Cry for help

This is Ruthie writing on Ben's behalf.

On Saturday at about noon, my dad will be at our house with a heavy dresser that needs to make it from his truck to Gehrig's bedroom. We need some strong male- type people to help out. If you are able and willing, let us know.

THANKS!!!

Over the Rhine Tonight

It's gonna be good.

Free to a Good Home

Good-bye Mordred!

Stoked

Scored Opening Day tickets today. Here we go!

Thanks Gary.

Can Anyone Remember a Better March?

Now Tubby's saying It

"They deserved to win."

It's easy math.

:)

I really did grow up in Lansing.

If I Told You That I Root for the Spartans...

Would you believe that it's because I grew up in Lansing?

Well Duh.

Just heard Jared's Poopsnarfle guy say that Louisville "deserved to win." Why do people insist on saying that all the time? There's a downright objective way to determine who deserves to win -- end the game with more points than the other guys. How else would you like to settle these things?

Drives me nuts.

Final Four

Just looks good up there, don't it?

The last time the Cards made it this far I was about to turn fourteen years old. We didn't know they'd been spoiling us during the early/mid eighties, just thought it was supposed to be like this (it is). Then, seemingly out of nowhere, mediocrity set in. And it lingered. And lingered. And it took Rick Pitino, whom I was never able to like until this week, to make things right again. Win or lose from here, (and truth to tell, even if they'd lost to West Virignia,) The 'Ville is back, and it's been a long time coming.

What a world to bring a child into.

P.S. I never dreamed a team could shoot threes like West Virginia did and still get beat. This is fun.

Down 13 at Halftime

Alright. There's no way those guys stay that hot in the second half.

Not Ready to Panic

But the boys are in trouble.

Why is this so Weird?

Little G got his Social Security card today.

Doin' Good

Smeagol let us get some sleep last night -- everyone's in a better frame of mind this morning. Just when we needed it.

My friend Randy called last night to check on Ruthie and the conversation turned, as it invariably must, to Over the Rhine, specifically their CD release concerts next week. Ruthie's not up to going, so I'd resigned myself to missing it and Randy was planning to go by himself, so we made a date of it. Seriously excited. I think I'll take a giant ballgame-style banner that says, "PLAY THE POOPSMITH SONG." Can't hurt to try. I wish all of you knew Randy -- one of my top five favorite people in the world (and you've got to figure that somebody got bumped off the list on the tenth).

And in case you hadn't heard, the Cards won.

P.S. Shawn, the Roadrunner guy broke my PC. What to do?

You May (Officially) Take Your Number One Seed and Shove it Up Your Ass

Go Cards.

Up Twelve at Halftime

This is nervewracking.

I Love Baseball

Today's Rockies/Diamondbacks game was called after five innings due to a swarm of bees.

Hush Now, My Sweet Little Noisy Boy

Rough night.

Wednesday Morning

Have burped & changed the wonton and he's still crying. That leaves feeding, and I can't do that for him. Hate to awaken the Ruth though, so we're trying to make if through Sportscenter. Anyone else a little scared of Pat Summitt?

Back to work this afternoon. They've changed things around so that I'll work late every Wednesday, which messes up a couple of my weekly get-togethers, but it'll be good to be back in the saddle. Ruthie's mom will arrive this morning and is planning to spend several days with us helping out.

Check this out.

I Can See!

My great good friend Shawn hooked me up with a gee-nifty monitor (the screen kind, not the big scary lizard kind) and I like it.

Ruth & Gehrig

Got a nice ring, don't it?

I'm Trying Not to go Overboard with these Pictures, But...

blah, blah, blah...

Monday

Michael and Marilyn came by yesterday with some giftage for Smeagol -- a box of My Particular Favorites, which are aptly named and would have been enough -- and a very special edition of the new Over the Rhine record, which is beyond wonderful. Little G went to bed last night listening to it (start 'em young) and listened quietly until it was over. (Then he started up again with the squawking.) Somehow, late last night, with that CD on and that damned Burger King commercial still haunting me I was struck again by the vast difference between music as art (e.g., Over the Rhine, Dividing the Plunder, et. al. -- it's out there,) and music used to sell something, (e.g., the tender crisp bacon cheddar ranch song, that stupid, "This One's for the Girls," song and the whole CCM scene). The latter strikes me as profane. Surely God didn't give us music to sell crap.

Big win for the Cards last night -- absolutely beating the living pig shit out of a very good team (in case you hadn't heard). Before the brackets came out I'd been thinking about picking Georgia Tech for the Final Four. I've liked them for a long time -- since they had Bruce Dalrymple, Mark Price and John Salley back in the day, and this year's team looked good. I like this better.

Back to work in a couple days. I've enjoyed being around the house all day with Ruthie and the Lizard, but it's time to get back in the groove and find out what normal looks like now. It'll be good.

Easter is this Sunday, which is particularly interesting because, A) I didn't know that until my mom called on Saturday and, B) For the first time in my life, I won't be doing the Church thing for Easter, but will be here at the house with my People (unless I have to work, which looks likely). This may indicate that I've finally escaped from the religion that so easily entangled me, but I'm not introspective enough to say for sure.

More later,
slide

One Heart at a Time

Welcome my mother to the bloggery.

Ancient Zen Riddle Answered

question: What is the sound of one man's credibility vanishing?

answer: "You guys (the Louisville Cardinals) don't stand a chance against Georgia Tech."

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

Funny Things My Wife Has Said:

"He does not want his damn binky!"

And What the Hell Happened to Hootie?

What's up with this Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch commercial?

This Kid from Vermont

has Scott Skiles range. Wow.

There's That Word Again

Ahh...

Mmm...Hospital Food

By the Way

Ruthie's making another attempt at the bloggery.

Whew

That was way too close.

For Those Who are About to Rock We Salute You

Look what we made!

Friday

Yesterday I finally finished The Executioner's Song, all 1200+ pages of it. It was good, though a bit dry -- reads like a documentary, which it essentially is. I don't know if I'd have dug it as much if it hadn't been a true story, but knowing that it all pretty much happened like that -- hmm... When the State of Utah's firing squad shot Gary Gilmore in 1977 it was this country's first execution in ten years. Since then there have been more than seven hundred; seems like a lot. And the kicker is that Gilmore fired his lawyers for trying to prevent the execution and insisted that the State go through with it. Now it's on to Stars in Their Courses -- Shelby Foote on the Gettysburg campaign. This'll be good; Shelby Foote is the shit (which somehow is a compliment).

In other news, the Ruth is doing quite well. Feeling a little better every day and planning to keep our Friday night wine tasting date (it'll be Little G's first).

Finally got the high speed internet hooked up this morning -- Shawn & Justin will be so proud.

Cards play tonight -- here we go.For the second round of this tournament, I'm the biggest Bearcats fan in the world.

Welcome Jared Perkins to the bloggery -- truly one of the best friends I've ever had, (and apparently now a fellow tea drinker as well. Who knew?)

Gonna be Alright

Been to the doctor today, having taken the Ruth in late Monday night for some quasi-emergency surgery to remove some hematoma-related blood clots. She's doing great. Doctor refers to her as his star and is very, very pleased with her progress -- downright giddy, and it's not every day you see a giddy OB/GYN. (Probably it's not every day you see an OB/GYN period...I mean, at all...nevermind).

Little G is one week old today. How can I already be so attached?

With Apologies to Ben Folds...

"Good morning son
Twenty years from now
Maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers
And I can tell you about today
And how I picked you up and Everything changed."

What!?

A four seed?!

Sunday

We're going home.

BTW

How 'bout them Cardinals.

We're Guardedly Optimistic

May be able to go home tomorrow, if several things go just right.

What a Ride

Here I am still at the hospital. We got here Wednesday night and now it's Saturday and maybe we'll get to go home tomorrow. Ruthie did a fantastic job with the natural delivery very early Thursday morning and we thought we'd have nothing but bragging to do -- even her doctor was impressed with how well it went -- she only pushed for 15 - 20 minutes. So we called everyone and said that everything was fine and we'd be home e're long.

Shortly thereafter, though, she developed the hematoma (sp?) from hell and things got ugly. A hematoma, as I understand it, is a monstrous kind of a bruise, which creates a kind of pressure that is extremely uncomfortable. This particular one is apparently the kind of thing we should tell the Guinness people about and Ruthie has become a kind of legend in this wing of the hospital and among the doctors in the practice she goes to. This is not a good thing.

My tough-as-nails wife, who'd just handled natural childbirth like a gladiator, spent four hours alternately sobbing and screaming down the hallway and what should have been the best day of my life turned into one of the worst. There's not a more maddening feeling than seeing the person you love most in the world in that kind of pain and being powerless to help. I try not to think about it now that it's behind us.

They gave her some Darvoset (sp?) and then, when that didn't work, some Perkoset (sp?) on top of that and when that didn't work some Morphine, which just took the edge off the pain, before finally, and ironically, giving her an epidural, which made Everything okay.

My sister hannaH showed up Thursday morning (I think it was thursday) just in time to keep me from unraveling and things have been looking up ever since. They took the epidural out this morning (I think today is Saturday) as the swelling is going down and will replace it with morphine for a while, which ought to suffice. As long as we can avoid infection she's in good shape. Feel free to pop in for a visit.

By the way, we now have a son. Truth is, this thing with Ruthie has been so at the forefront that I haven't had time to give any emotional time/energy to the fact that I'm the father of a son. (He is pretty cool though -- we like him).

To make a horriffically long story shorter than it deserves to be, Gehrig is healthy, Ruthie will be soon and I may never recover. I'll take it.

P.S. I tried to post a blog entry via e-mail on Thursday and it still hasn't hit yet. When it does, it won't reflect much of what's gone on, but will be dated several days after the fact, so don't be confused.

The baby has been bornded.

This is Ben's friend Shawn speaking on Ben's behalf. I will cut to the chase because I am not nearly as witty or literally inclined as my good friend.

Gehrig Andrew Gregory
Born @12:45am on Thursday (03-10-05)
Weighing 8lbs even
21" long

It is currently 10:49am and Ben just told me that Gehrig is enroute to get his tip nipped.

Ruthie will be fine.

It May be That They're Here

She's
They've
Doesn't
Won't
I'm
They're
Hasn't
Isn't
Couldn't
Let's
We've
We're
You'd
Who's
You're
He's
It's

State of the Uterus

Went to the doctor on Saturday, which was a day before Ruthie was due, and she was 4 centimeters and, "ready for launch." Dude said that unless she had it in the meantime -- and she hasn't -- he wanted us back this afternoon for another checkup and to talk about inducing, which Ruthie and I would both like to avoid. Ought to know more this afternoon.

Now no one is more up to the minute than you.

One Heart at a Time

Welcome Caleb to the bloggery.

Went to a Wine Tasting Last Night

Came home with an absolute monster of a Cab to drink when the lizard finally arrives. Now I'm really impatient.

Finally Saw "Million Dollar Baby"

Damn.

Currently Reading:

The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer. Digging it.

Over the Weekend

Watched The Ladykillers (liked it) and Open Water, which while not totally devoid of value, was mostly dumb and boring until sharks ate those people -- that was neat.

Then we saw Sideways, which I liked a lot, except for the fat, running, naked man.

Amen.

Today...

is a sushi day!

A Couple Nights Ago

I had a kooky dream that involved Ken Read, Nosferatu and Mark Twain. Downright creepy.

My Life at the Moment

I fall asleep every night thinking, this time tomorrow I could be a
father. I wake up every morning thinking, this could be the day. Lately I'm downright preoccupied.

Lately

Waded through American Pastoral, which was on my Pulitzer list. Never did get into it, though I felt all along like I should have. Just didn't dig it.

Also read A Song to Sing, a Life to Live, by Emily Saliers and her father Don, who's a church musician and professor of theology and worship. Disappointing. A bit dry. What does it mean when a book co-written by half of Indigo Girls is still too religious for me?

My Blogger Seems to be Broken Again

Mawwiage

I've agreed to do a wedding in April -- my first in a long time; I've been ducking them successfully for six or seven years. I'm a bit stumped as to what I'll say when the time comes. So much of what I've heard (and said) in weddings has been so cliche and I'm not interested in contributing to the banality. "The wedding ring is an endless circle like eternity and is made of precious metal, blah, blah, blah..."

I think the best thing I ever heard in a wedding was when Joe went on and on and on about how beautiful and radiant Cindy was, about how she was a princess and we were all there for her on her day -- truly touching -- then turned to Justin and said, "And Justin, you're dressed very nicely."

So married folk, (and you know who you are,) what do you wish someone had said to you during your wedding? Or were you listening? Or does it matter? I doubt that it matters much (at all?) for a couple reasons, but I'm trying to be open minded.