Salad Is Slaughter

It’s opening day of the new baseball season, and I’m trying to decide if I care yet. Before the 1994 strike I followed the Cardinals pretty religiously. I would go up to Candlestick park and brave the biting cold wind whenever they were in town. Candlestick Park, especially for a night game, was a horror. Around the 7th inning you could see the fog roll over the top of the stadium. Day games were better, but not much. If you were in the sun it was pretty nice. If you were caught in the shade, you had better have brought your down jacket. It was pretty amusing (if you weren’t one of the people who were freezing) to see people in shorts enjoying the sun just a couple of seats away from people in heavy coats, blankets wrapped around them, and their teeth chattering. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. Candlestick Park was a pit.

The strike in 1994 bothered me a lot. Millionaires who play a children’s game fighting with billionaires to try to get paid more millions — I just couldn’t relate. I also had primo seats about 2 rows from the field between home and third for the Cards / Giants game, and the game was cancelled. I was more than a little pissed. Then they cancelled the World Series. When baseball resumed I didn’t go back. If the players didn’t care, and the owners didn’t care, why should I care? The new season came around, and I didn’t go to a Cards / Giants game. I didn’t watch any games on TV. The next season — more of the same. I didn’t go to a game, didn’t watch it on TV. And, I didn’t miss it a bit.

Over the years since the 1994 strike I’ve gone to a few games, but that’s only because I was in St. Louis and one brother or another wanted to go. I haven’t made the trek up to San Francisco to see a game since 1994; not even to see the new ballpark. Last season I tried to watch a few innings during the playoffs, but the passion just wasn’t there. Not like before 1994. Last year I’d watch a couple of innings, then switch over to something else.

So, it’s opening day of the new baseball season. Should I care? I might watch bits and pieces of a couple of games. Pre-1994, if DirecTV had been around and offered their baseball package, I’d have been all over it. Not today. If a game is on ESPN I might watch part of it. It’s more likely I’ll just pop something into the DVD player. I think they may have lost me for good.

Well, the doctor said that Jake has diabetes. He’s 9 years old, so that’s not unexpected. We have to give him an insulin injection after every meal. If he goes into insulin shock we have to put Karo syrup on his gums. Janet’s going to test his blood sugar once a week and report back to the vet. The vet said that normally they keep a dog with diabetes in the hospital for a week, but since he’s known Janet for so long and knows that she knows how to take care of dogs, he just sent Jake home.

Last week at bowling I had my worst series this season, possibly the worst bowling I had done in several years. That must have put the universe seriously out of wack because this week I had my high series for the season. The first game I had a 204, the second a 223, and the third game was 191 for a 618 series. Not my best ever, but still respectable.

You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly — Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is — and Mary, and the Widow Douglas, is all told about in that book — which is mostly a true book; with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up, is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece — all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece, all the year round — more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas, she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn’t stand it no longer, I lit out. I got into my old rags, and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer, he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join him if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

Jake, our 9-year old black lab, has been leaking lately and has been drinking a lot of water. I did a Google search and those are some of the symptoms of diabetes. The vet asked us to bring in a urine sample. Have you ever tried to get a dog to pee in a cup?

We took all three dogs for a walk last night. It was dark. As usual Jake would try to pee on everything. Unfortunately it seemed like it was always in a dark area. He finally lifted his leg in a lighted area and Janet got a sample. Then Jake hit the cup with his leg and spilled the pee everywhere. We walked along some more and near the end of the walk Janet finally got some in the cup and poured it into a plastic ziplock bag. I kept the bag in my refrigerator and dropped it off at the vets this morning. Yes, I’ve stored dog pee in my refrigerator, but that’s not as bad as when Janet had dog poop in hers because we had to take a Lisa sample to the vets to check for worms.

During our walk last night we came across a lady with a dog. Devil Dog Lisa was actually friendly and wagged her tail at the strange dog. I was pretty happy about that because it means my anti-aggression training is working.

Frank’s blog: Where else can you go for writings about the Middle East and dog pee?

Trey Parker and Matt Stone have announced that they are teaming up with Norman Lear on an upcoming episode of South Park. I really wonder how well that pairing is going to work out. Parker and Stone’s work in South Park has always struck me as “middle of the road” while Lear’s creations (All in the Family, Maude, etc.) have tended toward the far left.

“Middle of the Road?” you say? “South Park is all foul mouth kids and fart jokes.”

Not at all. South Park has actually evolved into a voice of reason:

• Tolerate other people, but that doesn’t mean you have to like what they do.
• New Age medicine is bullshit.
• People who claim that they can talk to the dead are frauds and con artists.
• Crusading parents are suspect.
• Stem cell research is important.
• Intolerance in the name of religion is insane.

I hope they keep up the good work. I also hope they don’t wait too long to release the season two DVD.

Technorati Tags: television