For Amy. And Isaias. And Mom.

Sometimes, in the midst of my ranting about Trot peeing in the gas tank (hasn't happened yet, but I'm always fearful it will) or my worry Rakes will turn into Red from "Shawshank" (a guy who can get you anything you want for a price. He conned some kid out of $5 bucks and some Pokemon cards for basically a ball of lint so it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility) or driving myself nuts thinking about the day that punk shows up on my porch to take Ciera out on her first date, I forget there are some people out there who TRULY are dealing with some serious stuff.

Even though my Mom survived breast cancer and JB's Mom is fighting it now and so is an Uncle of mine, not to mention Mr. Andy I sometimes need a reality check about what is really important.

The little boy in the picture is named Isaias. His cousin is the wife of my brother from another mother. He was almost 10 years old when he died of cancer and he is the basis for Project Cupid, which Amy started last year. I'll let Josh speak now.......

"No doubt, Project Cupid is motivated by those we have lost, and for those that continue to fight against cancer. It is why we fight.

But for me, Project Cupid is about thanking all those folks that helped me and Amy get through the past couple years, when things just seemed to be impossible to overcome, when despair would come knocking, when it felt like we couldnt make progress. They enabled us to be able to fight. friends, family, complete strangers, twitter followers, random Red Sox fans, customers. Without them, Project Cupid would have never happened in the first place

So again this year, we give thanks to everyone that has helped us fight against cancer. We would love to see you come out for the event - this year is going to blow last year out of the water, in just about every respect. If you cant make it, and would still like to donate, please click on the link below. Even 5 dollars is helpful. But i know times are tough, so if you have a moment: just send a prayer, or send some PV's to those who are battling cancer, but also to those supporting them, to the families and friends. Every little bit helps."

Click on www.project-cupid.org to read more.

If you're in Boston this Friday night around 7 p.m., stop by Whiskey Park at the Park Plaza. Great items like an autographed Boston Celtic's team ball, a Dustin Pedroia 8x10, and a hockey puck from the Bruins are being auctioned off and great food, drinks, music, and a chance to hit Jr in the nether region are all being offered.

And if you see a guy that looks a little like Charles Manson wearing a suit standing next to a really pretty lady? Go up, say hello, and tell 'em Ted asked you to stop by.

And give 'em a hug for me while you're at it.

The Carl Crawford signing just keeps getting better.

*Image courtesy of Kelly O's www.sittingstill.smugmug.com*

From www.fannation.com:

"Give the Red Sox credit for taking no chances. Their $142 million deal with Carl Crawford includes a clause that prohibits any team he's traded to from then trading him to the Yankees. They rarely give no-trade clauses, and in Crawford's case allowed him to block trades to only two teams."

This is brilliant. I think with every free agent contract they sign in the future this should be enacted, along with "In the event we reach the post season you MUST re-enact the Kevin Millar "Don't let us win tonight" speech before every game" and "I will at all times I'm able tell Dustin Pedroia is short jokes".

Sweet Holy Moses, Truck Day is just around the corner.

Playing with House Money Again

Due to the abnormal snow we've gotten this winter, the kids have to go to school half a day tomorrow, which for everyone not name Horshamscouse is Saturday.

It's my week to drive Ciera and her cousin Jerry to school so I was all set to get up at the crack of dawn to ensure they continued their education, but was saved by my Saint of a wife who offered to drive them instead.

And all I had to do was rub her sore neck for about 30 minutes.

I think she's getting the short end of this deal but I'm not saying a flipping word.

Even if I am home alone with Trot for about 45 minutes and have to re-lock the entire house so he doesn't decide to visit our elderly neighbors down the street wearing his Star Wars pajama top, a smile, and nothing else.

Sleeping in until 8:15 a.m. is worth it.

The Situation wouldn't stand a chance.

As I sat on my couch tonight watching "America's Funniest Home Video's" while Rakes and Trot sat next to me and cackled like raving lunatics at the sight of a grown man getting hit in the marbles with a teeter totter, the following thought occurred to me.

I am a gigantic idiot.

Because if I'd have gone ahead with my initial plan of installing 24 hour video cameras when I built this house I'd have my own show on MTV, my star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, and these kids of mine would be making millions on their way to years of therapy.

Instead of JUST on their way to therapy.

Just Because

After a day that included a funeral, freezing weather, and a cold, steady rain I needed to end it with something that didn't include any of the above.






I believe it is now 18 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Annie

Ang took the kids to see their "Mawmaw Annie" at the rest home often. In a place filled with sickness and sadness, I'm sure the sight of 3 very loud, fast moving and quick talking kids caused a 50/50 mix of fear and delight depending on which resident you asked.

When Trot was a little over two and Rakes was probably just getting ready to turn five, while on one of those visits to see Annie, Ang turned her back for probably 15 seconds.

In those 15 seconds Rakes grabbed a flashlight off a nightstand, he and Trot snuck out the door and made their way down to the room of, I assume, a perfectly nice gentleman. When Ang found them, Trot was merrily unrolling this man's toilet paper at about 35 sheets per second while Rakes was standing over the thankfully sleeping man, shining the flashlight in his eyes and yelling "Wake up, Grandpa!"

Annie loved that story and loved seeing her "babies" as often as she could and the kids felt the same way.

Annie passed away early this morning. She'd been sick for a long time and while someone you love dying is never an easy thing, Ang and her family were glad they had her for 87 years.

As I get older I find myself being asked to be a pall bearer at more funerals than I like and even though it's an honor to ME it's not really easy to say yes every time.

But for this sweet, gentle lady full of love and warmth who for some reason thought Heckle and Jeckle were the greatest thing since the microwave?

It was a really easy decision.

Safe travels, Annie.

Super Bowl Pick. And Little Plastic Ants.

If you ever come home from work, feeling especially good because you had a great day, laughing and horsing around for 7 hours while making a good commission, and decide to play "Ants in the Pants" with a 7 year old control freak who hates to lose and a 4 year old lunatic who has the manual dexterity of a boulder, can I offer you a small piece of advice?

Don't.

Just don't. It won't end well.

You're gonna have to trust me on this.

Also, Rakes informed me tonight that he is by my side for the duration of the Championship games tomorrow, because, and I quote, "I wanna see who is gonna be in the World Series Super Bowl Tournament".

He's learning, slowly but surely.

I'm calling a Jets/Packers Super Bowl. They've shocked the world 2 weeks in a row now.

No reason to think they'll stop now.Can you imagine THAT crew at the Super Bowl?

3 and a Half Weeks. I can do that.

After working 9 hours, doing my very best to convince the people coming in my store who A. Don't need it, B. Don't have the money to pay for it, and C. Are going to pay out the wazoo for something they want to finance and would be better off just buying it straight out that they MUST HAVE IT NOW, all I look forward to is spending some quality time with my beautiful wife, precious daughter, and my two mildly active boys every night.

However, most nights I come home to a variation of THIS.

25 days until P & C.

If I make it that long.

Predicting the Future

Last night on "Two and a Half Men" Jake drank a warm coke, ate a Mentos, and did the "Human Volcano" on his Dad.

I have an eerie feeling a video of me, Trot, and possibly Rakes will end up on Youtube someday re-enacting this entire scenario.

Praying for Opening Day

One minute they're babies and before you know it she's 12 going on 50, he's rattling off about trading some kid on the bus 2 quarters and a Mexican nickle for a John Cena action figure, and you're REALLY starting to get concerned that HE is headed down the Road to Perdition.

All of a sudden I'm in the Twilight Zone; Ciera is officially grown up (This may have happened six months ago and I'm just now accepting it. This happens more than you think when you are a parent.), Rakes is a 7 year old shucker and jiver who has more trades, exchanges, deals, and near deals than your average NYSE employee and Mafia enforcer combined, and Trot just merrily marches his way through life leaving a trail of Goldfish crackers and mayhem in his wake.

And as much as I gripe about it? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Like the commercial says; Life comes at you fast.

Less than 30 days until pitchers and catchers report and I can crawl back into my hole of self-denial and avoidance.

Not Just Another Day Off

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

Sunday. Bloody Sunday.

My day started at 6:30 a.m., which was when Tweedle Dee an Tweedle Dum decided to wake up, come downstairs, and start playing Star Wars on the PS2, UFC style.

Then I taught 15 two year olds at church; 15. They just kept coming, like the robots in the future scenes in "Terminator 2". By the time the 13th kid was dropped off I was looking for the ghost of Alan Funt to jump out of a closet and tell me to smile: I was on Candid Camera.

The afternoon consisted of Ang and Trot taking a nap while I tried to watch the football game while Rakes asked me every question known to man. Seriously, I can't think of a single topic he DIDN'T bring up. Then we went over to my parents house for dinner where the combination of my three kids and my two nieces did a really nice job of sending my Dad's nerves into his 90's. And he's only 75.

Which all explains how I found myself sitting on the couch with Rakes where he somehow convinced me it was totally OK for him to watch "Iron Man".

I'm debating whether to change the name of the blog to "One Man's Journey Into Insanity: One Day at a Time".

You Gotta Touch The Stove To See It It's Hot.

Per the norm, my Redskins are at home watching the playoffs. I've got no stake in any of the teams involved, except for the fact most of my friends are rooting for the Patriots and my Uncle Henry was a die hard Packers fan from back in the day.

To all my New England compatriots, I really hope it's the Patriots vs the Packers in the Super Bowl.

But for the next few weeks?

I'm a Cheesehead.

Miss 'ya, Henry.

The Pack are doing you proud.

Another one of those "What was I Thinking?" Questions

We started watching this with the kids tonight, but due to school on Saturday (Rudy from "Fat Albert" is turning over in his grave; that is, if cartoon characters died.) we had to stop at the part where Billy goes out with the Pritchett boys and catch up tomorrow.

My kids are begging me to get them a dog and I pick the movie just down from "Old Yeller" in terms of tugging at the heart strings to watch.

I've got a sinking feeling there is going to be a four legged animal to go with all the two legged ones running around in here before I know it.......

Why can't we all just get along?

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day."

That's Psalms 46:4.

It's also what President Obama opened his remarks with at today's Arizona Memorial Service for the people killed in the tragic events of last Saturday.

I'm about as political as an orange, but for the love of Mother Goose can we stop with all the stupid rhetoric and have some freaking respect for the office? The man is NOT a Muslim, he's NOT the anti-christ and he's NOT the end of the world as we know it.

He's the leader of the free world trying to do the best job he can with the pile of elephant crap left for him by the previous regime.

Words matter. Whether we like it or not. And both sides need to realize that it's not US vs THEM but it's just, simply, US. Americans. Republican or Democrat, Black or White, Christian or Jew or Muslim or like many of my friends members of the Church of Baseball. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, we're Americans and we better figure out a way to by God live together or we're going to fall apart.

This message was brought to you courtesy of the off season.

Spring Training can hurry up and get here, thank you very much.

"If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today."

Well said, Mr. President.

Well said.

Always Be Closing. Or Something.

I've had days where it was 70 degrees outside and couldn't sell a glass of ice water to a man dying of thirst.

Today? It was 30 degrees, ice and snow everywhere, we were only open 5 hours, and Rakes spent the day at work with me.

I sold $3,575 dollars.

Retail, thy name is Sybil.

Pals

Like most of the serious moments so far in my kid's lives, tonight's came out of the clear blue. One minute I'm making eggs for the kids and the next minute Rakes, while looking at a picture of him and Mr. Andy on the refrigerator asks "Dad, are we going to a Bulls game with Mr. Andy this summer?"

It's been over a year since Andy passed away and I still hadn't found a way to tell Rakes; as usual he took care of that for me.

It's never easy dealing with the death of a friend, much less when you're 7 and your friend is someone you only saw once in a while. But as I explained to Rakes that we wouldn't be able to go to another game with Andy his expression saddened briefly, then he sort of lit up again.

"Dad. Even though we can't go WITH Andy anymore he can still sort of go with us, right? I mean, we went before and he knows how to get there so maybe even if we can't see him it's sort of like he's there, right?"

And once again that little maniac goes and surprises me; here I was worried how he'd take it and somehow he ends up comforting ME.

Oh yeah; BB, if you read this, I sort of promised him that we could still go with you and DB this summer so let's see if we can work something out, OK?

Day of Rest

Having a headache in my house while wishing for peace, happiness, good will toward men and for Trot to stop singing that song from "Aladdin" over and over again has about the same odds of Jr playing point guard for the Celtics.

So I spent the day with one eye open watching football while chaos and carnage raged on beside me and uttering the phrase "WILL YOU TRY AND BE QUIET" roughly 8,000 times. And as usually happens when I get a headache, it was cold enough outside I could have hung meat outside so no letting them run around the neighborhood terrorizing old ladies and random dogs.

Another given of me having a headache is I ended up apologizing to Ang several times for being a Grade A jack wagon and probably have to take the kids to the park AT LEAST 3 times to make up for the volcanic like eruptions that went off at various intervals.

Some days I really wish life came with a do-over button.

Stupid is as Stupid does

This post is directed to the person on Facebook who wondered why welfare recipients didn't have to pay taxes on their benefits.

Do me a favor. Walk a mile in a welfare recipient's shoes and THEN come talk to me.

What in the name of Ted William's head has happened to this country where people are complaining about welfare recipients NOT paying taxes?

Sorry, but the God I believe in implored us to help the poor and the down trodden, look after our fellow man, and in general not act like the south bound end of a north bound donkey.

P.S. Dear MLB; can you please hurry up and get here? 'Cause I'm about one more idiot and a pack of donuts away from fragging somebody.

At least it wasn't a Tumor

For about an hour and a half tonight I was fairly certain I was having a heart attack. No major trigger to explain it, unless you count taking Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to Target to buy Pokemon cards.

And toilet paper. Can't forget the toilet paper.

As I sat in the living room wondering why it felt like a two ton bulldozer was sitting on my chest I tried to figure out if I needed to alert Ang to this issue or just chalk it up to gas and call it a day.

Thankfully it went away on it's own and I'm going to blame the fact that I ate dinner in approximately 3.7 minutes, during which I discussed with Rakes all the reasons I wasn't going to let him spend $40 on the aforementioned Pokemon cards.

The fact pitchers and catchers are reporting in the very near future may well be the only thing keeping me from an EKG machine and some electric paddles.

I Pray for His Bus Driver Next Year

In taking Trot to school everyday, I've mastered the art of having a conversation about ANYTHING.

From asking me to "make the sun stop shining in my eyes" to discussions about why does Sponge Bob live in a Pineapple to the always popular "Where do babies come from?". I'd even go so far to say that driving that little maniac to school helps me prepare for my job, where the art of improv and thinking on your feet come in pretty handy.

Today was pretty standard fare; he sang "Angels We Have Heard On High", badly mangling the lyrics and at one point I'm pretty sure he warbled "Gloria, in except of speeding tickets" while I tried to come completely awake and not run the car off the road.

Our usual scenario once we get in the car line is him to climb into the front seat and either roll the window up and down 3,599 times or raise/lower the passenger seat so many times that I'm pretty sure Vegas has an over/under on when he'll burn the motor out while I wonder why I get him there at 9 when they don't ever bother to come get them until 9:05.

Today? He switched things up. Climbing up beside me, he put his book bag in the seat, climbed into the floor and laid on his back while propping his feet up on the seat. Watching all this in silence, once he was comfortable I asked the obvious question.

"Son. What in God's name are you doing?"

His answer?

" 'Tause it's WARM down here."

Can't argue logic I guess.

Another Day, Another Check Mark

"Relax, all right? Don't try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring; besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls. It's more democratic."
- CRASH DAVIS (Kevin Costner) in Bull Durham (1988)

Is it Spring yet?

New Year, Same Result

I've made my official 2011 New Year's Resolution.

I pledge to have no more children!

That being said, I fully expect my first two Grandson's to be the re-incarnation of Jesse and Frank James.

Look at that picture and tell me you see otherwise.

Animal Planet meets THE Animal Planet

They named the new fish Pedroia and Tigger.

Tigger is the little one, and Pedroia, ironically, is the bigger one.

Turns out Tigger seems to love chasing after Pedroia incessantly and irritating the crap out of him.

Where have I seen this phenomenon before?

I got enough animals to take care of already

Ang and the kids have been after me for the past couple of years to get a pet. Before we moved into the house we're in now, we had a great Chow/Golden Retriever mix named Marino who was, in my humble opinion, the Best. Dog. Ever.

After we moved she ran away, which she'd never done before, and since then we've been pet-less. Unless you count Trot.

Naturally at first we talked about a dog. But with Angie's insistence it be an outdoor dog and the fact our neighborhood will only let you have a certain kind of fence combined with my insistence on hanging the Red Sox B on said fence which would violate said neighborhood ordinance, we moved on to cats.

It took approximately 3 minutes of discussion about cats to rule them out. Cats are high strung creatures of habit; 5 minutes with Rakes and Trot and the cat would need shock therapy and be on a lifetime supply of Prozac just to make it through each day.

So I somehow let Ang convince me to get the fish tank out of storage and tonight we spent 3 months salary on a heater, thermometer, some kind of drops that eliminate chlorine, and 2 months water bill to fill it up. Once we've reached 76 degrees, it's ready for some fish. Which is why after church tomorrow I'll be at the pet store buying, and I quote, "A Tiger Fish, one that looks like Dory, and this REALLY cute small one that is pink".

Which is all well and good. Fish are relatively low maintenance; feed 'em every other day, clean the tank once a month, and you should be good.

However, can you imagine what this lunatic is going to do when I tell him he can't take them out of the tank and carry them around the house?