Kickball Andy

One evening, on my walk home from the Metro after the conclusion of my normal Tuesday evening kickball festivities, I struck up a conversation with a stranger, or rather a stranger struck up conversation with me.  Andy had noticed my kickball shirt and stopped me to ask about how to get involved with the league.  Being polite, I explained how to register, and we continued to banter for the next five minutes.  I learned that he was 26, married with a baby girl, and worked with some large companies, blah, blah, blah.  He appeared to fit the standard Arlington mold, so I felt comfortable exchanging numbers in case he had any questions related to kickball.

Two weeks passed, and I received a call from Kickball Andy, as I've saved his contact number in my address book.  During the conversation he asked if we could meet up and grab coffee to not only discuss kickball, but also about the possibility of me making some extra money on the side.  Disoriented and addled by his comments, I informed him that I would be leaving town for a ten day vacation and wouldn’t be returning until July 19^th.  I figured that was sufficient to deter any future correspondence of this kind.  I also wish my moral conscience permitted me to egregiously lie at a moment like this.

Sure enough, as predictable as the sun rising in the east, I received a call from Kickball Andy on July 19^th.  The voicemail was as follows;

Mr. Brian, what’s going on? It’s Andy ***********.  I met you out in Arlington and we were talking about some kickball and I asked you about the possibility of making some extra money on the side and just wanted to see if you could get together next week. I told you I’d call you tonight cuz you were out of town. I hope you had a safe trip brother.  If you can give me a call tonight, we can set something up and get some coffee this week.  I’d like to show you what I do, brother, if you’re down, you’re down.  If you’re not, you’re not. Alright brother.  Well let me tell you something, Andy. I'm not.

After brainstorming a list of every possible outcome of continued communication with Kickball Andy and determining that absolutely nothing positive can come from it, I did not return the call.

Texts from last night: You around big man?

I’ve yet to pin down what it is about me that invites strangers into my living room, but I’m pretty certain that in Andy’s case, it wasn’t the kickball.

Relay for Life

May 30^th arrived. It was time for Relay for Life. Relay for Life is the American Cancer Society’s largest annual fundraiser and is a community-affirming event about celebration, remembrance and hope. I had volunteered, through work, to be captain of our Relay for Life team. I quickly worked up a PowerPoint presentation with a consultative approach to maximizing our efforts at the Relay for Life event, and distributed it to our team. We then spent the better part of a month fundraising and preparing for the actual event. Since this was my first Relay for Life, or Relay as it’s condescendingly referred to among the veterans, I was not sure what to expect.

My first observation. I was the first person to arrive at the Relay. Either I was given the incorrect time, or the thousands of others were all fashionably late.

My second observation. Many of the teams were comprised of primarily high school students; which, as always, presented an opportunity for unrelenting humor while walking around the track of the local high school. There was always a gaggle of girls standing off to the side probably debating why Bobby was walking around the track with Kim instead of his girlfriend Sarah. Come 2am, Bobby will most likely not be dating Sarah and will probably be curled up in a sleeping bag next to Kim. Sorry Sarah.

My challenges at hand were different from those of my generic high school friend Sarah. As the team captain, I thought it best to lead by example. The one hiccup; I was still suffering from pneumonia and as a consequence, leading by example wasn’t going to be my style. Instead, I sat stationed in my folding chair for most of the evening. When everyone got up dance to Walk it Out, I sat it out. When everyone got up to dance the Electric Slide, I slid my cheeks further into the folding char. And when everyone got up to dance to the Cupid Shuffle I pulled out my camera and took a picture.

Around 5am we started debating politics. Some of the most stimulating conversations I’ve had in years. I only wonder if my pneumonia medication and delirium let me to believe that we were having a real conversation. In reality it was probably no more sophisticated than the gaggle of high school girls.

Barnes and Nobles, Where the S is Silent

I suppose that I knew I had an addiction.  They say the first stage is denial, a stage I remained in for about a six months before confronting my crisis.  One night, I finally admitted defeat and began seeking intervention.

It started out with just a page here, a book there, and progressed to the point of having an exorbitance of unopened books.  The defining moment came after spending a night out on the town.  Some people have their late night indulgences; Julia’s Empanadas on Connecticut Avenue is a popular one, finding a gem on eBay, another. I even knew of a man who purchased next-day plane tickets, only to wake up and realize he had missed the flight that he didn’t remember purchasing. But I digress.  On this evening, I returned home and found myself ordering books from Barnes and Noble.  Really? My late night hedonist tendency is buying books online.

With much work and restraint, I have cleansed myself of such a late-night folly.  As a consolation, I permit frequent visits to Barnes and Noble.  I have never been happier.  And who knew that trips to Barnes and Noble could produce such great encounters.

The first man I eavesdropped on was informing his friend that he recently became unemployed.  But his recent unemployment allowed him to spend his days at Barnes and Noble catching up on all the latest science fiction novels. If he’s lucky, I heard they are hiring skilled lightsaber-men in the Gelactic Republic.

And even better, I found a collectively rotund couple, pegged in their mid 50s, going through recipe books and toothily scribbling down the ones that appeared palatable.  At a time in my life where I feel my youthfulness fighting to escape from me, I am comforted to know that I haven’t resorted to this yet.

On another outing, I encountered a family of four, each sitting in a chair around a mahogany table, each reading a book.  This family outing quite remarkably resembled a family dinner, less the food and a bit more taciturn.  What a family adventure!

At this point, I am intimately familiar with the seasonal displays, similarities, and variations of each Barnes and Noble in DC Metro area.  If I eavesdrop on conversations at the Customer Service kiosk, I have found more times than not, that I could direct the patron to the appropriate section.  The only downside to having this wealth of knowledge as I see it, not that I’ve asked, is that none of these Barnes and Noble branches are hiring.

Beach H(e)aven

Memorial Day is a day that commemorates the men and women who have died while in military service.  More commonly, Memorial Day has come to symbolize the commencement of summer, with the opening of the pool and the extended weekend.  The holiday gives Americans the chance to sit in traffic not observed since last Thanksgiving, all in attempt to dim the effervescent shine of the sun’s reflection off the wintery-pale skin.

As such, Kyle and I had been invited to our college friend Kristen’s beach house on Long Beach Island in the quaint, traditional beach town of Beach Haven, New Jersey.  The plan was to be out of the apartment by 6am to avoid the parking lot of I-95. Perplexed by the sun edging its way into my tenebrous interior, I turned to my clock to realize that it was 9am.  So much for avoiding the traffic.

Our arrival perfectly coincided with the groups’ retirement from the beach.  As it turns out, sleeping through my alarm was the first blessing in disguise.  As the day progressed, each sand-snoozer’s hue transformed into tomato-patch red, not the bronze they had been desperately praying for.  I’m not talking about a tender-skin sunburn, I am talking about the kind that prohibits you from walking like a normal human and results in the zombie-swagger, arms elevated, legs apart to avoid all skin-to-skin contact; the intensity that merited medical attention.

That evening, the group displayed the zombie-swagger en route to the Hudson House, more commonly referred to as the Hud.  This house is the best dive bar on Long Beach Island.  A house in the middle of a residential development converted into a bar, it is like an old pair of shoes, slightly warn and tattered, but comfortable and dependable.  We pumped some money into the jukebox, sat down, and observed the surroundings.  I spent most of the evening observing the punch-o-meter, where men (and women) dumped dollars to demonstrate they were the alpha male of the mid-thirties bar crowd.

The second weekend blessing in disguise:  While the company in Beach Haven was honorable, my health was not.  Although I missed my chance to bake in the sun, I suppose God wanted me to commiserate with the group, and consequently, gave me pneumonia.  I am still waiting to discover the blessing.

Do We Dewey? Yes.

Dewey – v. laying in the sand, listening to the ocean waves, enjoying the convivial atmosphere, supping on everything, and encountering an eclectic group of beach goers.

After the past few weeks of weather that appeared to beckon for Noah to start constructing a new ark, and thinking the sun might have entered retirement, I was charmed to see the clouds part.  Some of my friends from high school and I paraded to the beach for a relaxing weekend.

We spent most of the weekend Deweying, overindulging in the food department.  On Saturday alone, we dined at Sharky’s Grill, Thrasher’s Fries, Candy Kitchen, the Purple Parrot Bar and Grill, Rita’s Water Ice, The Starboard, and Grottos Pizza.

In order to offset the caloric intake, we made it a priority to get some exercise.  To start off, we played an intense game of corn hole.  The teams: Brian and Sara versus Peter and Zotter. The outcome: Peter and Zotter won 21 – 16.  The breakdown: Brian scored 15 points, Sara scored 1.

In our next athletic competition, we worked up a sweat playing a round of putt-putt at Shell We Golf.  The discount: My friend Peter got to play for free because it was his birthday.  My friend Julie also got to play for free because the store clerk thought she was permanently handicapped since she was deceptively sporting the forearm crutch as opposed to the traditional underarm crutch. The results: Sara ended up in last place, even behind Julie, who played the entire course while using a flamingo-like stance and putting one-handed. The analysis: I should have chosen Julie to be my teammate at corn hole.

Overshare of the weekend: While enjoying the sun and the sand, a bedraggled and unkempt lady approached and showed us the cool sea shell she found.  Over the course of the next few minutes she proceeded to whinge about the cards she was dealt, while simultaneously pining for companionship.  I'm sorry, you definitely sunk that battleship. Unprovoked, she revealed that she recently went through a sticky divorce, in which she only asked for child support, not part of her husband’s pension.  In addition to the child support, she received disability benefits from her former employment accident.  Which is why she talks languidly, because she is constantly on tranquilizers; not narcotics, because she has had a history of addiction to those in the past.  She was also pro-choice until her first abortion, but the emotion distress swayed her to be pro-life.  The one thing she didn’t share was her name.  Anonymity is probably better anyway.  Next, she impinged on my personal space, and with a dollop of sunscreen in hand, muttering some phrase about her concern for me getting burned, proceeded to run sunscreen all over my chest. No. Oh, wait. Yes.

This is My America: Real Men of Genius

I have traveled around the country, biking and climbing, hitchhiking and hijacking, and have found a consortium of people I believe unambiguously represent the best of the best.  Actually, that’s somewhere between a truth and a lie; all three of these Americans can be found in the DC Metropolitan area.

Left turn man. While driving around the streets of Arlington, I came to a stoplight behind a blackberry colored Honda Fit.  Our light turned green, the Honda Fit edged it’s way into the middle of the intersection to make a left hand turn.  Once he began to turn, he now found himself looking up at the red light for the cars in the lanes perpendicular to our green light.  So he stopped.  I politely honked.  He motioned to the law of the land, the red light.  I swerved around him.  No sir.  You should not have been given a drivers license.

Wendy’s lady.  I rolled through the Wendy’s drive through to order a Spicy Chicken Sandwich and a Medium Fries.  The lady at the window informed me my total would be $5.72.  I noticed that the Chicken Sandwich value meal only costs $4.69, and it also includes a drink.  I then asked the lady if she would throw in a soda and knock a dollar off of my bill.  I’m sorry, we can’t do that. No ma’am.  Then I would like to scrap that order and start over again.

Good Friday man. While strolling the streets of Georgetown on Palm Sunday I passed by a Catholic Church service.  Mass had just ended, and the churchgoers were scattering into the streets with palms in hand.  I observe a son point to the churchgoers and question his father.  The father then informs his son that it’s simply Good Friday. No son, do not fall for that scullduggery. Good Friday always falls on a Friday, never on a Sunday.

Slow N Bouncy

Joining a kickball team sounded like the quintessential thing to do after college.  It’s the embodiment of the social and the collegial with a tinge of young professional.

Premise: Play a casual game of kickball each Tuesday evening on the Mall, between the White House and Washington Monument.  Then proceed to Penn Quarter Sports Tavern for a competitive game of flip cup.

Our Team:  The team was created by three nurses with the intent of it being a team for fellow nurses, brandishing the creative team name DC Nurses.  As it turns out, these three nurses were the only three nurses that wanted to participate, so they crusaded to field an army of kickballers.  That is how I landed myself a spot on this team; I happen to know Jay, who happens to know one of the nurses…or so I think.

Our First Week:  Collectively, our team’s kickball skills were underwhelming, and our team suffered an abysmal defeat.  There is a less than probable chance that we could have salvaged some of our dignity if there was a slaughter rule in effect.  Having checked our kickball skills at the door, I thought that flip cup might be our strong suit.  Wrong, I forgot that DC Nurses don’t sport suits.  We challenged our opponent until they got tired of winning.

Our Second Week:  Perhaps we brought an added intensity to the game in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, but in week two we avenged our loss*.  We ran up the score and cheered boisterously, so much so that the referee christened us relentless.  My friend Katie appropriately replied. “Sir, if you had seen us last week, you would understand” to which he replied “I did, we destroyed you last week.”

*Caveat: Our team was forced to forfeit because of regulations stating that a team is only eligible if there are at least four girls.  Our team had two.  Really? The team named DC Nurses couldn’t field more than two girls?