpacks and trying to impress one another by whatever means necessary.

And here's me. Red Dooney handbag. Sprigs of gray appearing near my partline. Wool peacoat. I am too old for this.

I'm having that day after Christmas feeling. Or maybe it's more like Christmas afternoon. All the toys have been unwrapped and now we have to get to work on assembling them.

I'm pretty sure the instructions are written in Chinese and we're missing a few parts, though.

Yesterday I, along with so many of my fellow Americans, was filled with hope and the promise of better things to come. Perhaps we'd have some economic stability and restoration of civil liberties waiting for us under the metaphorical tree.

Hope and promise are tall orders for a bitter, disillusioned cynic like me. I've been closer than I'd like to the real ugliness behind the forces that run things around here, and I don't care much for it. But change is seductive, and for the last two months I have been feeling a strange sensation. One I haven't felt in more than a decade. Could it be? Yes. I was feeling proud of my nationality and proud of my fellow citizens.

And I still am, but there's already tarnish on the shiny new hope for the future. Yesterday our new president called upon all of us to make sacrifices, to look out for one another, to make hard choices for the greater good. I'm not sure our culture is ready for that. I think we went to the polls in November to find someone to fix it for us. I think it might take a little longer for us to get a grip on the reality that we have to do a good bit of the fixing ourselves. The election and the festivities yesterday, well, that was a nice start. I think our new president is up to the task; I just hope the citizens are as well.