Unmitigated

Time for the Fall Festival

The cake walk board, waiting for some takers, framed in SRB Cardinal red.

For more than fifty years, St. Robert Bellarmine parish, where I grew up and went to school, held it's annual festival on the second or third weekend in September. For the last two years, it has been moved to May. It will always be the Fall Festival, as far as I am concerned.

Although the rides and games didn't open until Thursday night at festival time, the excitement started on Tuesday morning, when the trucks from the carnival company started to roll in to the "playground." You might call it a parking lot, but it was the only place we had to play at recess time. Except for some rather spectacular skinned knees, and one rather impressive closed-head injury, we didn't know the difference. When it was time to play, we ran, and jumped rope, and played tag, and threw worms on the girls (I was not afraid, therefore, I ALSO threw worms on the girls).

Since it was September, we were still quite easily distracted, as we sat perspiring in our wool uniforms in 85 degree classrooms. The wings of the building were well-shaded, so opening the windows cooled the classrooms a bit. Unfortunately, the salty language of the carnies raised the temperature again, so the windows usually remained firmly closed during festival set-up week.

Once we had progressed as far as fifth grade, the tenor of the early weeks of school changed completely. The whispering and sweaty palms increased tenfold, as boys began to ask girls to go to the fair. Who was going to the fair with whom was all the topic of conversation everywhere. Those poor boys. I can't imagine being ten years old, and having to ask for a "date."

As a social outcast, I never really had to worry about these things, but sit back comfortably from afar and watch. Younger sister was included in all the goings on, as an athlete, and a girl who was very much into looking and acting like everyone else, something that got my hackles up, even then. I know she went to the fair one year with Dave O., and had a "boyfriend," Brian M. for a while. By then, I had moved on to the much cooler locale of high school. It only seemed fair she should be popular, as I was smart, and her teachers were constantly comparing her to me. I still don't know which of us won that competition.

Every year, hundreds of alumni of SRB descend on the Fall Festival on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, usually with their kids (or grandkids!). Most years, I do the same, always examining faces of other grown-up fairgoers, looking for familiar characteristics. The girls-become-women haven't usually changed much. The boys-grown-to-men usually have, making them difficult to recognize. My son was once in a version of Music Man with the niece of a guy I'd had a terrible crush on for all of high school. He came up and greeted me by name. Even after my quizzical look, and his introduction, I was not convinced. The guy I knew 30 years ago had long blond hair and huge, tinted, aviator-style glasses. This guy had a nice, slightly-longer-than-a-buzz cut, and contact lenses.

Apparently, I had had a crush on the 70s.

This year, Buddy and I went to the fair on Saturday evening, after I had woken from a much-needed nap. I had spent the morning painting at the kid's new house (daughter and fiance moving in a cross the street), and needed to see the lights and hear the music again. I can no longer ride most of the rides, owing to motion sickness, but that didn't matter. Last year I missed it entirely, and felt bereft for weeks.

The weather was perfect, and the sun was low on the horizon. The lighting was just beginning to glow.

 

 

Dear So and So: Still Alive Edition

Dear Jehovah's Witnesses,

Please go away.

Thanks,

unmitigated me and Connie Chung (looking loaf-ish, after a big breakfast)

Dear Spring,

Oh, how I love you! Welcome, and feel free to stay for a couple more months!

Warm again, at last,

unmitigated me

Dear Readers,

I have a job interview on Wednesday! It's still at the same history attraction where I am currently working retail, but this is for the Assistant Curator for Education! This is what I was hoping to do, once I got my foot in the door. I'll let you know how it goes.

cross your fingers and toes,

unmitigated me

Dear Laundry Faeries,

I'd appreciate it if you girls could get a move on. Socks and underwear are a priority, please.

Impatiently,

unmitigated me

Dear Bossy,

Thanks for the tour stop in Detroit. It was a pleasure to meet you and (Harrison) Ford! Plus, I got to meet all those wonderful local bloggers.

Names and links to follow,

unmitigated me

Now scroll back up and click that button to visit Kat's place, for more Dear So-and-So...

Today, We Paint

I got an email yesterday from my boss, as did two others, that because of the heavy rain predicted for today, or shifts had been canceled. So, I will not have to see how I do working shifts on two consecutive days.

Instead I will see how I do tomorrow after painting all day today! Partly Cloudy and her fiance have ordered appliances that will be delivered on Saturday, so we really need to get the kitchen done today. I already have some "Before" pictures, so I will post them with the results later today or tomorrow morning, depending on whether I am still able to move.

Here's the trick: I am a great painter of rooms. But I hate the masking and other prep. So I get PC to do all the crap stuff, and I get to do the very satisfying painting part! Lucky me!

Off, now, to work my little fingers to the bone. Please send chocolate...

Startling News

It has come to my attention over the last week that...wait for it...I am not as young as I once was.

I know. I'm shocked, too.

When last I worked a retail position, the year was 1999. When last I worked a retail position that required huge inputs of energy and constant running hither and yon, it was 1995. Fifteen ytears ago, I was 31 years old, and tired at the end of a big shift, but nothing like the bone-crushing exhaustion I have been feeling recently.

On Sunday, the Village was hosting its last Day Out With Thomas. Thomas the Tank Engine, that is. On Mother's day, I saw more toddlers and strollers than a place with lots of toddlers and strollers. I rang up sales, and ran for price checks, and put out more stock, and cleaned the floors, and just generally moved at high speed from noon until 4 p.m., when I got to go home early because it was slowing down, and I am a mom, and it was Mother's Day, after all.

I came home, got changed into clothes that did NOT say STAFF in huge yellow letters, and crashed for a few hours. Fortunately, I had thawed some spaghetti sauce earlier, so a spaghetti dinner was thrown together by my son(!), and I crashed again soon after.

Yesterday, I got a call from my boss. It was raining pretty hard, and was supposed to all day, which meant that Village traffic would be very low. It also meant that all the field trips that were scheduled, dozens of them, would be relocated to the museum. The museum has two stores; the big one with all the glass and pottery and some books, and kids' stuff, and the Genius at Play store, actually inside the museum, much smaller, but LOADED with stuff that kids love, from old-fashioned rock candy to retro toys to all the souvenir stuff you would expect. (Side note: I just figured out the french origins of the word "souvenir." Aren't you proud? I'm not sharing it here, because it sounds sexual. You'll just have to look it up yourself.)

That's where they needed me yesterday, so of course the store manager went to the sedate side of the store, and left me in charge of the whacky side and I never stepped away from the register, but rang up sales for two-and-a-half hours straight. I got a fifteen minute break, then went back at it for the last two-and-a-half hours. At least for the last thirty minutes, I was able to work on recovery. Not my own, mind you, recovering the stock from the onslaught of hundreds of kids, picking up everything and playing with it, then putting it back, heaven-knows-where, usually the closest horizontal surface.

This is not a problem. The more they play, the more they buy, it just adds to the running around bit, and the eroding of my terribly old behind-side.

What do you suppose I did when I got home? I threw a Costco quiche in the oven, then reclined until it was done. Wrapped it up to keep it warm for Bud, and crashed again.

I'm a little worried, because I am scheduled to work Thursday AND Friday this week, with no day-off between for recovery. So I will try to use some time this afternoon to prep posts for those two days, because I should be completely incoherent (as opposed to my normal state of "somewhat incoherent") by the end of Friday.

That's all I got right now. I already need a nap.

Oh wait! I have decided to stop referring to myself as middle-aged-woman when I comment. I have been reliably advised that having a name that matches my blog name would make me easier to find. Henceforth, I will be "unmitigated me." There will be a transition period, during which, I will add (m.a.w.), so that the threes of people who know me that way will be less confused than usual.

Ernie Harwell 1918-2010

This is a re-post of a tribute I wrote to baseball on the radio, a love I developed mainly thanks to the brilliant work of Hall of Fame Broadcaster, Ernie Harwell. Ernie passed away last week after a bout with cancer, and all of Michigan is mourning his passing. On Monday, there will be a tribute to Ernie at Comerica Park, the site where Ernie's coffin was laid in state Thursday from 6 a.m. to midnight, so that the city could pay their respects to the man who was so well-loved.

Baseball on the Radio

I love the sounds of a baseball game in the late innings. It brings to mind muggy summer nights, peanut litter crunching under my feet, and the other-worldly glow of the lights on the field. While my husband and most of America enjoy a game on television, I can almost always be found with my little radio listening intently to every moment.

A good baseball announcer knows what to describe to make the baseball game come alive. A great baseball announcer knows when not to talk. Ernie Harwell (Detroit Tigers radio voice from 1960 to 1991) knew when to let the sounds of the crowd carry the broadcast. He was as famous for that as for letting us know the hometown of the lucky dog that took home a foul ball, a feat that absolutely amazed me for the longest time, until Husband spoiled that particular piece of magic for me. Harwell was picking random towns in Michigan and northern Ohio. I prefer to think there was a network of walkie-talkie equipped spies in the stands, relaying the information to Ernie as the catches were made. But maybe that’s just me.

In a movie theater, the sound of an audience member speaking breaks the illusion of the magic on the screen. A single voice disturbs like a guffaw at a funeral. At a baseball game, there exists a constant hum of conversation and activity, punctuated by the cheers of the crowd. In a radio broadcast, I can hear one dedicated fan trying to get the crowd fired up with a “Let’s go, Tigers, let’s go!” The sounds of the vendors in the section below the radio booth carry to the airwaves at the same time they are reaching their customers in the paying seats. All of the pleasure and none of the calories.

The cheers of the crowd rise and fall like the swell of surf on a beach. The leisurely pace of the game of baseball guarantees an occasional lull in the hum of the fans, and it’s not easy to predict what will induce it to rise, rise, rise to crescendo. The appearance of a crowd favorite at the plate, encouragement for a batter at full count (or a pitcher defending one), and, on at least one memorable occasion, a shout of approval for an outfielder chasing a pigeon off the field. But nothing compares to sudden outburst of joy for the long ball. When the ball comes off the bat at just the right trajectory to clear the outfield fence, listeners can feel the home crowd rise out of their seats as if to add momentum to the ball that might be on its way out. It might be cut short, by a catch on the warning track, but a successful trip beyond the fence means the high note will continue for a full, delirious minute. High-fives, hugs, and hearty whistles drown out even the voices of the men paid to bring us the story.

In the 2007 season, Tigers baseball finally came to FM radio in metro Detroit. The clarity of what some of our outstate brethren had been hearing for years, now came to those of us in the big city. I hated it. That hollow, echo-y sound I had grown up with listening to ball games on AM radio seemed sacred to me. How could I switch to the pre-fab, manufactured sound of FM radio? I took a few weeks, and some cajoling from my husband, but I have switched. I feel a bit like a traitor, until I drive under a bridge and the traditional AM signal is uninterrupted. I can be dragged into the future with the best of them.

And who knows what that future will bring? Satellite radio, digital broadcasts, radio-tagged baseballs, so the guy in the stands who’s lucky enough to shag one will be able to announce his own hometown while recovering from the sting of the catch? Just one thing: if they ever do hire those walkie-talkie equipped spies to be in the stands? I want to fill out a job application.