Little Brown Jug

Michigan and Wisconsin played a football game today. The victor of this game gets possession of an old brown water jug that has been passed back and forth for decades.

Why am I telling you this?

All of these mentions of the 'Little Brown Jug' reminds me of the song that I sing to Bridgit, to the tune of "Little Brown Jug".

I will publish the words here, so you can sing along with me.

Are you ready?

Let's warm up a bit. Mi mi mi MI mi mi mi...ha ha ha HA ha ha haaaa....mi mi mi....

I have a dog, she is so cute
She always wears a brown fur suit
She loves me, and I love her
She is covered in soft brown fur

Ho ho ho, Hee hee hee,
Little brown dog, how I love thee
Ho ho ho, Hee hee hee,
Little brown dog, how I love theeee.......(big finish)

In case you are curious, here are the original words. There is a link at the bottom that has an awfully repetitive, tinny, little version of the song, if you want to sing along at your desk. Beware, it is awfully catchy.

Me and my wife live all alone
In a little log hut we call our own;
She loves gin and I love rum,
And don't we have a lot of fun!

Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!
Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!

When I go toiling on the farm
I take the little jug under my arm;
Place it under a shady tree,
Little brown jug,'tis you and me.

Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!
Ha, ha, ha, you and me,
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!


http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/jug.htm

Sporting Ruminations

I don't know what it says about the state of my mind that I would follow up a post about my grandmother with a post about baseball. That it is scattered? Shattered? Smothered and covered? Probably all of those things. (That was a Waffle House joke, for my non-Southern readership.)

I have reread my last post several times, and while there are things that I would change, I am mostly pleased with it. I think that is what has kept me from posting another entry. I would reread it and get distracted by changes I would make, or thoughts of my grandmother. I am trying to avoid endlessly re-editing all of my stream of consciousness ramblings. I try to just set things down and walk away. I don't want to over-analyze my neuroses, or to make this too polished.

Rather than allowing the tone of this blog to become too high-minded, I have decided to post about what is consuming most of my thoughts this weekend: Padres playoff baseball, my college pick 'ems league, the Padres, the desire to snack, the Padres/Diamondbacks game that started 20 minutes ago, how much I dislike the Dodgers and would like to see them lose, LSU failing to cover the spread and Colorado actually covering the spread, which makes me think of dips and cheese spreads (see notes on snacking above), the odd response to an email reply that I sent to an old ex-boyfriend, and the Padres making the playoffs this year.

- - -

I saved this and spent the day watching football and napping. Quelle suprise, mais non?

Turns out that my Padres won their game today, and so did the Dodgers, so it comes down to the last game of the season to determine who gets the division title, and who gets the wild card berth. Here are the various combinations for the game results tomorrow:

If we win (yay) and the Dodgers lose (yay), we get the division title.

If we lose (boo) and the Dodgers win (boo) we get the wild card berth.

If we both lose (boo/yay) we will win the division title, and the Dodgers would get the wild card because the Padres won 13 of the 18 games against the Dodgers this year. Hell yeah! That is an ass-whuppin', my friends! We OWN them...

Naturally, everyone on ESPN is talking about how the Dodgers "clinched" a spot in the playoffs. Oh, and yeah, I think the Padres played a game today too. The Dodgers spraying champagne on each other was the first story on Baseball Tonight. The Padres? "Well, yeah, these are big games". How annoying.

The Padres bullpen has been the best in the NL all year, and now it merits a "Well, they should be OK if they can get it to Hoffman." I need to just stop watching the editorials.

I think I am just grumpy because several teams failed to cover the spread today (I am looking at you Florida, Rutgers, USC and Nebraska!). Once again, I find myself in second place in the league. This is really starting to irritate me. I want my seben-fitty.

My Grandmother's Button Tin

This may come as a shock to those of you that know me, but I was putting things away in my spare bedroom tonight. Historically, my spare bedroom has more closely resembled a storage unit, rather than a place for guests or reading or whatever it is that one does in one's extra room.

I put the shelves back into a bookcase, and was shelving some boxed books when I found my grandmother's button tin. I think that everyones grandmother had something similar; it is a candy tin that she "repurposed" into a storage unit for spare buttons, needles and various other sewing accoutrement.

No garment was ever given away, or, god forbid, thrown away, at my grandmothers house. Clothes were handed down from sister to sister or cousin to cousin, taken in or let out. When an article was on its last legs, it would be stripped of buttons, hooks and eyes, zippers or anything else that could be used again. Then, the material would be used for doll clothes or baby quilts or anything else that needed to be made.

My grandmother's button tin is a microcosm of my family's fashion history. Lost a button? We would paw through the tin until we found one that would work. I was fascinated by the fact that she could remember items of clothing that had originally sported a particular button. This one? It came off of a skirt of my mother's. That one? A coat that an aunt made in high school. Looking back as an adult, I can see that a distinctive button would stick in your mind, but as a child, I thought she was omnipotent.

So, there I was, sitting cross-legged on the floor tonight, looking at the buttons. They still smell faintly of her house, although that might be my imagination. Even so, I still don't like to leave the lid off. I want to contain that small bit of her.

My grandfather's name badges were right on top. My grandfather died twelve years before my grandmother, and I was thinking about how much she loved him, and how hard it must have been to see those in there every time she opened the lid. A little embroidered oval reminder of loss.

Predictably, I was on the verge of tears, thinking about her, when I saw this small piece of paper, neatly folded into fourths. I took it out, and found it was a joke - a joke typed on a piece of paper decades ago. It was the old 'pica' type font and the paper was frail and yellowed. I will type it here for you:

"A much traveled playboy we know says that in various stages of life a woman resembles the continents of the world.

13 - 18, for example, she is like Africa, virgin territory, unexplored.
18 - 30, she is like Asia, hot and exotic.
30 - 45, she is like America, fully explored and free with her resources.
45 - 55, she is like Europe, exhausted, but not without her points of interest.
After 55, she is like Australia, everybody knows it's down there, but nobody cares much."

Thinking about this now, I am torn between thinking about the differences in our expectations of aging and sexuality, geopolitical annoyance or feminist outrage, but at the time, I smiled, and the tears receded.

I have no way of knowing where this came from, or why she put it in her button tin, but I think that she would laugh herself silly if she knew that she made me laugh, in Atlanta, in a home of my own, in 2006.

The universe can bring you to your knees, but your family will help pick you up, every time.

Ode to a Mattress Topper

It is almost 7 pm on Saturday, and I have been singularly unproductive, even by my standards.

The culprit? A two inch thick memory foam mattress topper.

I put it on my bed last night, with clean jersey sheets, my cotton blanket and a quilt. That sound you heard was the clouds parting and an angel choir singing of the glory that is my bed.

The only thing I like more than lying around in bed watching football on TV is getting a bargain, and the topper was definitely a bargain. I got it 75% off at Linens and Things, and used a 20% coupon. Sometimes the planets just align. So, for the bargain price of $28, I will never get out of bed again. Can I get an "Amen"?

I was afraid that the additional two inches would cause trouble with my sheets and everyone's favorite brown dog, but the sheets stretched, and SGBD cleared it with ease. She seems to be as enamored of the topper as I am. I had to wake her up at 9:45 to take her outside this morning. Usually, she is performing the "Go Outside Rumba" on my head by 6:30.

Now I feel bad about not doing anything all day. It is more the fact that you all know that I haven't done anything, more than I am shamed by my own lack of motivation.

I think I will peel myself out of bed and throw the old sheets in the washer. That will allow me to do two things; I can assuage my conscience by thinking that I am getting something done, and I can lie back down almost immediately.

Baseball in September

I can tell that we are creeping up on Fall. How do I know? Beyond looking at a calendar, or tracking the color of the leaves or calculating the cycles of the moon, I can tell because I am no longer sweating like a beast, and I have excess stomach acid.

The sweating has been alleviated by the fact that the temperatures here have dropped around 15 degrees, and the humidity has shrunk to a manageable 60%.

The stomach acid can be laid at the feet of my San Diego Padres, who are going right down to the wire, making a bid for a playoff spot.

As of this exact second in time, they are at the top of the NL West, with a 1/2 game lead over the Dodgers and the Philthies. Even worse, our young pitcher, Chris Young, has a no hitter in the 6th inning. Like the 1/2 game over the Dodgers wasn't enough!

Think clear, pleasant thoughts for me, and for my Padres.

Let's go Padres, let's go!

Sucked Into Reality TV

Well, goddamnit.

Animal Planet has managed to do what the major (and each of the minor) TV networks have failed to do. I am hooked on "Meerkat Manor".

The "reality TV" thing has been sweeping the nation for a decade (isn't that horrifying), and I have been holding myself smugly aloof from this phenomenon.

I was coerced into watching one episode of the first season of "Survivor", found it stilted and puerile, and never watched another episode.

Imagine my chagrin, now that I have been sucked into the lives of a group of meerkats in Africa. I simply have to know, "Is Shakespeare OK?"

They ended on a 'cliffhanger' of Shakespeare defending the smaller members of his tribe against a rival tribe. The babies are OK (and so adorable!), but Shakespeare is nowhere to be seen. I don't know if they have kicked dirt over him, so as not to traumatise the children (and this mid-30's working adult), or if he is fine, or what. I have been trolling the internet, and can't seem to find mention of him.

Sure, I can see that he survived the puff adder strike, but I already knew that. I cried. He is so little, and he got bit by this snake, and he dragged his sad, tiny self to the edge of the burrow, but didn't go inside. He laid out all night, a very dangerous proposition. Ugh, getting sniffy just thinking about it.

He just CAN'T die. He CAN'T!

Anyone know what happened to Shakespeare?