A Big Bowl of Rice

So, I've been doing some inner soul searching and trying to decide what to do with this blog venture.  It just hasn't taken off like I had hoped.  I never have quite found the voice for it I think - life's too up and down I guess to be always upbeat or always serious.  Or so it is with my life anyway.  Dramedies, as this was self-proclaimed to be, are tricky mediums.  If handled just right, say as in Pleasantville, they're genius.  But sometimes they're just a mess where no one can tell if you're trying to be funny or sad and they just end up being bored and confused, like just about every Adam Sandler venture where he tries his hand at a bit of drama.  And then there's the whole adult attention deficit order that I seriously do suffer from - I'm bouncing from dogs to sports, to complaining about traffic, back to sports.  Who can follow that nonsensical rambling?

AP Photo, Patrick Semansky

But, without a large audience to worry about offending or entertaining, there is a certain freedom to say some things just how I really mean them, and so I've decided it will go for the topic of Ray Rice.  There was no way I could retire this thing without saying something about him, you (however few of you there are) knew that right?  And that's because the issue intersects with all that I am:  a woman, a football fan and an opinionated s.o.b.

But to say this can be just about Ray Rice is a fallacy at this point because the story is so much larger, particularly in light of the Adrian Peterson indictment.  This is a story about domestic violence in the NFL, which by its very nature is a violent sport.

First, as a Steelers fan, I have to address the black and gold elephant in the room:  Ben Roethlisberger.  I am happy that he's my quarterback.  Truly, I have to admit that I am.  I think he's turned his life around to the point where I don't worry about how he represents the Steelers brand now off the field, only how he does that on the field.  He's married to a local girl, they have two kids and he's been a pillar of the community for a few years now.  I've joined in on his causes a lot since our interests in police dogs intersect.  In a football crazed town like this one, the large female fan base seems to think that's enough and this past Thursday I saw Tweets and Facebook posts all day long from women sporting his jersey. The one that bothered me was the elementary school age girl getting ready to go off to school in her pink Roethlisberger jersey.  I still have mine, I admit it.  It's the one thing with his name on it I kept.  But I'm not ready to forgive him to the point where I join all those other female fans.  I won't sport his number.  I haven't worn it since the second story broke (I still don't believe the woman who sued him - another whole blog post someone else will have to write).  I'm waiting for the day when he's finally ready to come out and say something along the lines of, "You know, I was a brute to women and treated them like objects.  I wouldn't want my daughter to run into a guy like me, and I am truly sorry."  That day, I'll dust that jersey off and proudly put it back on.  But he did his suspension, he's cleaned up his act, and I don't have any trouble cheering for him on Sundays.  If that makes me a hypocrite, then so be it.

But I'm waiting for the question about domestic violence and NFL players as a whole to be the focus instead of Ray Rice himself.  It's beginning to happen.  The Los Angeles Times ran an Op-Ed piece today about the NFL and domestic violence.  It's damning because it talks about incidents other than Ray Rice that the NFL was apparently aware of and did nothing about.  Ray Rice, let's face it, is in the hot water he's in because he was stupid enough to be caught on camera.  And he's now exposed not only himself, but the whole of the NFL.  The commissioner's office has made such a thing about protecting the brand over the decades that they forgot about protecting the women and the children and how maybe that's a higher calling.  Sweeping what wasn't national news under the carpet ultimately did nothing but build up the dirt pile that now will almost certainly come pouring out.

Now, here's the thing to keep in mind as you try to decide if you're going to watch on Sunday or boycott the games (I myself am not watching football, but that's only because I'm going to the Pirates game):  domestic abuse among NFL players is no more prevalent than in the general population.  Maybe that's the thing that should give us all pause actually.  So let's not give up the game we love.  Let's just use this horrid mess for some good and force the NFL to use the power of that brand to educate abusers and victims both.  I've always been impressed with the work they've done to promote breast cancer awareness.  Now they need to throw some resources at this issue.  And they need, in my opinion, to have zero tolerance for abusers under their employ.  And not just the knee jerk reaction that they are currently having to try and stem the tide of public opinion, but let's continue to keep the pressure on them to make this a long-term focus.  But all of this is easy for me to say and harder to do, I know, because this will be an issue with many shades of grey.  But my fear is at some point, as this whole Ray Rice thing dies down, all the other women who aren't and never will be as famous as Janay Rice will be forgotten.

Pittsburgh Magazine

Here's the other thing to keep in mind, however, and this is a big point:  for every Ray Rice there are good and decent men who play this game and in no way take the violence on the field off of it.  They use their fame, money and position to leave the world a better place.  Troy Polamalu springs easily to mind, Charlie Batch is another now ex-player who has always been a strong advocate for the community. And of course I couldn't do an article like this one without mentioning William Gay, whose mother was murdered by his step father.  Gay does a lot of work with local women's shelters and has been outspoken on domestic abuse for a long time.  These are just a few Steelers.  Every team has a contingent of players like Troy.  There are good, decent people who play this game.

At the end of the day, I don't know what will happen to Ray Rice.  Nor can I predict what will become of Roger Goodell.  I do believe he blew this call in every way imaginable - the elevator video make me physically ill, but seriously, did any of us really doubt what had happened inside that elevator before TMZ exposed it?  What I do want to know is what will become of the conversation that has opened up about domestic violence.  I do want to know what we can do as a society to help victims.  If this is the mess that it takes to shine a light on the topic, then maybe there is some good to be had from it.  In the meantime, I love the game too much.  I will not be giving it up.

Endless Love

There's little doubt that when I'm gone and people think about me, if they do, one of two images will immediately come to mind:  the crazed Steelers fan or the crazy dog lady.   Maybe both, but, be honest, not much else will immediately spring to mind.  So, on a week when real football began, it was a given that I would talk about the Steelers, right?  Well, the crazy dog lady part of me will be taking over and controlling the show temporarily because two rather dramatic events took place in our household recently that got me to thinking...

First, there was the loss and then nearly miraculous recovery of Kelsey's cat Tum Tum after she slipped out one night and was gone for three weeks.  And then, my oldest pet, Luke, took his journey to the Rainbow Bridge on Friday.  Both events combined as a sort of perfect storm to crowd out all other thoughts - Pirates losing streaks, badly behaving running backs, a disastrous fantasy football roster (thanks so much, Wes Welker, another dumbass heard from), and Sidney Crosby false arrest reports.  None of it mattered that much really in the larger scale of life and death that was playing out at our house.

And what it equated to was the contemplation of unconditional love and whether it truly exists in the world.  My thesis here is that it does.  But not by us as humans.  We're not geared that way, and for good reason.  We may be empathetic, we may be compassionate, we may be saints in the making, but at some core level we're self interested parties.  Because it's what we have to be to survive.  So, can unconditional love truly exist in tandem with that?  Maybe, but I've never seen it in another human being, and I've known some exceptional ones.  But I've seen it.  And I've been the recipient of it - whether I deserved to be or not (and I most certainly did not).  If you ever want to know why humans have pets, it's because no one - and I do absolutely mean no one - loves you like your pet. 

The thing about pets is they accept you without conditions.  They don't care if you're fat or thin, the smartest tool in the shed or maybe a little dull around the edges.  They don't worry if you don't put on makeup or could really stand to put that favorite lucky shirt through the wash.  Hair turning a little gray and seeing some new wrinkles around the eyes?  Don't worry, your pet won't care.  He or she won't leave you because of it or "stray" (pun completely intended).  They stay by your side through good times and bad.  I think about the default wedding vows that many of us have said and hardly any of us completely live by:  in good times and bad, sickness and health, 'till death do you part...those vows, you know.  Well, our pets actually take that all to heart.  I'm not sure we deserve them actually, but I for one am better for my pets.  And they really, really don't care if your team wins or loses.  So, I'll continue to risk the heartache and pain of losing one because of all the joy, acceptance and love they give me.

And with that, as we celebrate the return of Kelsey's beloved companion Tum Tum, I'll say a final goodbye to our old, old man Luke.  His gentle, quiet and patient ways will be missed in a house full of high strung females.

The Freedom of Choice

Up in Smoke, Paramount Pictures 1978

There is so much to talk about this week that it was hard to know how to narrow it down, but in the end, what larger event in the world of a Steelers fan could there at this juncture in the season than the arrest of Le'Veon Bell and the now unfortunately named LeGarrette Blount for possession of marijuana and DUI.  If you follow football at all you undoubtedly know about it, if you follow the Steelers you definitely do, and it's all over the Internet and sports shows, so there's not that much to add to the facts of the case.  Despite my working only about three miles from where they were arrested, I wasn't there of course because I was doing what most of us were doing - working so we can afford to buy sports tickets, so I can't add any interesting tidbits about it.  So I was tempted to pass it by, but in the end, I decided I want to weigh in, not to everyone in general really, but to the football players themselves.  This is my open letter to all of them, Bell and Blount most especially:

Hey Guys,

As a fan, I can tell you that we adore you.  You're like rock stars to our adoring eyes.  Yet I know you're young and that's all overwhelming.  As is the big money.  Nice problem to have maybe, but I suspect it's not as easy to handle as we'd all like to think.  Lots of people look to you now with their hands held out, I'm sure.  And professional sports can raise you up, but throw you right back down in the blink of an eye.  So, at you're age, you're trying to just figure stuff out and enjoy life, all the while having a lot of pressures the rest of us don't.  I also am not so old that I can't remember that flush you get when you're first out on your own and feeling like you have the freedom to do anything you want.  Stay up late drinking and dancing in my day.  Maybe the activities have changed, but human nature hasn't, so I'm sympathetic to the core concept that is operating in your heads:  as long as it's not hurting anyone else, there shouldn't be a problem with me doing it.  My life, my choice.

Well, here's the thing you have to know:  it is your life.  And it is your choice.  But you made it already.  You made it when you aspired to play in the NFL.  You traded the freedom to have a little afternoon toke for having thousands, if not millions, of people wearing a jersey with your name on it every Sunday.  You traded so that kids go to sleep at night with a Fathead of you watching over them on their walls.  You traded for money and fame.

Fathead.com

You pay a price for that, I know.  Potentially you pay a dreadful price in your long term health.  There's a strong physical risk that you take every day you put on pads.  You pay with your privacy.  The scrutiny that we subject all of you to on and off the field is relentless in a social media world.  I can't even imagine what that's like.  But, here's the thing, this is the life you chose.  What you have to know now is that you are role models, whether you think that's what you chose to be or not.  That kid looking up at your two dimensional face on his wall every night dreams of becoming you.  You want him to be the pothead version or the talented and successful running back version of you?

You went to work for an employer who understands the reputation the league and the players have.  That employer is adamant about protecting that brand because its popularity is what's allowing all of you to become potentially very rich.  It's your choice to work for the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers. But if you want to, then you have to obey certain policies and procedures.  Let me tell you, out in the real world it's exactly the same.  You're not above that.  No one is.

I'm sure by now you've had it explained to you that your actions hurt not only yourselves but the team and the organization.  But you hurt all of us too:  the fans.  I don't have your money.  I struggle to pay my bills with enough left over to come see you play or to buy that jersey.  If the best team possible isn't on the field because some of the players are suspended for off field actions, then the whole of the Steelers Nation is hurt.  So, think of it like that when you're deciding on your pre-flight activities.

I have an opinion on marijuana.  I grew up in the 70's after all.  And I have a case of hard cider sitting next to my case of pumpkin ale just waiting for football to kick off, so even if I didn't have the particular opinion I do, what kind of a hypocrite would I be?  But, the fact of the matter is it's illegal in this state.  So, I don't do it.  Period.  I don't really think my life sucks because of that.  I heard what Ryan Clark said about it, so maybe you think that's a mitigating factor.  But, here's the thing: you know full well if you get in trouble out in public with it, the league has to take action.  It has to.  And you KNOW that.  So, what exactly were you thinking?

One's football career is like one's infancy.  They're both pretty intense, but short lived.  You will, before you know it, unless your name is Tony Gonzalez, have to move on to your life's true work.  Then you can live your days in a daze for all I care.  But, for now, quit being a dumbass!

Sincerely,

Your adoring fan, SteelerFanMom

99 Problems, but Lack of Sports Ain't One

I have to be honest:  the Pirates recent losing streak was gut wrenchingly painful, but there is a secret part of me that has been happy to have the break.  When I came in last night from mowing the yard until it was too dark to see any more after a full workday, frustrated that I'd easily missed half the game, I grabbed up my phone and demanded that Siri tell me the score.  She cheerfully announced that the Pirates were losing 8-1 at the top of the 6th inning.  I accepted the results with mixed feelings:  it heralded almost certainly that the Pirates were going to drop their 7th game in a row.  They are now out of the playoffs if the season were to end today.  But at least I hadn't missed much, and it would seem that I won't have to struggle next week with how I'm supposed to pay for baseball playoff tickets at the same time I'm buying my hockey package.  Sports is the greatest escape there is.  It entertains, it can inspire, but it can break your heart.  It can also cause some other issues...

My hat shelf runneth over.  I moved here with a rather extensive collection of ball caps, 90% of which were Steelers hats dating back three decades.  You can't get rid of them.  Ever.  They all mean something.  You got them for a reason - like your team winning a Super Bowl, or two.  Looking at them brings back memories you wouldn't trade for anything. Now, I've got two other teams' hats adding to the chaos.  I've got hats hanging off bed posts, bookshelf corners, doorknobs, sitting in baskets, hanging out in my car...you get the picture.  Many more and I'll be a candidate for a show about hat hoarders.

It took two weeks before I saw Guardians of the Galaxy.  Seriously.  Best movie of the summer.  Hands down.  Completely in my preferred genre, and I struggled to find time to see it.

I'm broke.  All the time.  It was one thing to buy tickets to a Steelers game here or there.  A bit of a challenge to add in Pens tickets.  Now I've got a ticket packet for the Pirates.  Yet, imaging moving all this way only to sit at home less than ten miles from where all this excitement is going on is just unimaginable.

Being immersed in sports does not lend itself to climbing a career ladder.  If you've got to leave after eight hours to head down to the sports park, you're going to miss out on whatever your more ambitious co-worker is willing to do with the remaining hours of the day.  At this point in my life, that's a trade off I'm more than happy to allow, but I did bristle when a client accused me of "galavanting across the country" when I took two days off to attend the Stadium Series game in Chicago this past spring.  A few years ago, I would have traded in my personal happiness to serve the client's satisfaction believing it to be my duty - now I know if the Penguins had made it to the finals this year, I was going to be calling her to announce that I'd be back off galavanting.

There is laundry in a pile in front of the washer.  The dogs need baths.  Big time.  The kitchen floor could stand to have a mop run across it, and I still need to mow the front yard.  But that's not what I spent the evening doing.  What did I do?  You guessed it.

Now instead of having two sports to potentially break my heart, I have three.  Today I rode the high of learning Brett Keisel is coming back to the team, to the low of learning that Le'Veon Bell was booked on pot possession, to the final high of the Pirates snapping their losing streak.  I'm emotionally drained, and I've got less than any say in it.  Everything that happened today was completely out of my control.  All I can do is stand by my teams through the highs and lows.  All I can give them is my loyalty and my money.  They've got plenty of both.

Yeah, not having an off season any more can be expensive, exhausting and sometimes frustrating.  Would I trade any of it?  Not on your life.  Raise It, Buccos!

The Problem with Baseball: How the Problem Started

Cowboy Fan Hubby is in town visiting for a week and as we watched the baseball game wind down last night, he turned to me and said, "So, how about The Bridge?"  I looked at him somewhat blankly and responded, "What about it?  I've seen exactly an episode and a half."  He wouldn't tell me.  So, I'm guessing it's gotten even more complex and messed up then the little bit I've seen, and I'm itching with curiosity, but who knows when I'll get to sit down and catch up.  I'm still sawing through season four of Game of Thrones.  There are only so many hours in a day, and only a few days a week when baseball doesn't rule the airwaves here.  As a matter of fact, I got a Blu-Ray player for the upstairs TV for my birthday, and when I hooked it up and turned on my beloved Game of Thrones (Season 3), the "Root Sports" logo at the top right of the screen could still be seen across lovely Jon Snow's face.  I guess I watch a lot of sports upstairs...

I am the most unlikely of baseball fans.  I did not grow up with baseball fans.  My mother would on occasion sit down and watch a World Series game and maybe Dad would sit down with her, but for him it was all about the pigskin.  They didn't even have a baseball team at my high school.   And on my own I concluded it was a boring game where only brief spurts of action took place in between long periods of nothingness.  I would see pitchers whose guts looked they had, pun intended, downed pitchers of beer instead of being finely tuned athletes and dismissed it altogether as a summer distraction and nothing more.  That said, I have always loved movies about baseball because they seemed to capture an aura of Americana and nostalgia that was appealing.  Baseball movies, Bang the Drum Slowly and Pride of the Yankees notwithstanding, are often feel good movies with happy endings, telling a tale of America at its finest and proudest.  They are often tales of hope and realized glory.  So maybe the seed was in me all along and just needed a little tending to make it sprout and along came my Lovely Philly Friend, up for the task.

Despite her current residence, Lovely Philly Friend (LPF), is a Pirates fan deluxe.  Her husband perhaps even more so.  And she was devout in her mission when I first moved here, in advance of the rest of the family and therefore all alone, to introduce me to the city.  When spring came, that included baseball.  It was something to do, and I love her company, so I tagged along to some games.  The first thing you discover is that PNC Park is a jewel of a stadium.  The views of downtown, which I believe is a stunning skyline, are breathtaking.  I spent the first couple of games drinking Yuengling (PNC Park is where I discovered it) and wandering around the building.  The game going on in the background was a mere distraction.  LPF made note of my general ignorance of the game and began to teach it to me, but she had a long way to go.  When I first moved here, I referred to Andrew McCutchen as the good looking guy with dreads.  I had no idea whatsoever who he was and what he was capable of as a player.  And he was the only one of the team I could even describe that well.  I had never heard that the positions had numbers.  I don't think I even knew that a batter could pop off foul balls until the cows came home and not strike out, and certainly wasn't aware that was an actual strategy to try and stay alive at bat and wear the pitcher down.  I had no idea about pitch counts or why someone would bunt when no one else was on base, or why managers sent in pinch hitters.  What I did know was the the Pirates were a down and out team that hadn't had a winning season in almost 20 years.  And while Pittsburghers were gamely (if you will) loyal to their team after all that time, they didn't invest a lot of hard earned dollars into going to games just to watch them lose in person when they could sit at home and watch them lose for free.  That made tickets plentiful, so when the rest of the family arrived, it was an easy way to get out of the house on a summer's evening.  We went several times that first year, the husband picking up on my continuing education.

But a funny thing started to happen with the team.  They actually started winning a few.  For a brief time they actually challenged for first place in the division before collapsing to finish as per usual.  However, everyone, even me, knew that the days of perennially losing baseball might be nearing its end.  Coupled with a growing appreciation of the actual game itself and picking up on the undercurrent of excitement in the fan base, I began to actually go to games to watch the action on the field, not the cavalcade of interesting fans in the stands.

A baseball fan was being born.

The Problem with Baseball, the Introduction

This is the year as a football fan sees it:

Life truly begins on opening weekend in September.  It's a feeling like your happiness has been hibernating since late January (early February).  You get a little taste during the draft and you get to work out your dormant fandom to get it ready during training camp and preseason.  But it all truly begins that opening weekend.  Saturdays and Sundays (and Mondays and Thursdays) now seem "right" somehow.  My daughter will tell you she finds the sound of football on television soothing.  I know exactly what she means - it's the soundtrack I grew up with on the weekends.  If you're really a big fan, you've got now five days a week where you get to see actual action:  high school, college and then the pros.  But you live it and breathe it every other moment of the week.  It's water cooler fodder ("did you see that play last night...?"  "Can you believe that Ray Rice only got a two game suspension?"), it's a primary driving force for your wardrobe choice, your social life revolves around it, and it's even a deciding factor in your decorating choices.

But it's also a force to be reckoned with in terms of time management.  So, when the Super Bowl is over and the confetti has flown, there is a secret relief for a brief time because all the honey-dos that have been neglected can be attended to, all the movies you didn't see during the season can be ordered On Demand, and you can actually read a book or two.  That feeling lasts for a few weeks, until you find you miss football and begin waiting for the next season to begin.  Summer activities are just how you spend your time waiting for at least training camp to begin.  But at last the cycle begins anew.

 This is the year as a hockey fan sees it:

The last second clicks down on the last Stanley Cup final game of the season and most of us experience a bittersweet sensation if it's not our team about to hoist the trophy - we're ready for the season to be over so we can start licking our wounds and looking toward next year, but "next year" seems like a long way off.  So we busy ourselves with over-thinking what went wrong this year (unless, of course, we're that small percentage of the fan base who are the ones celebrating and having parades) and tending to yard work and summer chores, all the while absently wondering, "Is it October yet?"

When it finally is October and puck drops on a new season, it's both a relief and a burden.  Eighty-two games is a definite time commitment and hockey, if it's your team playing, demands your total attention because anything can happen in the blink of an eye.  I, for one, generally greet those little breaks dotted throughout the season as the time I scramble to get some household tasks done or spend time working late so that I'm ready for more hockey.  Time away from the game, therefore, is a necessary evil.  Just like time away from football.  But it is necessary.

In short, there is a pattern to life as either a football fan or a hockey fan that is sustainable.  I, for one, spend from May to the end of August pushing to get most of my holiday shopping done.  What I can't finish off during the summer I reserve for college football Saturdays because the Steelers are my passion and Sunday is all about chores in the morning and solid football all afternoon into the late night.  I mentally line up the books I'm going to read in the off-season.  I partake with great abandon of the summer movie season, not really worrying that the latest blockbuster actually sort of sucks as long as stuff blows up.  I take the time to sit outside and gaze out at the fireflies as the day winds down.  I lovingly detail my car most weekends.  And then, after I do all of that, as summer winds down and the leaves begin to lazily fall from the trees, I thank the sports gods because all that spare time goes away in favor of the Steelers and the Pens. Some of you who are reading this likely are nodding at this point, totally getting what I am saying.

This is the life I have lead.  This is the life I was prepared to live for the rest of my days.  And then I moved to Pittsburgh, and since I was here I dipped my toes into the waters that are professional baseball...

Lost and Found

I occasionally am challenged to explain why I was so angry with my mother for keeping the fact that I was adopted a secret.  The prevailing opinion of those who ask is that my parents loved me and that's all that mattered.  I understand that, but I think you had to have walked in my shoes to really understand my point of view. Most of it emanated from the fact that I had trudged into dozens of doctor's offices over the previous almost nine years and filled out hundreds of forms espousing a medical history on behalf of my side of the family that was utterly false.  When you're in a pitched battle to save your kids' lives, you don't need to find out you're firing defective weapons.  But there was also the loss I felt.  I had identified with what I always believed was my legacy.  I thought I had family out there - even if I didn't know them very well.  I thought I belonged.  And then, in an instant one stressful night, I found out I didn't.  I was lost.

Therefore, it was with some trepidation that I gathered with my mother's side of the family after her funeral, but they couldn't have been nicer.  I have written about that day before, so I'll just sum it up by saying an incredible weight was lifted off my shoulders that day.  It would seem they weren't discarding me, which they certainly could have.  So, when I was deciding where to go after life in Texas, while what I said about moving here for the sports is completely true, I was also very happy to be close to all these good people too, since the hub of the family is in Washington, PA (or Little Washington, as it is known to the natives).  That fact has been on my mind since last week was the annual family reunion, which I always attend if I'm not traveling for work.  It's always full of good and easy conversation, usually seasoned with a few salty stories about family members I never knew.  They are easy to be with; a feeling of inclusion, familiarity and warmth runs through the event.  The food is good, the beer is plentiful and the company is great.  And I couldn't be more grateful to be a part of this family, although it's not without its bittersweet realities as well.  I only wish I could have been a part long before.  And I realize that it's likely that my parents moved so far from their home not so Dad could hunt (I should have been more suspicious when The Deer Hunter came out) and fish, which was the standard storyline, but so we wouldn't be around anyone who might spill some beans they clearly didn't want spilled.  But at least I am now.

But, what I've really been thinking about this week, in the days after the reunion is the age old question of nature v. nurture.  Since the shock of discovering I wasn't who I always thought I was, I've often thought about that.  How often have I done or said something and then had the thought immediately after, "I am SO my father's daughter?"  Too many times to count.  I think I tried to pattern my behavior after the nobler aspects of my dad, but I ended up being more like my mother.  The father and mother who raised me, not the people who conceived me.  Who knows if I'm anything like them?  Who cares at this point?  They gave me my brown eyes and reddish brown hair, which I now know is Irish in origin, not Scottish.  My mom and dad gave me everything else.  Including this family I am a part of now.

And that's how I finally let my anger go.  My mother, whether it was ultimately a wrong or right decision, seemed very intent that my true origin must be kept from me.  I think she sacrificed a lot to try and keep her secrets.  I know she did it out of love.  Love, it turns out, may always be a true emotion, but people can do the wrong things in its name.  Yet I can forgive her now because in the end she gave me this great family.  I am found.

...Do as the Romans Do

Ellen Brody:  "I just want to know one thing - when do I get to become an islander?"

Mrs. Taft:  "Ellen, never.  Never!  You're not born here, you're not an islander.  That's it."

Anyway, as I was saying, I had an epiphany one night that I was trying to hold myself and my pets to the same standards I always had and that wasn't okay for the situation we now found ourselves.  I had to chastise myself pretty soundly for being both so willfully blind and so selective.  I mean, it was all right there in front of me.  The clues could not have been more prevalent:  the fact that I actually had to ask to make sure fences were even allowed in the area because hardly anyone had one.  Then there was the fact that I actually wondered for the first few months I lived here if anyone else on my street had a dog because I never saw one other than my neighbor's little ankle-nipper that never leaves her lot.  The fact that, in fact, most people had pets didn't come to view until spring when people came out of their homes.  I should have put it together, but I didn't.  And no one had complained before, so I had lived in happy ignorance of the fact that I was the odd duck.

But really what bothered me about all of that was that I have to admit that I was quick enough to adopt the aspects of living here that I liked.  For example, I was happy enough to embrace the fact that lawn statuary is a good thing and many lawn statuary is an even better thing.  I got into the fact that you not only could, but should, decorate liberally for every little holiday.  And playoffs are considered holidays.  I accept french fries on one's sandwich.  I can dig the Pittsburgh left.  I really like that I can walk my dogs in the cemetery.  I've taken advantage of the freedom to speak my mind.

Bob's Garage at Christmas
(small, smoky lounge in Fox Chapel famous for over-the-top decorations and karaoke)

The Pits-Burger from Primanti Brothers

I've even come to accept some of the things that puzzled me the most when I first came here:  the fact that you have to go to one place to buy your beer (and you have to buy it by the case at that), but someplace else to buy your wine, but neither of those places is where you buy your groceries.  Yet, I pass five neighborhood bars before I get to the first ATM machine operated by my bank.  Go figure.  I've accepted that my Garmin goes nuts downtown and isn't particularly reliable any place else.  I've learned that getting lost is just part of the rhythm of life here.  Most people do it.  All newbies do.  There's no shame in it.  Just don't panic.  Because it doesn't help and if you are prone to freaking out, then you'll learn that you spend most of your time in that state.  I've even come to accept, if not particularly like, the extremely high expectations the fans here place on the major sports teams.  I'll still turn off the sports talk radio station I listen to as soon as they let callers on because they're usually negative.  About something.  About anything.  (And, sadly, there's been enough to be sad about the last couple of years.)  But, that aside, I have even found myself falling into the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mindset every so often.

Yes indeedy, I have often congratulated myself on how well I had assimilated to life in the City of Bridges.  And, if I'm being totally honest with myself, maybe that was part of what hurt so much about someone complaining about me - or strictly speaking, my dog - because didn't they believe I was one of them?  But, of course, I wasn't.  Not totally.

Now I am.  Sometimes - often actually - I don't think it's fair.  On a beautiful summer day, I would like Ripley to be able to go outside and enjoy the weather because I can't.  Somebody in the house should enjoy a mid-summer day in the mid-70's.  But now she has to hang out with me all day.  She's clearly bored.  She ate a flip flop a couple of days ago.  She never bothered shoes, even as a puppy.  And she's now horrible on walks - all that pent up energy just comes bounding out.  But, we're like all the other dog owners on the street.  The dogs don't go outside for more than controlled periods of time.

The question would be as I headed in for my second court appearance:  was it enough?  It was.  No other complaints had been received, so the case was closed and my bond will be returned.  The caveat is if another complaint is received there's not much I'll be able to do about it other than write a very large check.  And any hope my neighbor and I ever had of being civil toward one another is now irrevocably gone.  To her I would imagine I'm just the crazy animal lover (I feed anything and everything, which means they constantly have birds crapping all over their stuff on their way to my house).  And to me, she's the rude woman who would rather traumatize me and have her friends threaten me rather than just talk to me.  But at least I'm a little bit closer to totally being a Pittsburgher.  Right?

When in Rome...

I told myself I wasn't nervous, but my behavior gave me away.  I chewed my nails down to nothing and every other little nervous tic I had ever exhibited was showing up randomly before I would really notice what I was doing in the week leading up to Thursday.  But finally the day came:  the day when I would have to go back to court for the second time on the whole dog barking thing.  I told myself I had controlled the issue and my next door neighbor knew I was on to her as the complainer (if you really want to keep yourself anonymous, don't let your friends come over and make loud jokes about shooting my dog for a $1.50) so if she really wanted to pursue it I was going to make her face me, which she clearly wasn't willing to do.  I knew that the odds were highly in my favor going into it, but the stakes were high.  My dogs are like children:  they make me insanely mad occasionally, but I love them deeply and completely.  I would defend them with my life.  And the very idea that anyone could threaten their very existence, even if that's an extremely unlikely outcome, by making a anonymous noise complaint is enough to make me anxious.

It was an interesting sixty days between the two court appearances.  Interesting and often uncomfortable, at least for a while.  It didn't take long to ferret out the source of the complaint.  For one thing, one of my other neighbors had inadvertently ratted out the lady next door I refer to as Mrs. Mike as being who had called the police before on Ripley.  She had been my leading suspect all along because she had been doing a great imitation of an Ice Queen since we moved in. Some of my friends suggested I talk to the woman, and I knew they were right, but one beautiful Saturday afternoon while we were both outside working in our yards, rather pointedly ignoring one another, a male friend of theirs stopped by and was joking around with her.  And, like so many Pittsburghers, he seemingly knows one volume only, that being LOUD, which he actually turned up a notch when he turned to look straight at me with a grin and made his comment about telling me (the "little lady") he'd be glad to shoot the dog for a "buck-fifty".  She laughed at his threat like he had just told the best joke in the world, and he left her to walk around back to find her husband.  I tried not to let it bother me.  But it did.  To the point where I flung my garden trowel in her direction, gathered my dogs up into the car and angrily drove off to the dog park.  If there was ever a time when we might have buried the hatchet, it passed in that moment.  If I hadn't have left for a while that day, it might have gotten buried somewhere alright...

Then for a while I think I was under casual surveillance by the local police.  Or at least it seemed a little odd that suddenly I would see a cruiser either parked along our route as we would walk in the mornings and again in the evenings, or one would slowly roll by and park up the road aways until I went by, then pull out and move on.  This happened a few times over the next week or so.  Never before or since.  Maybe it was nothing, but I learned by watching many, many hours of Law and Order that things are rarely coincidences.  Of course, that made me nervous, a little freaked and a lot of angry.  Seriously?  Didn't the police have anything better to do that spy on a middle aged woman and her dogs?   But, in all honesty, they probably don't some days.

So, of course, the whole thing was on my mind a lot after the initial court appearance when I was granted a 60-day continuance.  And one evening as the three of us (Ripley, aka Criminal, Cheyenne and myself) were starting out on our evening walk and the Lab who lives down the street was barking at us from his little second story back patio that is blocked off by a dog gate, it suddenly hit me.  Only one other family in the whole area lets their dog out to roam in their yard freely.  It's not that people don't have pets here, but they're contained.  They get let out either in tiny enclosures like that Lab's or on leads for a little while each day and their owners walk them once or twice a day, but they don't just hang out in their owner's yards.  It's just the way it's done.  And it hit me that I'd been trying to let my dogs live like they always had.  Like all dogs do in Montana (in the summer) and Texas (not in the summer because it's too hot):  outdoors most of the time.  So they can stretch, play and laze in the sun, and when they're tired they can hang in the cool concrete walled storeroom I had fixed up almost like a little house with fluffy blankets and dog dishes.  And I was holding myself to the same standards I always had as to what was acceptable pet noise.  By the standards of just about anyplace I know actually.  But not here.

That's admittedly weird for an outsider looking in.  Because there is wild, cacophonous noise all around us.  Motorcycles that sound like you could hear them all the way to Philly - they are home-shaking loud (and I'm not overstating that).  Then there's the Friday evening parties that go on well into the night around a fire pit with some bad Top 40's station as background noise.  And what about those fireworks that you can buy in the grocery store?  For days leading up to the 4th it sounded like a blitzkrieg out there.  As a matter of fact, when I was just outside letting Ripley out for a final potty break, I heard all three of those things - a full week after the holiday.  But that's the rhythm of life here.  It's the way it's always been.  The sound that you don't hear are dogs barking.  I finally got how this mess I found myself in even came to pass. My collie's high pitched yips - no matter when or how often - is the jarring off-key note to the song of life that is this little suburb.

The question would become, with my new enlightenment, could I change my evil ways?  Or rather, could I change Ripley's?  Because we were in this together.

Estate of Mind

If you like estate sales, then Pittsburgh is the place for you.  An older than average median population coupled by a tendency for people to stay rooted to one place (and therefore not find the need to do any pre-move purges periodically) makes this almost an Estate Sale Mecca.  And, aside from football and hockey of course, there's almost nothing I like more than a good estate sale.  For anyone not familiar with them, they are not glorified garage sales (for the most part).  Garage sales are when people throw out all the crap they don't want anymore and hope someone is silly enough to buy it.  Which I have done on many occasions.  Estate sales are more often than not an entire home being cleared from everything from furniture and art to vintage clothing and jewelry.  Sometimes the bargains are fantastic.  Sometimes the people putting on the estate sale know too much about what they're doing and price things according to their worth, but in either case it's a way to get one-of-a-kind merchandise.  Merchandise that has a history.

And at the heart of it, that's what I like.  It's why I insisted on an older house - a fact I've cursed many times since the husband headed back down to Texas.  I like looking at something and realizing it stood witness to other people's lives.  I don't know why - the erstwhile writer in me I guess.  I like to look at something and wonder what the people who used to own it were like.  What they did with it.  What they talked about in its presence.  If it's a piece of vintage clothing, I wonder where the woman wore it and what she coupled it with.  Did she wear gloves and what hat would go nicely with it.  Weird?  Maybe.  Who can truly confess that their own fascinations are weird.  They just are what they are.  I guess at the end of the day, I like stories.  So I like things that have stories to tell.  If I could only unlock them.

Plus, I've always been fascinated by things that are older than me.  When I was 7 and completely obsessed over the fact that the refrigerator in my parent's cabin was older than me, that's just amusing.  When you're my age it's becoming a real challenge.  I went to a "vintage" show and sale at the Heinz History Center this past spring and was so depressed at seeing so much kitchenware that I grew up with being passed off as vintage.  Didn't they realize I had just donated boxes and boxes of that crap to goodwill when my mother died?  It's not "vintage" - it's just old and tacky!  But, if I stopped and thought about it, it's no different than my being fascinated by things from the 30's and 40's.  To the average shopper at that show - mid-20's hipsters - it's fascinating to look at the things that your parents grew up with as children.  They may not realize it, but it's a way to connect back to your parent's past, which impacts you because it framed who they are and how they raised you.  You've heard all their stories, now you've got some context for the setting.  I know that's true for me.  Nonetheless, it's depressing to look at a set of Corningware just like the one your mom had and think it's now old enough to be retro.  Because, of course, people don't become retro, just that other thing:  old.

But anyway, back to the estate sales.  There have been a couple on my very street in the last few weeks, and rumor is there is another to come soon.  Despite having a very full house already with all the things I inherited from my parents and a fair amount of stuff from the husband's side of the equation, I hauled home still more stuff.  I was - and am - extremely pleased with myself.  I got some great pieces, including a stained glass panel that I've been looking for at far less than I've seen elsewhere, but there was a price to be paid that wasn't in dollars and cents.  Maybe because I saw the people who belonged to these things going out to get their mail or the paper when I was out walking the dogs.  In one case, the house and the couple even made it into my other blog.  So there was a vague connection with these people whose things I was now rummaging through like a scavenger.  These were my neighbors and now they're gone.  It seemed oddly inappropriate to profit from that fact.  But, I figured if I didn't, then someone else would.

Then there was the common theme that many of the best estate sales have:  they tell the tale of people who are "collectors", a polite way of saying they border on hoarding.  The one larger house was crammed full of antiques - they were in excellent shape and very valuable, but there was so much of it that it was nearly overwhelming.  I can't imagine how it all fit into that house, even as large as it is.  Two weeks later, walking into the foyer of the smaller, humbler home I realized that this couple's things didn't actually fit - they must have had to weave their way in and around all this mass of stuff.  There were still tags on coats and hats - and not inexpensive coats and hats.  For all the modesty of the home, the lady of the house liked expensive clothing.  I now own one of her faux fur coats.  I needed it like I need a hole in my head.  But I love it.  So...  But, it got me to thinking how it wasn't just my mother hoarding because she grew up in the Depression - these couples were probably too little during the Depression to really understand what was happening, but you wondered if they came through the peaks and valleys of the Western PA economy and they bought and collected as psychological backlash to the down times.  But maybe it's just a reaction to growing old.  I've seen it in the terminally ill - almost as though if they keep buying things, they won't die.  So, as I hauled home all my awesome stuff, I had to ask myself:  why truly are you buying all of this?

Finally, there is the realization, as I surround myself in some other peoples' things that, when they bought these things and proudly set them up in their home, or hung them in their closet, they weren't thinking that someday they would be dead and a total stranger would own them.  Really, intellectually, we all know we will die.  But emotionally it takes much more to make it sink in.  So as I rummaged through a whole rack of old coats trying to decide which was the one I couldn't live without, I decided that life really does fly past and you've got to live it well while you can or the next thing you know your own kids will be selling all your stuff and it'll still have the tags on it.

Who knew that simple estate sale shopping was such a philosophical quagmire?!

And that, folks, is the bottom line!
www.pittsburghestatesales.com

Because of Chuck Noll...

Ironically, because I was trolling Twitter the night of Friday the 13th trying to keep up with the Pirates while watching the Stanley Cup Finals, I was likely one of the first people to see the breaking news, but now, as other sad commemorations crowded in on the week, I'm probably one of the last of the Steelers Nation to publicly comment on it.  Yet so much of my life is framed around the fact that I'm a Steelers fan, which, let's be honest, wouldn't have happened had they not rose up out of the ashes to become a marquis franchise that got lots of air time even in the far away Rocky Mountains that I simply cannot stop for a moment and comment on Coach Noll's passing.

What you realize when an icon from your youth passes on is that you're hit hard by it because it drives home a fact that you know intellectually, but struggle to accept emotionally:  the carefree days of being young are truly, irrevocably gone.  There really is no returning to lazy Sunday afternoons by the fire listening to your dad explain what just happened on a particular play while he takes a sip of Hamm's, and you're explaining back that you just like it when a bunch of people all pile on top of one another (seriously, my first memories of Steelers football is that Steel Curtain defense just all swarming to the ball like it was a magnet and they were - well - steel).  And I guess it was for that reason that it took a while before I could accept it.  I saw the Pittsburgh Post Gazette announce via Twitter that Chuck Noll had passed away at his home in Sewickley and my first thought was, "Wow, isn't that interesting?  There's another local celeb who shares Coach Noll's name.  I wonder if I'm supposed to know who that is."  There was a good 30-45 second gap before it hit me maybe they meant the actual Coach Noll.  Then I moved on to the next stage of grief:  denial.  I figured it was a mistake.  I switched over to ESPN.  Nothing.  I pulled up Facebook.  Nothing.  Root Sports.  Nothing.  I began to relax a little.  And then I saw it - a scroll across the bottom of the screen. The Twitter-sphere began to pick up on it as well.  Finally, at intermission between periods in the hockey game, the local news broke in to announce it.  Denial was no longer an option.  There it was, all vestige's of my youth truly gone.

As I tried unsuccessfully pay attention to the OT hockey on the screen in front of me, I thought of his family and what they must be going through at that moment, and I've thought about them often in the intervening days.  I wonder if they felt a sense of comfort their dad and husband meant so much to so many that he's on the cover of the Sports Illustrated sitting on my table downstairs, or if all of us wanting to share their grief seems intrusive.  I hope it's the former.  Because what I've also reflected on since that night is how sports is more than a game (and hence people like me crawl into laundry rooms to cry when their team loses a big one), it's a unifying force that brings people together and gives them pride and hope and joy where they might not otherwise have any.  No city needed that more than this one in the 70's.  I must have heard a hundred stories over the next few days of how rough those days were as the steel industry collapsed and a quarter of the population was out of work.  As it was said over and over, for six days a week, there was nothing but worry and misery, but on Sunday, all of that was briefly forgotten.

I have been reminiscent of that speech of Admiral McRaven's that I quoted from last time. Coach Noll embodied the message that one man can truly change the world.  Think about it.  Because of Chuck Noll, Mean Joe Greene came to professional football and learned to control his temper and turned into a household name.  He broke racial barriers when he starred in a Coca-Cola commercial.

Speaking of racial barriers, because of Chuck Noll, an African American man was a starting quarterback in the NFL.  Not so stunning these days, but to our shame as a nation, as recently as the 70's it was.

Because of Chuck Noll, the team I love are six-time Super Bowl Champions, boasting such greats past and present as Rod Woodson, Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, and the list goes on.  All because of what Chuck Noll began when he brought together the men who became one of football's all-time great dynasties.

Because of Chuck Noll, a soot laden city in the middle of the greatest economic collapse since the Depression began to recover its reputation, gained a sense of pride and hope and never looked back.  Look at this city now - it took a lot of people and lots of faith to reshape it, true, but I believe that became a bit easier once the world saw Pittsburgh as something more than a dying city; when they began to perceive it as being as tough as the Steel Curtain defense.

Because of Chuck Noll, a little girl growing up in Bozeman, Montana learned to love football and became such a Steelers fan that she lives in their town now.  So, if someday I do something wondrous for the people of this city, then you can know - it was really because of Chuck Noll.

So, Coach Noll, I never met you and you would never know who I am or what you meant to me.  Take it to the bank, though, you changed my world.  And I thank you for it.

Justin Osborne

Make Your Bed

For the last several years every June 20th I've written a letter to my daughter and posted it on my blog.  I'm not sure I've got anything left to say to her really.  She either knows we love and miss her or she doesn't.  She knows the sins and shortcomings I committed as a parent and caregiver that I've confessed or she doesn't.  I don't know if she somehow hears the words or doesn't.  One more attempt won't change that.  So, rather, on this somber anniversary, I write instead to the parents of those whose children are battling ED or maybe have lost the fight.  And I'll share a couple of little snippets from a commencement speech I read recently from Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command that resonated with me - as a parent who both went to her own war and lost.

My boss sent several of us the transcript because it resonated with him and he wanted to share it with his team to think about how it might apply to us in our work.  It was very inspirational - he was right.  But, when I read it, I didn't translate a single word to my work environment, but all of it to my personal life.

It was a very structured speech as one would expect an Admiral and Navy SEAL to give.  He would tell a vignette from his SEAL training and then sum that particular story up with a one sentence tag line to make a particular point out of it and then move on to the next point and so on until he took all the lessons together to reach the larger goal of the speech (SPOILER ALERT:  that you can change the world).  Very concise and precise.  A soldier's way of doing things.

I'm much more chaotic, so let me see if I can take his wise words and scatter them around a bit to make the point I would like to.  And let me start by repeating the thing that almost gave me chills, "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."  Weird that I would be so impacted by that, right?  Well the reason is I made a big deal out of making the bed every day throughout the last five years.  There were some exceptions - this winter maybe most especially when the cats would snuggle in the warmth of the llama's wool blanket that was my mother's to stave off the vicious cold.  Then I would leave them to sleep in the tumble of sheets, blanket, pillows, book, remote control and scattered clothing.  Or if I'm really sick and really never made it out of the thing all day.  But, for the most part, no matter how horribly depressed or in despair I was, I would make the bed.  What he said about it was so spot on he could have watched me and drawn from my own life.  "If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter," he said.  "...And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

It's not the first time someone else has honed in on that.  I got caught up in The Bridge last year.  It was pretty much Game-of-Thrones-meets-Texas.  Lots of tragedy, lots of injustice, lots of personal and physical pain.  In short, everything you want to make you feel better about your own life.  So, one night not long after my husband left to move back to Texas himself,  I'm watching all alone as the main character tells her partner, who just lost his son, to be sure and make his bed.  When he looks at her as though she is mad, she explains that her mentor whom she lived with after her own personal tragedy always told her if she did nothing else in a day she had to make her bed.  So, if you are out there wondering how you're possibly going to take the next step in your life because you're just so overwhelmed, follow all of us in our "professional" opinions:  start with making the bed.

The Admiral also said much later in the speech, "If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moment."  I don't know if any of us who have struggled to care for a family member - whether it be someone sick with an eating disorder, or Alzheimer's or cancer or anything else - really is thinking about changing the world at that moment.  And if they lose their loved one, they probably most certainly are not.  Yet, there's no doubt for most of us that's our darkest moment.  I think the thing Admiral McRaven might say, though, judging him by the content of his speech alone, is that if you persevere in that personal quest you might just end up changing the world somewhere down the line.  Maybe your son or daughter will recover to find the cure for some disease - maybe even ED.   If you think all is beyond hope because, like me, you lost your child to the disease, it's not.  There are other people's children out there who still need you, even though they may never even meet you.  There is still a monster out there stealing promising lives away from the world.

Take the time you need to recover yourself.  For me, it's been five years today.  These aren't the years I thought I would live.  But they are what I have been given.  So, what can I do with the next five?  Can I try and change the world?  I will never know if I don't try.  So today, I will get out of bed and then I will make it.  Then I will face the world.

You can as well.  I believe in you.

Daddy Dearest (a Father's Day Ode to a Pennsylvania Dad)

I've talked some about my dad since I began blogging, but he's been overshadowed by my mom for a lot of reasons.  For one, he passed away of bone and lung cancer in 1992, a while before I learned about this thing called World Wide Web and certainly long before I ever heard the word "blog".  But also because Mom was the one who drove me to blog in the first place.  It was in the lonely, hard days of caring for her in her final year that I turned to this venue to have an outlet.  I just never stopped after she died.  But mostly because Dad isn't the sort of man who would enjoy being the center of a blog post.  But people - total and complete strangers - have beat me to posting information about my father on the Internet.  I was a little shocked actually at the amount of information about both my parents I could pull up from a simple Google search, so I figured the dam has already been broken, so I might has well add to it.  I have, of course, talked about him before.  It's hard not to really.  While I was much more co-dependent with my mother, there isn't much about me and my personality that isn't primarily influenced by my father.  I am my father's daughter even though we don't share a single drop of the same bloodline.

He was a complicated man.  Forged in the hard fires of the Great Depression, and had that metal tested during World War II and the Korean Conflict.  He was in his mid-40's before I came into his life.  Me, a post-war child of relative privilege who grew up watching young people rebel in the 60's and self-indulge in the 70's.  Our very diverse backgrounds made it hard for us to relate to one another.  I was too young for him to understand.  He was too old for me to get.  I wore him out at the end, I think.

I never did understand him for the entirety of his life.  Or rather, I thought I did at the time, but I've learned somewhat recently that I had him pegged completely incorrectly and unfairly.  Ironically perhaps, when I was out of work because I was caring for Mother, I read Flags of Our Fathers.  There was something about reading a peer's account of his own father and his discovery of what his father had done in the war and the emotional scars it had left him with really drove it home for me.  I remember sitting out on the back porch just sobbing at one point because it hit me full on.  So many things he did and the way he was just became crystal clear, but I realized I would never have the chance to say that to him.  I was always proud of his service, and I think he knew that, but I never really got what that cost him for the rest of his days even following him to his deathbed.  I knew it.  I didn't understand it.  There's a difference.  A lot of the "issues" I had carried all my life about how my dad was as I was growing up melted away that day.

The rest took me moving here to resolve.  For those of you reading this who are from Pennsylvania, see if any of this sounds familiar:  my father was a determined provider, even onto making himself miserable to make sure he was bringing home the bacon.

He was of firm convictions about certain things, to the point of pig headed stubbornness.  Occasionally he would enjoy a good debate, but not because there was any chance of swaying his opinion, but just because he enjoyed thinking he had bested the opposing argument.  But there were other times when debating a point was out of the question.  Firmly.  It was going to be his way or no way.

He loved sports.  With a kind of unamused passion.  Meaning, it wasn't a casual, oh-it's-just-fun-to-watch-the-game sort of a thing (unless alcohol and parties were involved - I'll get to that), but it was a rather explicit expectation that the athletes should perform well because that was their job.  He did his job to the best of his ability.  So should everyone else.

He had a robust sense of humor, but it had a sarcastic, somewhat cruel tinge to it.  Sometimes it was hard to tell when he was kidding and when he wasn't.  As an overly-sensitive child, that used to just traumatize me to an extreme.  To this day, I dread April Fool's Day.  And he liked a good time with friends and plenty of libations.  I loved their New Year's Day parties because they would let me gamble.  They would run a board on the games for some nominal amount a square and it amused all the men when this shy kid would "buy" a square or two.  I used to do pretty well with it too.  I don't remember that I ever got to keep any winnings though.

Once I moved here I would find myself watching people - men in particular - and thinking, "that's just like my dad."  Or, "that's something my dad would do."  Sometimes I was amused by that, sometimes I wasn't, but I can now fully appreciate who he was and what made him the way he was.

I think my father had an appreciation for life and wanted to live it to its fullest because he had brushed up way too closely to the alternative way too early in life, but he would make that a secondary consideration to making sure he took care of his responsibilities.

Whatever else he was or wasn't, he was my dad.  So Happy Father's Day, Daddy.  I love you more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

An Embarrassment of Riches

So, I was contemplating my little cottage last week because I had spent Memorial Day weekend griping about it to myself. I spent the entire weekend (except for a few hours spent at a Pirates game) trying to maintain it.  It's a constant battle with a house this old, a yard this big and weather this wet.  Paint peels, yards grow almost before your eyes and weeds do sprout that fast.  I kept shaking my head thinking if only I liked Shelties and Toy Poodles instead of Collies and Huskys then I could live in one of those chic apartments along Fifth Avenue carved out of grand old houses and pay someone to take care of the place so I could spend more time just enjoying the city.  That conundrum is front and center this weekend, so I'm trying to reason out what I'm going to do.  In addition to the big summer movie opening this weekend that I'm desperate to see (not because of the leading actor, mind you, but because lots of things blow up and I admittedly have a girl crush on Emily Blunt), there is the Three Rivers Arts Festival, the Pens are doing their Fan Appreciation sale on Saturday when it's the only time you get a shot at buying street banners and there is a big assortment of used hockey sticks that I covet, there is the Panera Pup Walk with one of my favorite Pittsburghers, Charlie Batch, bumping up against the Pirates series against the Brewers.  A neighbor is having an estate sale and there is the little issue of the Stanley Cup Finals (hey, it's hockey...).  How in the world am I supposed to stay at home spreading mulch with all this stuff going on?

I've decided that I simply can't.  I've just got to participate in all this wonderfulness happening around this city I pulled up stakes to move to.  And that's the thing that sometimes I think native Pittsburghers lose sight of.  This is a vibrant city and there is always a lot going on.  Anybody can likely say that about just about any city, I suppose, but there is a reputation that I think Pittsburgh still fights:  the dour steel city.  It's not that at all.  It's full of art, museums, sports (of course), festivals, farmer's markets, parks, rivers, and a lovely zoo.  If you can't find something to do here on a weekend, then you're really not looking.  For me, it's not always such a crowded agenda, but it's always a little bit of a moral fight:  do I stay put and tend to my little cottage or do I abandon my responsibilities and revel in the wonders of the city?  Sometimes I do the right thing, sometimes I do the fun thing.  What I hardly ever do is work and eventually that will end up being an issue too, but I am at that point in my life and have had enough challenges that I want to spend some time outside these office walls.

And as to that, I've written before about living life like a tourist, and it's something I do advocate strongly for many reasons.  I realize it may ring hollow for some because being a tourist means spending money.  And for some of my favorite things, that's true.  The zoo isn't free, for instance.  But lots of the wonders of the city are, or they are modest in price.  But I get it.  I'm not rich and I understand it's all a trade off.  But if you spend your life just working, going home, then getting up to go to work again you will lose sight of what it truly is you're working for.  You have to feed the mind, not just the body.  There is your heart and soul to think of as well.  And there is a wealth of brain nutrients right outside your doorstep, I promise you.  So, to unlock some of the wonders of the city without emptying the wallet, try this website, which a friend sent to me when I first got here.

Seriously, it's less about unleashing the wonders of the city than it is unchaining yourself.  So, Dear House, please forgive me, but I won't be home this weekend.  To the rest of you:  I'll see you out there, but stand back, I get first dibs on that Sidney Crosby used hockey stick!