Overstimulation

I really like the Clarinet (Bassinet) that Mrs. Pinetar bought (or was given) for the Tomster. It has these little controls on the side and it will play a little music (something they played at our wedding but I didn’t know that-was told) and it has a little “activity center” for Tommy’s “activity time”.

Anyway, it has these bears that hang on a little dry-cleaning rack and you press a button and the bears spin around over Tommy.

But you have to swing it into position first.

 So I’m admiring the thing and we put him down and I swing the thing into position and Mrs. Pinetar says, “…Wait! You can’t do that yet.”

“Why?”, I say.

“You’ll overstimulate him. It’s too much for him”, She replied.

“Oh”, I said.

How cute is it, that the three little flying stuffed bears will overstimulate him?

***

This clarinet has one other thing that I really, really love. The vibration button. You can even adjust the frequency (although not as low as I would like, but I’ll take it). It is like Tommy is at the belly of a big cat that is purring. It’s very soothing and pacifying.

There is some newer research that indicates that the vibrations that cats produce is very, very healing and beneficial to the cats themselves. They actually have been shown to HEAL faster from wounds for purring. This is verifiable data, not the global warming hooey that you see on CNN.

I went through a phase a few years ago where I read anything I could get my hands on re ‘after death experiences’ or, NDE (Near Death Experiences). They have gone on for all history but are more prevalent now due to advancing medical technology (the same amazing medical discovery and technology that Al Gore and Hillary say isn’t fair and needs to be curtailed by government intervention). What’s even more true today is that with medical tech being what it is, people are simply more inclined to entertain the POSSIBILITY that these folks come by some information that they really don’t or shouldn’t have access to, if you discount the “experience”.

The books are fascinating reading and they make you think plenty, especially about some of our downright silly religious customs and institutionalized hokum. The book, “Embraced by the Light” by Betty J. Eadie, is by far, the best book I’ve ever read in my life. I’ve read it over 10 times and it has influenced me far more than any other book, no question. There is a bookend book to it that is also amazing: “Beyond the Darkness” by Angie Fenimore. They compliment each other and should be read together, and read in the order listed. They are quite different so don’t assume…

Anyway, in the dozens of books I’ve read on this topic, one of the things that strikes you about these experiences is their diversity. All are different and highly personal. However, there are still many similarities. One is that many of these folks report on the “music” or “vibrations” that run through and permeate EVERYTHING on the spiritual side. Everything vibrates and resonates and all things are in vibrational/musical harmony “over there”. In this other dimension, these vibrations are described as “healing” and “loving” and “containing great intelligence”.

It is interesting that we are finding out that cats’ purring heals wounds. I predict that in the future, more money and effort will be spent looking into the effect of vibrations on living tissue. I don’t think enough is being done but the vibration gizmo on the clarinet is a good start.

***

We had Tommy outside a lot yesterday and like rookie parents, got him a little too warm in his fleece swaddling blanket. But on day 4, the jaundice is at maximun, so I insisted that we get him some light (indirect) to break down that bad old Billy Rueben. I also decided it was time to fly the Bunker Hill flag. You don’t see many outside of New England.

And this morning he was opening his eyes more than usual. I used a no-flash setting and it was dark so don’t worry about his color there. He is looking great. It’s just hard to get him to open the eyes. A lot of the time, he just opens one eye. It’s funny to see him fall off the feeding spout and then get mad. Unfortunately, it’s a family trait to quickly get pretty mad at something very simple in the scheme of things. Oh well.

We are baptizing him at about 1 month. This shocked the church down the street. They grilled my wife about it. That’s how it was done in the old days (25 years ago and before) but now it is wigging them out. Almost any time I have “official dealings” of any sort with a member of the church, I walk away shaking my head. I’m trying.

Since Mrs. Pinetar may not be able to make the baptism class, I will have to go alone. I told Mrs. Pinetar, “…wait until they get a load of me…”

And she basically said, “Don’t get excommunicated again!”

And that would be the second time this year! The odds on excommunication are currently running about 7-1. We’ll see.

***

For the record, Julio Franco is now 1 for 12 with the Atlanta Braves. I’ll say it again: Somewhere out there, there is a golf-course missing a guy. –fog

Contaminated with Poodles and Lap Dogs

Click: Troop, the most famous coon-hound ever, is laid to rest here

“When I buried Troop, I had no intention of establishing a coon dog cemetery,” says Underwood. “I merely wanted to do something special for a special coon dog.”

When columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson interviewed Underwood in 1985, he told her that a woman from California wrote him wanting to know why he didn’t allow other kinds of dogs to be buried at the coon dog cemetery.

“You must not know much about coon hunters and their dogs, if you think we would contaminate this burial place with poodles and lap dogs,” he responded.

Madonna and JFK seen at shrine

If there was a “Weird Mass” magazine, then I’m sure that they have covered this at some point. Mrs. Pinetar and I went up to Mass for the weekend and around the corner from where we stayed, was this house. This is a completely residential area in Scituate, MA. It’s a beautiful area near the estuary and nothing was out of the ordinary–until this.

Of course I stopped and took some fog-fotos because really, there is just no explaining a shrine to JFK on someone’s front lawn.

It appears to be a custom-built, stone covered, well…er…ahh, “shrine” is what it says so we’ll go with that.

As I got closer to it, the name they gave it seemed appropriate. Inside, directly in front of the storm door, was a half or 3/4 life size statue of Jesus laying down with stigmata. At the far left was a candle holder that looked to be right from a church and a full size statue.

The right hand side had the statue of Mary and the well-worn church style kneelers. I did not go inside. I probably could have if I wanted to now that I think of it but you tend to feel a little self conscious when you’re taking photos of someone’s private JFK shrine. Now, if it was a shrine to General Patton, or Tommy Agee or Secretariat, then perhaps.

There was no one around and no one came out. I am thinking that this thing has been here for years and they are used to the gawkers by now.

Was it because JFK was the first Catholic President that he has all the hoopla? It’s funny about the whole JFK thing. He was young, he was handsome, he had the pretty wife and then he was killed so publicly so the media, understandably, just ran with it for the last 40 years.  Face it, there’s money to be made on the guy by selling books and TV shows and movies–I get all that.

But what no one seems to want to deal with is that the party that he worked for has moved so far to the Left since he was alive, that the OTHER party can now use JFK’s speeches in their marketing! The Republicans, in fact, did just this in the 2000 election as Bush was running on a platform of a  tax-cut-for-the-middle-class. That’s the same thing JFK ran on, and fought for: an economy-stimulating, middle class tax cut.  And championed by the Democrats!

And when the Republicans used the sound bites from 1960, of a Democrat recommending the same thing, the Democrats just wigged out. “You can’t use our guy!”. And the media has made him this bigger than life icon and the Democrats never get tired of using the icon–but they want to rewrite the script that went with it. They don’t want people to realize that what was a Democrat in 1960 is basically a Republican now because that might remind people just how far left the whole Democratic party has gone in the meantime.  Seriously, if JFK came back to life right now, he’d have to be a Republican (and he’d HAVE to be embarrassed by his brother Teddy).

And that’s really my problem with the Democrats. They had a lot of nice ideas. Really, I’m not kidding. But those nice ideas were long ago turned into LAWS. But a party has too much momentum (and too many people deriving power from it) to simply say, “…hey, we nailed all of our objectives, let’s just call it a day”. No chance. They simply move the first down marker 10 yards to the political left and try for another, and another, and another and bigger and bigger government (socialism) and higher and higher taxes, meanwhile our paycheck and our freedoms shrink and if we beef about it, we are called rascist, white, greedy, insensitive, rich, homophobes (etc) for wanting less of our money squandered in Washington and more of the decision making kept local.

Give the Democrats what they want today, and by God, they will be back at your door tomorrow, insisting that more people are victims and that more money needs to be bled from the producing base to address their “victimness”.  Help us JFK!  –fog

McGraw of the Giants and the OTB

With baseball right around the corner I thought we could use a blast of baseball past. I recently reread John McGraw’s bio by Charles Alexander and at the end, they give the street address of McGraw’s palatial home, where he spends his last days dying of prostate cancer. The address was right around the corner from the Bronx office where I work. In fact, I passed it every day while going for pizza or the garlic eggplant at Number One Chinese in Pelham.

So one day, I had the digital camera and swung down his street and took this photo.

Not a big deal really but I couldn’t help but think that Casey Stengel and Bill Terry and Mel Ott all walked up that path. And in the 1920′s, that was a big mansion. And it’s just so absurdly close to the Bronx now that it makes you laugh. Pelham was THE place for the rich New Yorkers to settle but it’s proximity to the Bronx would unsettle me now.

In fact, just a half mile down the road from McGraw’s is the Bronx OTB, where I placed my last bet on Barbaro (an Exacta Box with the eventual winner)

I think that McGraw would have liked the proximity to the OTB as he was a big horse player and all around gambler.  In fact, in his early days with the Giants in the early oughts, it was not uncommon for him to leave the team in a coach’s hands and go to Belmont Park to the races.  In fact, Giants’ owner John T. Brush had to discipline him for doing just that.

In the 1905 World Series against Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics, McGraw could be seen openly betting with A’s fans down the first and third base lines.  The Giants won a classic series (the second ever as McGraw refused to play in 1904) and McGraw cleaned up on his bets.

A few things struck me while reading the book.  One, was the preponderance of Irish-American ballplayers.  Back then in the 1900-1910′s, you could probably still find signs in windows saying “NINA” or “No Irish Need Apply”.  Baseball was considered fairly lowly work and this image was only starting to be flipped by the rare college educated players like Eddie Plank and Christy Mathewson.  Otherwise, some hotels wouldn’t take “ballplayers and actors”. There were Italian immigrants pouring in at that time as well, but the names on the rosters were mostlsy Irish.  The Italians don’t get into it until more like the 1920′s and 1930′s. 

The other thing that is amazing about the era is the number of times that guys like McGraw and McGinnity and Bresnahan would get into these near riots and fistfights.  It’s a wonder they could play the games.  They’d have to dress at the hotel and ride to the park in wagons sometimes, while the home town fans threw things at them, often as big as bricks.  It was a whiskey-soaked, rough-and-tumble time for sure. 

He managed the Giants from 1902 to 1932 and with the dead ball and lively ball.  Between he and Connie Mack, you have 80 years of major league managing experience.  An interesing character in American History. –fog 

McGonnigle the Cat, Is Hobbled

McGonnigle the cat had to go to the cat doctor yesterday. It seems he had been fighting and got bitten on the left heel, right at the joint. The wound festered and an abcess developed. He was operated on and is home now at my parents, hiding under the bed and isn’t eating or drinking much, although last night, he was glad to see me and purred everytime I looked under the bed. If he’s purring, he can’t be in that bad a shape, right?

They had to put him out to shave and drain and dress the wound and that makes me nervous. I knew a girl who was a vet tech in Smyrna, Delaware and she said that the amount of anesthesia that they give is really only a guess based on the critter’s weight and a table that they have.

One time, she overdosed a little dog and he died on the table there and she was crying and carrying on and then, like magic, he came back to life and was fine. I think they were doing something fairly routine like maybe even a teeth-cleaning. The people picked up fido and never knew that only an hour before, he was flying up the tunnel and hearing the beautiful music.

Those stories made me think, “…don’t let them put Gonnicle under unless it’s absolutely necessary”. And that’s what we try to do.

So he’s recuperating and at least there’s no lampshade. I remember we had a cat that had the lampshade and he just ran around the house for days running the lampshade against the wall and ramming it into the door frames to try and rip it loose. The worst part of the animal getting hurt is that they don’t understand anything that’s happening. Gonnicle just wants to go out and mouse and bird and go bunnyhunting. And some will write and tell me that he shouldn’t be outside at all but really, he loves it so much outside that I can’t deny him. That’s where he is a real cat. You can just see it. That’s why, when I moved out of my apartment, I gave him to my parents because they have the land and woods that he loves and with me, he can’t have that here. I’d rather he live 5 years as a full cat than 15 years as an indoor stuffed animal. –fog

 

 

Little Jeters Running Around…

You know, Mrs. Pinetar’s point on Barbaro’s “legacy” makes me wonder: What if Derek Jeter, you know, offered some future Jeter stardust, out for sale?  Certainly, women would line up around the block for that, no?  And be willing to pay a fortune, right?  You wonder when bigtime athletes will arrive at this “business” opportunity?

Straw pretty much tried it (But he was bad  at marketing himself).  Steve Garvey actually DID it (remember the bumper stickers in San Diego: “Steve Garvey is my Padre”).  OJ wouldn’t be above it (but his marketing department is worse than Straw’s).  Canseco?  Charlie Sheen?  Who knows? –fog

Barbaro Was My Last Bet

I don’t know much about horse racing but each year, I take the office bets down to the Bronx OTB (an adventure in itself) for the triple crown races. It’s great, everyone is an expert and no one knows diddly.

I try to Exacta box the favorites with some reasonable long shots. This year, for the Preakness, I had the winner (forgot who already) and Barbaro boxed. The message for me here, is clear: When your horse breaks down, it’s time to quit.

On the business side of this, they spent more money keeping this horse alive than it probably ever would have earned in stud fees. Does anyone have any numbers on that? Would, if he had lived (we all hoped, it’s sad), the owner have had any chance of recouping and then going into the black on him? Before you all razz me, let’s not forget that it IS a business you know. And it’s sure a business to the young Jamaican guys and the old Italian guys standing in the stink of the Bronx OTB, muttering the F word every two and half minutes.  Whoever called it “the sport of Kings”, hasn’t been to the Bronx OTB.

All in all, it’s a shame. You wonder if coming out of the gate early was any indicator. With that kind of dough on his back, they certainly weren’t going to scratch him. –fog

Mrs. Pinetar reminds me that they were, er, ah, you know, “harvesting” Barbaro’s stuff, so maybe they’ve banked up quite a bit of that by now and will still make money on him. Forgot about that aspect. Hmm, who might know this? Well, this fellow

http://salemslots.wordpress.com/

is a very knowledgeable guy from Kentucky (horse country) so perhaps he can weigh in on this?

I was also wondering: if you do that sort of work as a profession (Vet tech?), how does that get listed on your resume/CV? Or am I just an uptight city/burb slicker?