Filed under: Nature
I have always called these beautiful flowers amaryllis, but I was looking up when to divide them in “The Ultimate American Gardening Book” and, much to my suprise, they aren’t amaryllis. In fact, I couldn’t find a picture in any of my gardening books that looks exactly like these flowers. My guess is that they are some sort of lily. Regardless, they are lovely, aren’t they? A friend gave me the bulbs. She called them amaryllis, too. She said they never did very well for her which is why I inherited them. I must have the perfect soil for them because they really put on a show for me beginning around the first of May. They are only now fading away.
Filed under: Matthew McConaughey
It’s been a long, hard day. I just want to soak in the tub when I get home.
Oh, please let this be my tub. Please? Pretty please? Plllleeeeaaassseee…….
Filed under: Odds and Ends
When I was the store director for Toys R Us in Salisbury, Maryland, my employees asked me to sponsor a softball team for the local adult softball league. I thought it was a great idea. Good community relations, publicity and all that jazz. Most of my employees were in their late teens or early twenties. Heck, I was still twenty-something at the time. We even had the Maryland fast-pitch softball all state pitcher working at the store. Of course the adult league played slow-pitch softball, but who cared? We still had an ace pitcher and a lot of good, young athletes so we figured our team would be one to contend with.
I played softball in high school. I was an okay athlete. Definitely nothing special because I didn’t work at it. I always viewed sports as well….games. Nothing serious. Games are for fun, right? At our first team practice in Salisbury, I deduced rather quickly that my TRU team meant business. They weren’t getting together to have fun. Their goal was to dominate and win, win, win. I didn’t mind. It was great to see all that enthusiasm and athletic prowess in my employees. Quite frankly, I wasn’t good enough to play on the team so, with a little persuasion from my managers, I decided to become an umpire.
I got the official softball rules book and the league rules book and began to study. I wanted to be a good umpire. Fair, impartial and confident with my calls. I practiced hand signs and called a couple of scrimmage games. My TRU team and the teams we scrimmaged with were complimentary. They bolstered my confidence. I was ready for the league games.
The first couple of games I was assigned to ump at second base. Things went well. Oh, I got a few comments about needing glasses, but all in all it was a very positive experience. Then I was assigned to ump behind home plate. Oh. my. gosh. My very first call was met with boos and hisses. It went downhill from there. The opposing team and their fans attacked me like a pack of hyenas fighting for a wildebeest carcass. I was vilified, taunted and, in general, ripped to bloody shreds throughout the entire game.
I stuck with it and finished out the season. I even umped behind the plate several more times and was treated with respect. We never had to play the hyena team again. If we had, I might not have made it. They were vicious.
My Toys R Us team finished the season in second place and immediately began to make plans for the next year. I volunteered to be the bat girl.
