the pattyo

I was so weary of the Fox TV announcers I wanted to go back to some guys who don’t annoy me. (So I’m now listening to Duane Kuiper and Dave Flemming. Good broadcasters. I’m only missing Mike Krukow.) And now I find that not only do these guys not annoy me, but they are ahead of time. If you watch the Giants-Yankees game on TV while listening from the radio you hear the play before you see it.

OR … I guess this is so they have a time delay in case of wardrobe malfunctions, eh?

Last night we lost. Today it’s 4-1, bad guys, top of the fifth. Sigh. C’mon Giants … you can do it!

Update: It’s still 4-1, but Krukow is back. (And a horrible call by the 1st base ump. The guy should be thrown out of the game. How crummy.)
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I’m watching the Giants play the Yankees. Billy Crystal and Robin Williams are sitting together, pigging out on what I can only think are garlic fried. And I mean really pigging out. Williams just nearly dumped his fries off the bricks and looked over at Crystal and smiled and had that “whew” kind of look on his face, but Crystal was too involved in the game to even notice. All of us watching TV clearly saw it though. I like seeing these guys looking so … I dunno … average.

Crystal is, of course, a Yankees fan. Williams is a Giants fan. Too bad Crystal is so misguided. And he seemed like such a nice guy.

So far the good guys are behind, 3-0. Sigh. Matt Cain isn’t doing all that great his year.

In other news: I’m cleaning out what was Brandon’s room. The closet is full of boxes now. Some are Brandon’s (11), some are Jameson’s (4) and a couple are mine. I also have boxes in front of the closet. Dan is the low guy with a mere 3 boxes (but what the heck is he going to do with all those old records?!), and I have probably 6 boxes of books. Tomorrow I’ll haul the old furniture out of the room, putting it out front (maybe sell it for a little bit of money?), and then I can get ready to paint. And pull all those stars and planets off the ceiling. That room will finally be a nice guest room, with a TV hooked up to a DVD/VCR player. Jameson and Megan are enjoying a DVD right now, as I watch the game in the family room.

I can’t wait to get that room nicely fixed up!
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Hoorah to Kelsey! You’ve done it, and now you can … maybe … relax a bit …?

Good lookin’ bunch, don’t you think?

And Dan, I said I didn’t get a picture of you … but there is this little one … (heh … sorry about that!):

Below you see Kelsey and the rest of the Classics grads, with their professor, Dr. Claxton.

I’m sorry I didn’t get any pictures of Mel and Kelsey, but I believe Dan did, so I’m guessing they’ll be here soon.

If you haven’t seen Jameson’s graduation picture, Dan posted it at the Mitchell family news site here.
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So … Kelsey graduates tomorrow, as does Mel! We had a wonderful dinner just now. We’ve also checked out their new place and helped (okay, I mostly watched) put together one of their three bookcases.

I can’t believe my baby girl is graduating from college and already has a full time job. Shoot … I’ve never had a full time job! Something is wrong here, eh?

Graduation is tomorrow at 9:00 in the morning. Is that nuts? Yes. Yes, it is. But there you go.

It’s great fun to have the whole family here. :-)

Meanwhile, the Giants are doing mighty poorly. So poorly I even wonder if I feel like attending a game. It’s not that I don’t continue to cheer for them … but do I really want to pay tons of money to watch them when they are losing so much? I can easily watch them lose on the TV, and it’s ever so much cheaper. Of course we don’t have garlic fries at home ….
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“Public nudity, if it’s for a cause and it’s done tastefully, I’m all for it.”

-Gary Radnich of KRON4

Yes, he really did say this. ;-)
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I’m home. And yes, I go right back down to Irvine on Thursday. But prior to that I have some work to do. There’s cleaning to be done. Reed making to begin. Juries to listen to. Grades to file (this part goes quickly, considering I only grade four students). Jameson’s graduation to attend … woo hoo!

Once we are back from Kelsey’s graduation I really want to get my act together and figure out how to go about getting the yard work accomplished. I am unable to do much of it on my own, so I’m going to have to hire someone. I just don’t know who to hire! I keep hoping someone will come by—a guy used to constantly come by and ask if we needed work done. Now that we are ready to hire him he hasn’t shown up! Doesn’t that just figure?!

I also got a call to play an opera in July. Good news … I can use that income!
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Oh MY … I’m guessing, Dan, you didn’t watch the game last night. I couldn’t, since it isn’t broadcast in SoCal. But get this:

Third baseman Pedro Feliz made his catching debut because Kevin Frandsen, the Giants’ emergency catcher, already was out of the game. Center fielder Randy Winn, an infielder in college, moved to third base. Left-hander Noah Lowry, the Giants’ No. 4 starting pitcher, entered the game to play right field, with Daniel Ortmeier switching from right to center.

YIKES!

The final out was Lowry … he stuck out and we lost to Oakland.

Sounds like it would have been “fun” (in a sick sort of way) to watch, just for the bizarreness of it all. Poor Giants, though, can they come back from being 8 games behind? One wonders. And sighs. I guess I can’t mock the Yankees any more, can I?

Today Kelsey and I are planning on driving by her new apartment complex, and then hitting some stores. She wants to compile a list of things she wants and needs from IKEA, so we’ll be visiting that store, as well as others. I suspect we won’t be buying things—no need to buy now and have to move it all next Friday, right?

Right now I’m just hanging out in my hotel room, as I see (by checking Instant Message which is how we communicate initally) that Kelsey must not be up yet.

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For those of you who care—and even those who don’t—I’m at the hotel in Irvine. It’s a completely smoke-free place, and I have to say this is the first hotel that actually smells smoke free!

I got off to a later start than expected, since I had to deal with a credit card issue before leaving; believe it or not, someone stole my number and was using it this morning. This was a first for me. While Dan said he was more uptight (not his word, but mine) about having our house broken in to a few years back, this seemed to hit me harder. Go figure. (Dan, I AM wondering if the card # was stolen from someone who works at a place online where I ordered printer ink. Otherwise I really haven’t handed that card to anyone in eons.)

Traffic in LA was the usual; it was horrible near the airport and in places following that. Otherwise the drive was uneventful. I stopped in Gilroy for coffee and a muffin. Other than that I’ve skipped bothering with buying food since I brought water and crackers with me. Not bad, eh?

The internet here costs money. So does parking. Ah well. It’s the Hilton. What can ya do? I got a fabulous deal through Hotwire, so I’m not going to complain. (And this room is VERY nice!)

I’ll blog about my “travelling music” over at oboeinsight, but right now I want to IM Kelsey and see what’s up.
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I’m not in therapy at the moment, but I have been. Perhaps I should even go back. But never again … not after this … news segment! While driving home from taking Jameson to school I nearly drove off the road. Turns out a therapist exposed a patient. At a party. In front of a ton of folks (or at least I think it was a lot of people). The therapist also dumped the client in a very rotten way. It all sounds so horrible and they spent a good amount of time on the radio discussing how awful it all was.

Hah!

Actually they were talking about the tv show The Sopranos. But if you had tuned in after the intro you sure wouldn’t have known. They talked about Tony and his therapist and someone else (I don’t watch the show) and they were interviewing a therapist and he really was quite upset about the whole thing.

I’m sorry, folks, but it’s just a TV show. Somehow this doesn’t feel like “news” to me, and it certainly isn’t something to worry about.

At least that’s how I see it.

But maybe I just need therapy.

In Other News
Today is Jameson’s last “real” day of school. He does have to return for his vocal jazz group since they are doing recordings, which is a bit of a drag, but there you go. This is the end of high school for Dan, the kids and me.

Am I excited? Happy? Relieved?

All of the above.
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