And the Cubs won the game

It is well known in my circle of family and friends that I am a big soft mush who can be moved to tears in any sentimental moment. Yesterday was a hard day.

I was barely holding it together last night while ESPN showed ballplayers in stadiums all over the country remembering Miami Pitcher Jose Fernandez, killed the night before in a boating accident. If they couldn’t hold back their tears, how could I?

Then during the Cubs-Cardinals game, David Ross, Cubs catcher who in only two years has endeared himself to the fans in Chicago, came to bat in what was to be the Cubs’ last home game of the season. Ross, 39, has announced this is his last year in the big leagues. When his name was announced, the crowd gave him a rollicking standing ovation.  He was moved.  So was I.

When he came up to bat for the second time in the game, the Cub fans again got to their feet and cheered him noisily. He thanked them by hitting a home run. That alone could have put me over the edge, but then they broke away for a special news break saying Arnold Palmer had died.

Later in the game, with two outs in the seventh inning, Joe Madden came out of the dugout and ambled toward the pitching mound. Nobody could understand why he was doing that since Jon Lester was pitching a fine game and in no trouble at all. But Madden went out there not to relieve the pitcher but to take Ross out of the game so the fans could shower their appreciation on him all over again. Ross was moved. So was I.

I blinked the tears out of my eyes, trying to put myself back together as I watched Ross leave the field, waving his thanks to the fans. I had almost succeeded when the picture switched to a shot of the next St. Louis batter, Catcher Yadier Molina, standing at home plate sincerely applauding Ross as he walked toward the dugout.

No more holding back. More Kleenex, please.

How To Maintain Control

I used to collect pencils from golf courses, those stubby little things they give you to mark your scorecard that have the name of the course printed on them. At first I saved pencils only from courses I had actually played, basically as souvenirs.

But then I started having friends bring me pencils from courses they played in other towns or states, and any time I drove past a golf course from which I had no pencil, I’d stop in and ask for one. I faxed or e-mailed scores of courses asking them to send me a pencil or two. Through the miracle of the Internet I found other collectors to trade with, and I created a web page (that was mentioned in Sports Illustrated magazine) to promote the hobby. I became quite the Grand Poobah of golf course pencil collecting. I had pencils from over 2,600 golf courses from all over the country and the world.

And then one day I was tired of it, so I sold the whole bunch to a fellow collector and was glad to be done.

I have a collection of casino chips. I save one or two chips from every casino I gamble at, basically as souvenirs.

Friends sometimes offer to bring me a chip from some casino they plan to visit, but I politely decline; or if they do give me one, I accept it with thanks but keep it separate from the others, limiting my collection to chips from casinos I have actually been to and gambled at.

You see, I learned my lesson from the pencils.

A fried cake by any other name

I downloaded an eBook I found online called "Bohemian-American Cook Book," which I thought might be amusing and possibly useful. It is a translation into English of a cookbook originally published in Bohemian by one Marie Rosický in 1915. It is intended for the daughters of Bohemian immigrants who, to Mrs. Rosický's sorrow, cannot read the language of their forebears.

There are exactly 1000 recipes in 43 categories covering, literally, soup to nuts. Some are for dishes I would never prepare, much less eat (jellied carp, calf’s brains) and things I don’t even know what they are (sago soup, breaded salsify). But, to warm the heart of any grandchild of a Bohemian grandma, there are 29 recipes for dumplings.

Each recipe includes both an English and Bohemian name, and in the section on Doughnuts and Fried Cakes, Recipe No. 809 (Fried Cake, or Šišky) caught my eye. I loved my grandmother's Šišky (pronounced SHISH-key), which is a fried, hole-less doughnut. I got Grandma's recipe from an aunt who spoke but couldn't read Bohemian and who said she translated as Grandma gave her the recipe orally.

Here is what Marie  Rosický says to do:  Cream together half a cup of butter, four yolks, a dash of salt, a dash of grated lemon rind, a dash of mace, add a quart of warm flour, then a cake of compressed yeast dissolved in tepid cream enough to make a thick batter. Beat until the dough does not stick, then stir in two tablespoons of seedless raisins, sprinkle the dough with flour and let it rise. When it has risen, turn it out on a floured bread board, cut into small pieces, roll each into a small roll, let them rise again, then fry in deep hot fat. When done on both sides drain and dust with powdered sugar.

Except that there is no reference to the temperature of the flour, Grandma's recipe calls for the exact same ingredients in the exact same amounts and includes such instructions as "then the yeast dissolved in tepid cream enough to make a thick batter. Beat until dough does not stick."

I'm guessing Grandma didn't bring that recipe with her from the old country.

There she is ... Miscellaneous

I stuck with the Cubs games on TV yesterday afternoon, even when the score was 7 to nothing at the end of the first inning, but when the score reached 10 to nothing, I started flipping channels. I landed on something called “Toddlers and Tiaras” on TLC.

It was a behind-the-scenes look at child beauty pageants for which very young girls (and even infants) are dressed up and coiffed up and made up within an inch of their lives and, as soon as they are old enough to walk, are taught to dance and pose and sashay across a stage like grown women.

It was kind of like when you see a bad accident that is horrifying, yet you can’t turn away.

The perpetrators of this appalling exploitation are the girls' mothers, all of them very obviously trying to live their unfulfilled dreams vicariously through their daughters. They should be ashamed of themselves, and the male judges, especially given the way they talk about how the little girls look, ought to be arrested.

Olympic Workout

The 2016 Summer Olympics are almost over, and I would just like to say that I think NBC did a lousy job showing it, despite airing events on NBC, NBCSP, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, USA, the Golf, Basketball, and Soccer channels, and the Internet.

Either because of or in spite of NBC’s coverage, I was not inspired to comment on it daily in this here blog thing like I did four years ago. My opinion of rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming hasn’t changed, after all, so there’s no point.

My wife and I have, however, invented a new event – synchronized recliner. It’s uncanny the way we are able to grab that La-Z-Boy handle and pop the footrest up at exactly the same time.

In addition to that, I have given a whole new meaning to “armchair athlete.” While sitting in my recliner, I get physical while watching, assisting the competitors by performing small, well-controlled body movements – tensing muscles, shifting to one side, twisting, bobbing up and down, leaning toward the finish line – hell, during a soccer match my feet and legs never stop.

I'll bet I burn 500 calories for every hour I watch.

Bloggers blogging blogs

At the top of this page above the title of this here blog thing there is a little toolbar with a search function and a thing you can click to recommend this blog (feel free), and there's a "More" drop-down, and then to the right of that is another thing you can click on, "Next Blog."  If you click on it, some random blog will appear.

Now and then will I click on that just to see what I can see in the world of blogging. I usually visit at least a dozen. This morning I did a couple dozen, and I learned from this exercise the following things:

1. Most blogs have gobs of pictures; I seldom use pictures.

2. My blog layout is not very fancy.

3. I write better than most of those people.

4. Some blogs have scores of followers; I have seven.

5. There's a lot of weird shit out there.

Nothing but the best

One time, about twenty years ago now, we took a weekend trip to Toronto where we stayed at the lovely old Royal York Hotel. It was a bit expensive, but we thought we deserved it because we had just quit smoking. The trip really was a way to distract ourselves for our first smokeless weekend.

Either they hadn’t invented non-smoking hotel rooms yet, or we couldn’t get one on short notice, but in any case there were ashtrays all over our room. So that seeing them wouldn’t tempt or torment me, I gathered them all up and stuck them in a drawer.

On Saturday afternoon we ended a day of sight-seeing at the CN Tower, which at the time was the world’s tallest free-standing structure. Up toward the top we found the bar and stopped in to refresh ourselves. We got to talking to the bartender, a middle-aged woman who looked like her feet hurt her. We said we were hoping to have dinner at the tower’s famous rotating restaurant, called “360” because it affords a 360-degree view of the city as it turns. She said that without a reservation, we’d never get in, especially on Saturday night.

It came up in conversation that we were staying at the Royal York, and all of a sudden life changed. Our bartender friend picked up her telephone, pressed a button, and, after a short conversation, informed us she had booked us a window table at 360.

Sometimes it pays to put on the dog.

Meanwhile, when we got back to the hotel that evening, we found that housekeeping had left even more ashtrays all over the room. I put all of them in the drawer with the others.

It wasn't until the next day when we were about halfway home that it dawned on me I should have put the ashtrays back. I was afraid they would think we had stolen them and we'd be getting a bill for them. But we never heard anything about it.

Sometimes I wonder how long it was before somebody found all those ashtrays in the dresser. Or if they ever did.