Snippets

Hate is a pretty strong word for me, but I have to admit that I agree with TBG's pronouncement the other night: "I just hate stupid.  It's bad for business.  It hurts you emotionally.  It makes everything more difficult.  I really hate stupid."

I'm not talking about a lack of knowledge or a paucity of information.  I'm not talking about disabilities or unavoidable circumstances or situations where nothing you bring to the table equips you for the job at hand.  I'm talking about stupid.

Stupid makes the recovery time twice as long, because first you have to get over the hurt.  You get to rant and rave and feel justified in your fury because all it would have taken was..... and stupid made it not be so.  I end up in the same place, eventually, it is true.  But the aggravation would be lessened if stupid weren't around.
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I rode a chartered bus to Phoenix on Saturday night, wearing my Cubs shirt and accompanied by 20 members and affiliates of The Happy Ladies Club.  We parked outside Gate J at Chase Field and walked up a short ramp to our seats. 

There were hot dogs and burritos and ice cream and beer stands, the same offerings over and over again as far around the outer concourse as the eye could see.  There were little kids dancing on the jumbotron, and fly balls and stray bats carroming into the stands.

A year ago, 9 hours of sitting and unknown distances for walking would have been enouh to keep me at home.  Progress reveals itself in the strangest ways, it seems.

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This is a between-time for sportscasters here in the USofA.  Unless you're following the international football matches (soccer, here, of course) and the track and field Olympic qualifying,  there's really not much to get excited about beyond baseball.  UofA is in the College World Series, and that's exciting enough, but it's played in Omaha and I'm here melting in the desert. 

Here comes Title IX to the rescue.  Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the legislation that demanded parity, and proof thereof, between men's and women's athletics seems to be filling the gap.  It is legislation that truly changed the landscape of growing up.  There were options all over the place, not just on the cheerleading squad or gymnastics team.  My life would have been very different if all the girls around me played sports.... if I had role models who were every bit as cool as the ones the boys had. 

It's the kind of change that you have to live through to recognize, as Little Cuter pointed out to me at the Women's World Cup final when she was 14.  We were broiling in the heat in the Rose Bowl, surrounded by 90,185 fans, most of them females drinking lemonade, while watching the USofA hold China to a scoreless tie.  It was nothing I could have imagined when I was 14, and apparently I had been making that point once too often because, in a quiet moment... so that everyone nearby could hear.... Little Cuter turned to me in exasperation and commanded thusly:

"Mom, enough about Title IX"

Point taken, kiddo. Who wants a history lesson when you play the same game the women on the field are playing? 
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I didn't go to Congress on Your Corner on Saturday.  By the time I went to sleep on Friday night, I had decided to stay safe and secure in my comfy little bubble here at home, though I reserved the right to change my mind in the morning.

The newspaper revealed that Congressman Barber was stuck in the weather delays back east.  The event was pushed back to the afternoon.... and I had plans to drive to Phoenix to see the Cubbies .... so the scheduling just didn't work out. 

Did I really make a decision?  I don't know and I don't care.
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Aaron Sorkin is back and my heart is aflutter.  Find The Newsroom on HBO or HBO Go.  Sam Waterston speaking Aaron Sorkin's words on stupid is a much more eloquent screed than mine
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