And of course, I will use a much
Reasons Why I Loved This Weekend:
- Buying spider webbing and face paints for the Bugs Halloween costumes this year...a repeat of a few years back, but we're bringing back the Dead Baseball Player - SPOOOOOKY!! Buying fun Halloween treats for the Little Bug's baseball team - creepy cups, spider rings, pencils, pumpkin and bat-shaped pretzels, candy and plastic vampire teeth. Give this girl a theme and she'll run a mile with it!
- Friends over to watch the Miami Hurricanes beat ... another team. I can't remember who the heck they played; really, I am in charge of the food - or the Football Feast as the Bugs have dubbed it - and conversation. Two things I truly excel at...
- The Fall Festival at a local church...we've never been and boy have we missed out. SO MUCH FUN! Games like catching ping pong balls in Solo cups, the ring toss on pumpkin stems, searching for coins in a hay bale, stacking empty soda cans (those would be pop cans for you Northerners) and paper plates and the potato toss. Fun grab bags filled with the loot won at the afore mentioned: a mini pumpkin (which may or may not house a parasite per the Bigger Bug this morning, ha ha!), bead necklaces, fall tattoos, cross necklaces, hot wheels cars and candy. Free hot dogs, popcorn, corn on the cob, cotton candy, ice cream, funnel cakes (!!!) and drinks. Face painting and dance demonstrations, bounce houses and balloon hats. The Saints favorite part was the Crock Pot Cookoff: pumpkin soup, jambalaya, chicken-n-dumplings and chili, Oh My! Yummy stuff but kind of tough to enjoy piping hot food items simmering and steaming in almost 90 degree weather! Fall, thank you for coming and bringing pumpkin coffee to Dunkin Donuts, but why did you have to leave so soon?!
- The best friend a girl could ever have is getting married!! She got a wonderful man, a great father for the Little Bug's best friend (and the little one on the way) and a gorgeous ring!! J & J (and J & J?)...congratulations!! I can't wait to hug you, congratulate him and see it!
The Little Bug's Rookie baseball team has been playing together for a few seasons now and has always been a tight knit group. Our old head coach moved up to the Minors with his son, so our new head coach was one of our old assistant coaches. Follow? This season, the league also introduced a new Board and some new rules and without going into too much detail, the coaches of the 4 Rookie Teams are not BFFs. There have been some snide comments from parents, bad calls resulting in losses for our team and some generally UN-sportsmanlike conduct from all 4 teams, ours included. Which is really disappointing since we have been playing at this complex since the Bigger Bug was only 4 and have never seen this sort of behavior.
Now, I haven't been a huge fan of our new head coach these seasons due to some small incidents that I did not feel were...becoming, shall we say...for a coach. Nothing too serious, mind you, just a matter of preference. We probably would not have requested him again next season. But Sunday, we got a very distressing email from him. He was resigning and cited some disturbing reasons: being spat on, suffering racial and sexist comments, etc.
BUT THEN
He said he had a cross burned in his yard by people in baseball sheets and threats to his wife and young sons. REALLY? This is what has come of arguments on the field over a 3rd out or a biased call? Disappointed and disgusted do not even begin to describe it. When a volunteer coach who lives in our community has his home, wife and children threatened over baseball, it is very clear that we have lost perspective. This game, this season, this entire experience is about having fun, gaining self-confidence, learning fundamentals and above all, being part of a team and respecting each other. But now? I believe we have struck out.
**And one short but meaningful stint on my Soapbox. Don't wanna hear it? Talk to the landlord. Oh, that's me!!
