Where's Chad?

Just about every morning, I hit a little tiny hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that's about a block away from my house. They serve a pretty decent cup of donut shop coffee and I've become friendly with the owner operator Mr Kong. I call him sir and he calls me young lady. It's one of the highlights of my day.

He's an interesting fellow but very unpredictable, some days he thrusts my coffee into my hands without so much as a word, other days he can go on and on and on about his thoughts on any number of subjects.

Some of the more interesting points he's made :

• Women don't watch sports, only talk shows.
• Your sister should not get back surgery, but instead go to Chinatown for a 3 hour massage.
• The building owner should stop raising the rent, otherwise no more coffee.
• Why do you wear the same sweatpants every day?

But yesterday was the cherry on the cake. Most days I go through the drive though, and most days it only takes him 3-5 minutes to realize I'm sitting there and he get's me my coffee and either talks to me or doesn't.  Yesterday though, I sat and I waited and waited some more. After craning my neck I could tell that he was in a heated discussion with someone about god only knows, perhaps they discovered a woman who dislikes talk shows and watches sports.....

Anyway after probably 7 minutes, I could take no more so I parked the car and in I walked ready to give good ol' Mr K the business. As I entered the little cramped building, I saw there were 3 other older gentlemen surrounding Mr K and they were all shaking their heads in confusion. That's when Mr K noticed me.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't see you there, we can't find Chad!" Mr K exclaims in a pretty frantic voice.

"Who's Chad?" Oh shit, I'm thinking someone lost their grandson.

"No Chad!  Chad! The country we can't find Chad!" That's when I see they are all standing around a world map.

Well that explains the confusion I guess, that and the fact that they were scrutinizing South America.

"Mr K, Chad is in Africa" and that's when he elbowed one of the men aside and drumming his bony finger on the map said "Show me." So I opened the map to show him Africa and pointed to Chad.  "Young lady, your coffee is free today!"

Chad (Arabic: تشاد‎ Tšād; French: Tchad ⁱ/ˈtʃæd/), officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country inCentral Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south,Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west.

Who Doesn't Love Tube Socks?

It’s August. I know this by the skyrocketing temperatures; by the way the Yankees are plummeting in the American League rankings and by the assault of Back to School ads on television. Clothes, shoes, back packs and supplies. When I was a kid supplies meant some loose leaf paper, a couple notebooks, assorted writing utensils and a pack of those pink erasers that fit over the top of a pencil’s already built in eraser. Now supplies means laptops and tablets and phones oh my!

Yep the dog days of summer, when every kid is trying to squeeze in as much fun as they can before school starts again. One of the rituals for this period of the calendar is back to school shopping. For some this was a real treat, for others not so much.

Like my older brothers and sister before me my parents opted to pony up a couple hundred bucks a year for private catholic school for grades one through eight. This decision made them feel good about themselves for a couple of reasons. 

• The smaller class sizes and stricter environment would result in a sounder education.  If this were the case I probably wouldn't be wondering if sounder was an actual word.
• The religious education imparted would augment my good Catholic upbringing. (Shaaah, as if?)

And there was a third benefit that my parents would never cop to. The savings on school clothes as we Catholics were required to wear uniforms. So each year my friends that attended public school got to go with their moms to the “big city” (pop. 20,000) an hour away where they would visit the mall, have lunch and pick out clothes. My shopping adventure was much less exciting.

Instead, my mom would send me downtown, on foot, to Cook & Sacco, our local and only “clothier”.  The store was probably half mile away right in the heart of a non-booming metropolis in Upstate NY.  It was a lovely store, and now the  smell of new clothes always brings me back to my childhood shopping “sprees” at Cook & Sacco. Once inside, Mrs. Sacco would first award me with a cherry lollipop then measure me from top to bottom all while prattling on about how tall I’d grown this year. Then she would go in the back and retrieve 2 new plaid jumpers and 2 button-down blouses one long sleeve, one short and that was that. 

Mr. Sacco worked the register, to this day whenever I smell a cigar, I think of him as he was constantly chewing on the end of a pungent stogie. He’d box up my new belongings with a wink and a smile, have me sign for the purchase made on store credit and send me on my way, but not before slipping me one more “don’t tell your folks or Dr Brennan D.D.S” lollipop.

BUT, the shopping wasn’t fully complete until I had new shoes, so yes I did indeed get to take a trip to the big city. Mom and I would pile in the car and time our arrival for just before noon, where she would treat me to a terrific lunch at the Yum Yum Tree. The Yum Yum Tree was basically a hot dog cart, but I loved the taste of those delicious dogs plucked off the rotating warmer. Then it was off to Thom McCann so I could pick out a pair of sensible faux suede shoes AND two packs of tube socks.

BOOM. Shopping complete.

Play Ball Part 2: Dodger Fans Can You Please Pull it Together?

You know what really grinds my gears? Shitty fans. This is something that has bothered me for some time, it's a real pet peeve and I'm going to use this post to deliver this message to the tens of people who read my blog :)

Side note to the tens of people who read my blog, I am forever grateful for your support...but I digress.

I attended last night's sellout game at Dodger Stadium, and between balmy evening air, the icy cold beer, the back drop of the mountains majestically surrounding Chavez Ravine, the pre-game tribute to Mariano Rivera and the effortless save that he delivered in the bottom of the 9th, it was an almost perfect night. Almost.

The game, a pitchers duel, was tied up nothing, nothing at the top of the 9th, the Yankees had 2 outs and were sitting at the weakest part of their batting order. Overbay, bloopers a single to center sending Cano home.. and then it started. 

What had been friendly mutual ribbing the whole night suddenly turned sour. Instead of fans cheering on their own team they started turning on the opposing team and their fans. 

"You guys are still in 4th place!" said one disgruntled Dodger fan again and again and again.

"You know, you're still not making the playoffs!" said another. "Yankees Suck!" chants started echoing, louder and more impassioned than the earlier "Let's Go Dodgers!!" chants from the exact same fans.

Then Nix, the bane of my Yankee existence comes up to bat and flys to right field, an easy out everyone thought but after a communication error between Puig and Ellis results in a dropped ball, 2 more runners score and it's 3 zip. The crowd turned absolutely wretched and still more "Yankees Suck" ...Pardon me but was it not the Dodgers that just bumbled this last inning resulting in my team taking the lead? I'm no coach, or ESPN analyst but that's certainly how I saw that inning play out.

And the cherry on the cake, in the bottom of the 9th when the most celebrated closer of all time, one of the classiest, and most humble athletes in baseball if not in all sports who was honored on this very field this very evening approaches the mound to a choir of Dodger "fans" booing. You must be kidding me.

To those of you that say things like "X team sucks" and boo the great players if they are not on your team I say this. Shame on you! When I watch games in The House that Ruth Built, I welcome the opposing team and their fans, because without them we're just a bunch of knuckleheads sitting around paying $17 bucks for a beer and watching our team have batting practice.