Summer means baseball and being forced to play well with others ... Yeah, I hate that part.

Well, hello there.  It’s been a while.  A long while.  So, I thought I’d dust this old thing off and bring something new for the masses. 

It’s summer.  And that means baseball.  I was never an athletic child.  I’d rather be in a corner reading a book.  But when The Minion started playing sports, it made me realize that while I have no desire to play sports myself, I am fiercely competitive and want my kid to CRUSH the opposition.  Fairly.  And with class.  But still.  DECIMATE.  So.  That leads us to today’s tale from the ballpark.

First, let me give some backstory on the other mom I will talk about.  She’s a foo foo fancy mom.  Her kid went to preschool with mine.  We definitely did not mingle.  We were polite.  But it was obvious we were not of the same social circle.  She’s a Talbots kind of woman.  Always perfectly coifed and bejeweled.  All crisp creases and linen and what’s trending in current fashion.  I am … not.  I am very much a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl.  Always have been, always will be.

She’s also a bitch.  You know the ones.  Loud voice, always taking over the room and ordering things done her way.  Which, in some instances can be a good thing.  But not all the damn time.  I get exhausted just watching her.  You know the type.  She sweeps in for the class holiday party, all decked out in her festive outfit, perfectly put together, with perfect hair and nails and sparkles and the expensive tote bag of goodies.  She pulls out the big bakery box and loudly tells everyone and anyone nearby that she TOTALLY forgot that she was supposed to bring cupcakes for the party, so she had a very dear friend that bakes whip these up last minute.  Then she trills that fake laugh that makes you want to stab her with a spork, and opens the box with a flourish.

Inside are petit fours.  Not the small bite size ones, but the big ones that would cover your palm.  And they are fondant covered squares decorated to look like presents.  There are sprinkles and swirls and metallic flakes.  Fancy.  With marzipan bows and each one has a candy gift tag with each child’s name written on it.  Everyone gasps and oooohs and aaaaaahs.

And in your head you are thinking, “Bitch, please.  Last minute MY ASS.”  And you just know that she put this order in at Thanksgiving.  At the fancy schmancy organic gluten free artisanal bakery that you hear is amazing, but you don’t know personally because you can’t afford $18.50 for one of those damn petit fours.  Well played, diabolical party mom, well played.  She’s casually implied that the owner of said fancy bakery is such a close personal friend that she would whip these up last minute just for her, even though it’s a busy season.  And, one look instantly lets everyone know exactly where they came from and how much this box of 20 petit fours cost, just in case there was any doubt about her large disposable income.

That bitch.  That’s who I am dealing with here at the ball park. 

Her husband coaches the team and she is the official scorekeeper and generally In Charge.  It’s obvious she’s used to being In Charge of everydamnthing.  She has this giant button that is always pinned right at her heart.  It’s a baseball with her kid’s name embroidered in it.  Damn thing is twice the size of a grapefruit.  And it’s hand-made, special.  Cost a pretty penny.  Because of course it did.

We’ve had a lot of rain, so our game over the weekend was rained out.  It’s been a week since we’ve played, and the last game we lost by 2.  Our kids are coming off of a week with no play, and a crushing defeat.  We already knew two boys would be out.  Then a third isn’t coming.  And it’s almost game time.  Suddenly we have a fourth kid that’s a no-show.  Can’t get in touch with him.  We have 8 players.  And it’s raining again.

Google.  Rules say that we have to have a minimum of 9 players on the field or we forfeit.  We have 8.  The umpire agrees to let us play the first inning, with the hope that the 9^th is just running late and will show.  This was very nice of him.  The whole discussion has taken place over by our dugout.  We are well aware of the rules and where we stand.  We take the field with 8.  The other team doesn’t seem to notice or care.

At the end of the inning, the umpire comes over and asks the coach if our 9^th ever showed up.  He tells him that no, we only have 8.  They again discuss the forfeit rule, and the coach acknowledges that he knows and understands.  No matter what happens in this game, we lose due to the forfeit rule.  Okay.  Let’s play ball.  The game is going dismally.  The other team has scored 8 runs on us in about 10 minutes.  Our best player – our home run hitter – is not playing today.  We struggle on.

We rally.  We manage to get into some semblance of our usual rhythm, and the score is close.  It’s 12-11.  We are proud.  We have 8 kids on the field.  Our two best hitters are not even playing.  They have a full team.  And we’ve managed to hang in there.

Suddenly, SHE takes notice.  Gets her phone.  Starts typing.  Then, loudly, so EVERYONE can hear, she starts reading the forfeit rule out loud.  Everyone is looking at her, even the umpire.  She continues reading down to the next part about how teams can borrow players from other teams, but only in advance.  And then, this bitch tells the umpire that she thinks we borrowed a player illegally.  That we “grabbed him from the playground.”

I’m sorry, what?!  Bitch has lost her damn mind.  I mean, if we were going to borrow a player, why the hell would we get only one, leaving us still one player short where we have to forfeit?  Not to mention, every kid on the field is in full uniform.  Where the hell did we come up with a complete uniform for a random kid?!  Absolutely ridiculous.  The game is delayed for a couple of minutes while she babbles on idiotically to the umpire about the rules and how she thinks we did this.  And finally, the umpire realizes he as some sense, remembers that we have 8 kids out there and have from the start, and that it’s completely ludicrous to assume we would only put 8 kids on the field if we were borrowing players because we need 9 to avoid the forfeit rule.  So it’s confirmed that our kids are our kids and not some random playground child and play continues.

Never have I wanted to have a win more than this.  I mean, yeah, we lose due to forfeit, but still.  That bitch would know that we really won.  With only 8 players.  And we would have kicked her teams’ ass with less kids and her team’s victory is therefore bullshit and only because of a technical rule.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.  Our boys couldn’t get it together on their last turn at bat, and they ended up beating us 15-11.  Which sucked.  But still.  We managed to get 11 runs in, without our best hitters, and without even having a full team on the field.  I was still proud.

But man, I wanted to give that bitch a hoof to the taco.  I didn’t say a word.  I took the morally superior high ground.  But I also silently wished that she got splashed by a car going through a puddle in the parking lot.  And I also wished that I had parked in the back lot so I could drive through all the puddles. 

Moral of the story:  Don’t underestimate the nonathletic, former band geek mom in the background, cheering on her kid in sports.  Her silence doesn’t mean she accepts defeat easily. She just might be competitive enough to cut a bitch.  Or a bitch’s tires.  

To write or not to write ... That really is the question.

I haven’t written anything in a long time. In fact, I stopped writing on purpose. 

Here’s the thing.  I like to write.  Or I used to.  People have always told me that I am a good writer.  I enjoyed writing my snarky little stories on life.  Then one day someone saw my writing and told me that they liked what they saw.  I was invited to join a writer’s group.  

I was a little intimidated.  A little in awe.  These were some serious writer people.  Some have published books.  Some have huge blog followings and huge FB followings.  Some have pieces appearing all over the Internet all the time. These folks are the real deal.

I began interacting with this group, and reading, and writing a few things.  I got to know them.  They are a different breed.  Writing for them isn’t something they do from time to time.  Writing is a passion.  A must. A definite need. A compulsion.  A calling.  It must be done.  They bleed onto the page.  The results are beautiful.

And I learned something.

I am not a Writer.  I enjoy it.  I am good at it.  But I don’t NEED to do it. That is not me. I don’t have to put words on a page.  There are no sentences and stories and words spinning in my head, vying for a way out.  

I purposefully stopped writing, to see if it would matter to me.  And it didn’t.  Not writing hasn’t made my life any better or worse.  It hasn’t made any difference at all. 

I am a good writer.  But I have no desire to be a Writer.  I don’t care if I publish pieces on websites or magazines.  I don’t care if I ever make money at it.  I don’t even really care if I write ever again.  That makes it sort of hard to be a part of a writer’s group.  I’ve toyed with the idea of leaving.  But I will stick around as long as they will have me.  I have met some incredible people there.  And I enjoy reading their words.  I can even say that some of them have definitely become friends.

Once I made the decision that writing is fun, but Writing is not something I aspire to, a weight was lifted.  I don’t have to be a Writer.  I don’t have to submit and publish and toil and agonize over it.  That’s pressure I was putting on myself, to fit into a category that I really don’t want to fit into.  

Writing is a hobby.  A sometimes thing.  But it’s not a calling.  At least not for me.

Maybe I will start writing again, with no pressure to submit or fit a theme or category.  Maybe I will never write another blog post again.  I am okay with either one.  The words will come, if they want to, when they want to.  Maybe.  One day.