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.