Spring Zephyr

The excitement was building all morning as the weather guessers tried to determine if the crowd was going to need umbrellas at Nationals Park. There were the usual promotions to help whip up the emotions of the fans- dollar hotdogs and free wifi- though the t-shirts were held back to give out at Saturday’s game.

The fans didn’t care. They have waited through this long brutal winter to celebrate with the Boys of Spring, and as the hour for the first pitch approached, it looked like it was going to stay dry, and the game would come off as scheduled.

The novelty of having MLB back in DC hasn’t quite worn off, but I am mostly over it. When the Nats came to town there was a literal fever to put together consortiums for full and partial ticket packages. I had a partial package with my older boy, but that was over at old RFK, a grand park with plenty of space in the parking lot for tailgating.

It is not that I dislike the new park on the waterfront downtown- it is a pretty slick operation, great views and plenty of amenities that RFK never had. But times being what they are, I decided I don’t care for crowds, or traffic. Add the bum leg and I just began to tune things out.

I was talking to some pals who had done the same thing. I listened to the game on the radio while I drove out to consult with my legal team, and heard the sad pivotal moment of the game in the bottom of the fifth on the way back, crawling along I-66 through the perpetual jam where the lanes narrow at Route 50.

(Upton appeals to the Umps for guidance. Photo Washington Nationals).

Justin Upton was patrolling left field for the Braves as Ian Desmond of the Nats ripped one all the way to the wall, where the ball stuck in a seam under the padding. In real baseball Desmond would have gone after the ball to make the play as Desmond kept chugging around the bases for what looked like the inside-the-park HR as the umps looked on, speechless.

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez challenged the non-call, and after a five-minute delay (isn’t this game slow enough already?) the homer was turned into a ground rule double. Desmond went back to second, and then was ignominiously picked off going for third. The Nats would up going down by a run, 2-1, spoiling the opener.

Well, it might have been spoiled for someone but I was just happy that they are playing ball again. I strolled into Willow at the usual time and saw that some former associates had played hooky and watched the game on the big screen over at the Front Page sports bar, and were now drinking ice-tea to sober up for the ride home. Leatherneck Ray and Long-Haired Mike (who isn’t, at the moment, but Short haired Mike is working out of town and I guess he is just Mike now) were still pretty fired up.

Old Jim was arguing with Admiral about whether an openly gay former Republican white guy could beat the little-known Democrat lady from Ward 3 who won the primary. Jim is an authority- he had debated Marion Barry several times in his run for the office back in the day, and was of the opinion that only Harold Washington and Barry (first term, sorry) had the qualifications to actually run our little hothouse District.

None of us live there, and only Jim did, for all the obvious reasons, so we gradually migrated off onto important topics like Minor League Baseball.

We have all lived in towns that were un-served by MLB, and one thing we could agree on was that AAA ball offered a lot of things that the Bigs can’t.

In Hawaii, we had the Islanders, a talented little team, small crowds, beautiful weather, and a ballpark just across the street from the McGrew Loop Navy housing where we lived. Tickets were cheap and it was fun to take the little guys over to watch a few innings under the blue skies without worrying too much about who was going to win. In college, we could avoid Detroit’s blighted neighborhood around old Tiger Stadium and watch the Mudhens down in Toledo and legally drink 3.2 beer.

Our pal the Master Chief Boatswains Mate reported that his AAA New Orleans Zephyrs won their opener 2-1 against the Colorado Sky Socks. This early in the spring, the temperatures have not turned to soggy misery in the Crescent City, and from what he heard, it was low 70s at first pitch at high noon.

(Zephyrs park on game day. Photo Eric and Wendy Pastore).

“It is just perfect,” he said, taking a sip of Dogshead Pale Ale. “You show up at the park fifteen minutes before first pitch, plenty of room to spread out and relax, and the promotions are great. Last time I was there me and the wife got special commemorative opening day balls, provided by the Silver Slipper Gambling Casino. Crowds are no more than 10,000- big enough to make noise, but small enough that going to the game isn’t an ordeal.”

“I almost got a gig singing the Anthem for the Islanders,” I said, peering into my glass of pinot noir. “Fell apart, though. Schedule conflicts.”

“We had local Cajun-Zydaco rock star Amanda Shaw sing it at Zephyrs games. She is more popular than Elvis ever was in the Francophone and Southeast parishes. She is probably only 26 now, but she has been on stage since she was seven with her fiddle and bilingual songs. No major crowd producing event is considered complete with out her.”

“Survivors of the Navy Yard shooting threw out the first pitch this afternoon. I don’t know where the President was.”

“They didn’t like his delivery last time he did it,” proclaimed Ray. “I don’t think he played growing up.”

“I bet he went to an Islanders game,” though, I said defensively.

Boats laughed. “Down home, they had the GM and the Parish President each threw out the first pitch.” He crinkled his eyes at the memory. “The Parish President had a terrible arm, his ball went way over the catcher’s extended reach and landed in the netting that protects the seats behind home plate. Everybody cheered like crazy because …” He paused to think of a decent reason and took a sip of beer, “Well, he is the Parish President and we all elected him, so I guess we exempt him from the scumbag politician label like we do for our Sheriff.”

“Anyone know who won the race of the Presidents today at the game?”

The Admiral put down his iced tea and announced that National’s mascot Teddy Roosevelt had beaten the field of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Taft to take a commanding one-to-nothing lead in the season-long competition. “Teddy once went 0-526, but he has been on a tear of late. Maybe this is his year.”

(Boudreaux and Bride. Photo Zephyrs.)

Boats said that the Zephyrs have the “610 Stompers,” an all-male pot bellied, middle aged comic dance troop who gets the Cajun crowd dancing through the game. “But the best mascot is the human-sized nutrias “Boudreaux” and his wife “Cotile.” They bombard the crowd with their famous t-shirt cannons and the “ball park beauties” run their sideline fan participation games at each change of sides. Then at the 7th inning stretch, Boudreaux, Cotile, the 610 Stompers, and the “Ball Park Beauties”) get the crowd up and dancing.”

“Did they win?” I asked.

Boats had to think for a moment. “Why, yes. They did. It took some work, including a really showy steal of second base preceding the final run. There was a standing ovation for the Zephyrs, more dancing and then twenty full minutes of fireworks.”

“That sounds like a magnificent opening day, and no traffic jam when it’s over,” growled Jim.

Boats nodded. “Three hours of sound and light show built around some quality baseball. And the value part? One senior citizen ticket and a free parking coupon for ten bucks!”

We all nodded as Jerry the Barrister plopped down with his son at the end of the bar for a hard cider and the Willow Friday Fish fry. “Anyone go to the game today?” he asked.

“Nah,” we said. “We were at the Triple A game.”

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Home Opener

So, Old Jim called and asked if I was coming out to play- I had been home all day, and decided it would be nice to get out in the open air on the way to a dark bar. Jim said he had a late lunch at Willow for business purposes and was still there, and I told him I might see my way clear to shut down the computer and abandon the Great American Novel for the afternoon.

I strolled in as the place was just starting to wake up after the sleepy afternoon. Jim was under his earbuds, listening to music from long ago and far away. “Hey,” I said. “You ran for mayor of the District. What do you think about Mayor Gray getting beaten in the Democratic Primary?”

“In this town, the Dems have three-quarters of the registered voters. That makes the primary tantamount to getting elected. People are fed up.”

“But Muriel Bowser? No one knows anything about the winner. I never heard of her. ”

“Remember, I ran against Marion Barry. It doesn’t matter what you know. It is just the District.” We talked about the wild card in the race- David Catania, an energetic progressive member of the Council who is running as an independent, and whether the national party was going to shower money on an unknown.

“Beats the hell out of me. I wish I was running this year,” growled Jim.

Then we turned our attention to something that really matters: Opening Day for the Nationals at one on Friday against the Braves, who are in town for the weekend. Of course, this is all National League stuff, so who cares. Jim is a diehard Redsox fan, and my heart, for good or ill, belongs to the Tigers.

“There is a bunch of new stuff at Nationals Park,” I said. “WiFi so you can watch the game on your iPad. And new places to shop.” Jim just looked at with thinly veiled incredulity.

“I know, I know. Why would you watch the game on your tablet when you are actually sitting in the stadium, or go shopping at the seventh inning stretch.” I took a sip of white and watched the Fish & Wildlife crew trickle in when Jon-without sat down next to me and decided to drink what I was drinking- the Happy Hour White, my favorite loss-leader on the five 0’clock menu.

“You don’t normally drink wine,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I like to mix it up,” he said. “And I wanted to see what it was like to be you,” he responded. “I am going to keep up as an experiment.” I looked at him owlishly.

“I only drink the white because I hate it.”

“You hate it? That doesn’t make sense.”

“On the contrary,” I responded, taking a sip of the crisp sauvignon blanc. “The fact that I don’t care for it makes me drink less and the glass lasts longer.”

“But aren’t you supposed to enjoy it?” he slid his glass next to mine when I placed it down on the Willow coaster and leaned forward to calibrate the level of the golden wine. “Not equal,” he pronounced gravely.

“I can fix that,” I said, and splashed some of mine into his glass, which naturally hit the top of the rim and splashed on the bar. Boomer had to come over with a bar towel to wipe it up and admonished us to stop fooling around.

“That is alcohol abuse,” she said. “We won’t have that here.”

Old Jim waved his empty Long Neck Bud at her, not quite over the indignation that his usual happy hour stool had been occupied when he arrived for lunch. Boomer asked him if he had forgiven her yet, and Jim looked skeptical, apparently still making up his mind.

“I said I was sorry,” Boomer said contritely, and I thought it was impossible to stay mad at her for long, but Jim is stubborn, and the press of F&W people was crowding him from behind.

“Well….”

“Come on, Jim. Give the lady a break. It’s almost the Home Opener.”

“I will consider it.”

Boomer smiled and bustled off down the bar to see if she could find the remote that controls the televisions in their little cubicles above the bar. They are normally turned off, but when the new season is just starting, she might make an exception to policy.

Jon-without slid his glass next to mine, and I noticed he had pulled ahead, and was already more me than I was. I decided I was up to the challenge. There is a ballgame to get ready for.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

Twitter: @jayare303

If WWI was a Bar Fight

First, let me tell you that I am not lazy. I am not lazy. Nor drunk, like the sailors in the image above. Not yet, anyway.

I was up this morning in plenty of time to do all sorts of great stuff that you will not see, not because it isn’t endlessly fascinating, but because I don’t know what it all means. Or maybe it is simpler than it appears.

The shooting down in Fort Hood might just be more workplace violence, like the Navy Yard shootings, which was almost as horrifying and baffling as the truck-driver who tried to force his way onto USS Mahan (DDG-72) last month in Norfolk. Just plain weird. I always saw people trying to get off ships, not the other way around. And I won’t bring up Major Hassan, that murdering bastard. I know what motivated him, at least.

The world appears to be shifting on its orbit as the unipolar model falls apart. It was a good run, but perhaps attempting to be the world’s cop with only 1%- the real 1%- of the population in uniform it might have been asking too much of too few.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself. Mr. Putin seems to think it is 1914, even though the President is insisting that we are in the 21st Century, not the 19th. I am getting a little queasy.

I can’t tell you what motivated the North Koreans to start shooting artillery at the ROK, but I was moderately surprised the the ROKS shot back. There hasn’t been “peace,” per se, on the Peninsula since the Armistice was signed, but this is the hottest things have been in years. There is nothing new about Pyongyang ‘acting out,’ but it is unclear what the motivation might be.

I have to be someplace else this morning, I am not lazy. I am out of my jammies and through the process of readying myself to face the world, and generally speaking, though ahead on some fronts, creatively I am out of airspeed, ideas and time. That is not a good combination while operating heavy equipment, but not that big a deal in the soap-bubble production business of The Daily.

So let me apologize to Ann Wilson, who I misidentified as Bobby Ray Inman’s wife Carolyn. Ann is a gracious lady, as is Carolyn, and my apologies to both.

There was something else that I screwed up that I wanted to correct, but I misremember at the moment. I am sure there will be plenty of errata to come, so bear with me. I will identify mistakes as people whack me with them.

Two things remain that I wanted to pass along. Yes, it was the most important single potato recipe that you ever saw on Monday. No kidding. Marty 2 left Big Pink a long time ago, but stays in touch. She is Aone of the most vivacious people I know, and she seized the day and duplicated the triumph. Here are her taters:

A recipe that works, gentle readers, and another alert reader has sworn to adapt the concept to sweet potatoes. I am awaiting the results of the great experiment with interest.

And John-with-an-H sent me a set of images that are too good to let pass. Considering what is happening out there is a brand-new multipolar world, it is an eerily timely comment.

I am not going to claim credit for it, and it comes from a marvelous whimsical site called “The Meta Picture.” It is worth exploring at: http://themetapicture.com/if-wwi-was-a-bar-fight/

Have a great day!

Vic, 2014

April Fools

(Final Jepordy question Monday involved my homeland. Screen shot from an alert reader in Ann Arbor.)

What a day yesterday! It was filled with the remarkable, and the absurd- a perfect April Fools Day.

Here is how nuts it was: I met someone who had a good experience with the Affordable Care Act! Stranger things have happened, but rarely at the Willow Bar. My associate is between paying gigs- it’s that economy thing- and was confronted with the options of continuing the old company health plan under a thing called “COBRA.” It sounds ominous- the name is derived from the “Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act health benefit provisions passed by Congress in 1986.

It essentially allows former employees to continue the health care they had when working, only absent the company contribution. The tab is sort of breathtaking, when you realize what the plans actually cost, in terms of the benefit. In this case COBRA was $750 a month, which is sort of steep when unemployed, and the ACA not-quite-bottom-of-the-barrel plan came in at $128 a month, a significant savings. The web-site worked, and the plan actually provided a co-pay on a prescription only a week after enrollment, so I can honestly say that I met someone who thinks it worked.

I did ask about the deductible, which turns out to be $4,000, or $330 bucks a month, which I think means that you are actually paying $461 a month for nothing, but I held off exploring that. My associate is 30-something, and healthy, and not planning on using much in the way of benefits, and certainly not $5500 a year ($4,000 deductible plus monthly premiums) but whatever.

Like I said, a happy consumer. I am nervous that someone will attempt to force me into that good deal. As it is, I pay about $50 a month for coverage as a military retiree, and someone told me if I liked that, I could keep it, so I think I will.

The larger topic was the departure of Tinkerbell, our favorite vivacious bartender from the Crescent City. We have been with her, keeping tabs on her courtship, marriage, pregnancy, and the antics of her lovely daughter Nola. (New Orleans, Louisiana, get it?) and so the rending of our little ersatz bar family was a time of sadness.

(Tinkerbell and The Last Check. Photo Socotra).

Jon-without began to ruminate about the nice folks who wore the black shirts of the bar tending staff: Peter and Tex and Liz-s and a dozen more. And now Tinkerbell. We looked nervously at Jasper, and then Lovely Jamie announced that she was moving to Richmond, to occupy her grandfather’s house.

“They are breaking up that old gang of mine,” I said, tempted to burst into song.

“Don’t do it. You will scare the Fish & Wildlife Service, who had occupied the Cocktail Nook in force. They are leaving, too. Some study said the government could save some money by moving the headquarters of the Service out of the leased space across the street and into some other leased space in a place where there is no Metro or parking. And, of course, no Willow.

F&W is one of those Government agencies with a decent mission and good people who tend to like the outdoors, and whose career paths take them to remote places more in tune with the natural world than the loopy lunacy of Arlington. Of course, their mission has been politicized, but like our own beloved (if debased) Navy, there is a reason that they exist, and basically honest people trying to accomplish the mission.

Jasper the bartender likes them a lot. He takes special pain to keep them happy and well served on their multiple happy hours each week, and there was a plan on the part of the F&W folks to take up a collection to help him open his own place over near the new HQ. If he goes, that will be a clean sweep.

Jon-without looked disconcerted, as Jamie described the purging she is doing to move out of town. I am likely to be the beneficiary of a couple decorative flower pots for the patio at Big Pink, I am starting to look at the exits here myself.

For not being busy I was swept away in the events of April Fools Day, and could not tell half the time whether I was being bamboozled or not. It was a non-stop cavalcade of the amazing. A new potato recipe. The earthquakes on the West Coast, with the 8.0 shock recorded in Chile. There have been dozens of minor disturbances all up and down the west coast of North and South America. Does it presage the Big One for California?

What about the threats from Russia against plucky Finland? April Fool’s Day madness, or just the ordinary stupidity?

And what about the UAVs and 500 rounds of artillery lobbed at the ROK?

A field review of the Remington R-51 semi-auto pistol by a pal took up some more time, and reports are good, though a disassembly and cleaning was strongly recommended to get the gunk out of the inner workings prior to test firing, and then a search for the YouTube instructional video to do so without marring the finish on the new gun. You will be gratified to know that the positive grip safety, trigger pull and rounded edges make it a delight to fire, with tight groups reported and minimal feeding problems on the 9mm ammunition. Then there was a search for a suitable holster, which provided additional distraction.

(Jasper’s sketch book, with happy hour White. Photo Socotra).

Maybe it is the time of year- the sap rising making us all a little antsy and ready to get on with things. To avoid the melancholy that goes along with the thought of missing all these familiar faces, we looked at Jasper’s sketches for graffiti tags and new tattoos.

The only thing that really meant anything might have been the potato recipe:

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303