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And you fell for that
2005-08-23, 9:58 a.m.

And you fell for that �I�m promise� bullshit? You people obviously don�t know me. But I have a note signed from mother (shhhhh � it�s really forged!) excusing me from updating yesterday because my Lil Guy had a Football Freakout.

You know when your kid gets to a certain surly pre-teen age, and they refuse to show extremes in emotion going in either direction? And you know when they break into great salty tears that leave wet spots all over their shirt, that they mean bidness?

My poor child is overwhelmed. When I went to pick him up at his Grammy�s house yesterday at 5:00 to help him get suited up for practice, he wailed �I wanna quit foo-foo-FOOTBALL!!!� He was up to his earlobes in homework, facing another 2+ hour practice, no end in sight, and just melted down. I talked him down from his panic attack, which is ironic, because there is certainly no talking ME down from a panic attack, and we formulated a plan. Give him a day off, let him catch up on homework, get him to bed early, and let�s revisit the matter in the morning.

We went and talked to the coach, who was a nice guy about it, said he wants LG on the team, thinks LG will regret it if he does drop out, but bows to the priority of academics over sports. And shook LG�s hand heartily whilst thanking him for coming to talk face-to-face like a man rather than sneaking out the side door via a phone call.

This morning, LG still wants to quit, but what he hasn�t let sink in yet is that after their first game on September 2nd, they drop down to 2 practices per week, plus game day on Fridays. So he�ll have 2 free evenings every week, and things will settle down. His very good friend on the team (not Lou, who while being on the team and being LG�s very good friend, has not a whit of compassion, tact or empathy) is going to talk to him today to try to give him some encouragement.

Adding to LG�s panic is the fact that he got promoted to honors science on Friday. Honors science at the 7th grade level at his school is comparable to freshman in COLLEGE level chemistry. We�ll see how he does with this; there might be a science demotion in his future if he is unable to cope, either academically or panic-demically. I even offered this demotion to him yesterday to see if that alleviated a bit of the football freak-out (what does that say about MY priorities?), but he said that wasn�t it. He�ll have buttloads of homework no matter what. He just wants to play lots of golf, he says, and work on Boy Scouts. Don�t we all?

I�m promise that I�m not living vicariously through my child and his sports, at least terribly so. My thing is that he (1) made a commitment (2) has caused us substantial cash outlays in equipment and fees (3) is experiencing overwhelmation when an end is definitely in sight (4) THERE IS NO FOUR and (5) what the hell am I supposed to do on Friday nights now? I mean, this was supposed to be my new social life. Shit.

Well, let�s get on to my weekend recap, shall we? It was our annual scholarship fundraiser fishing tournament down at the coast, and it was a success in that more people than we expected showed up for it, we made some money, most everyone had a good time and was happy, and I didn�t drunkenly sleep with any of our sponsors. I might have done that back in 1999, but that�s just an ugly rumor and nobody knows what actually went on. Except me and the sponsor. Ooops, did I just let that out of the bag?

As an aside, DW says he would like to get his company (meaning his mom and dad) to be a sponsor next year, so there I�ll be, back to drunkenly sleeping with the sponsors. Hey, I do what I have to do to make the sponsors happy. It�s for the children, after all.

The fundraising fishing tournament had some glitches because we haven�t done one in a few years: I had to take 2 years off to tend to real bidness, and there were a few bumps that cropped up over the weekend, which were quickly ironed out and smoothed over. And one of our sponsors, who is also a close personal friend, and whose husband is also a close personal friend and former co-worker, and for whose late grandfather the tournament is named because he was such a big part of it, are you lost yet? Breathe in�OK, so this sponsor/friend/co-worker/namesake of our tournament has let people know that SHE was embarrassed at our several small little glitches. I might have to confront her and offer to sever our relationship with her and her family if the process is so obviously painful for her. I mean, financial support and sponsorship is important, but tearing down my staff and bad-mouthing me to our other sponsors is not the kind of support I need, no matter what the financial contribution. What's ironic is that SHE caused the glitches by throwing out lots of last-minute demands that we weren't prepared for.

We�ll see how this plays out. If I get anymore phone calls telling me that Jackie is bitching and complaining about how fucking embarrassed she was (over the smallest of stupid details, like we ran out of Dos Equis at the end of the tournament, so all that was available for the last hour was ::gasp:: Coors Lite, which everyone was drinking happily), I�ll have to make that call.

I am currently running on Zero Tolerance for Bullshit. Can you tell?

I�m running out of time here, and need to wrap this up so I can get back to interviewing administrative assistants, so that I can hire somebody and have more time to spend HERE with YOU�but anyway, I will tell you that in a fairly drunken state Friday night, I contemplated the comparison between Radar Love and Muskrat Love. I will prepare a written treatment on this comparison for your reading pleasure at a later date.

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