For Love of the Game

For those who know me it is well known that I love baseball. This passion began for me when I was very young, my brother whom I idolized loved baseball. He knew every stat from every player on every team. One summer, our cousin Craig came to visit and they spent the entire time playing a baseball game, the name escapes me, but I remember being in awe of just how much knowledge they both had.

In University Place, girls couldn't start playing softball until they were 8 years old. But I couldn't wait. Luckily my best friend Pam, who was two years older than me, played on a team coached by her dad and he ignored the rules and let me play when I was 7. I will always remember my first at bat on that team at the dirt field at University Place Elementary School. It was a hit up the middle and I got to first base safely. I don't remember what happened after that, I was just so happy.

There was no organized high school girls softball when I was there. It's probably a good thing because that's all I would have wanted to do and then I wouldn't have sang in choir, the musicals etc. But I played every summer, most of the time on Mr. Pollen's team. It wasn't the best team but it always made me seem better than I actually was. One year, I decided to move up and play for the "good" team coached by Mr. Gilmore. Yeah, we won lots of games but it wasn't fun. If I had not learned it already, I learned it then. Winning isn't everything.

I continued to play when I could. I loved intramurals at WSU. What a blast! I played in the summers at home with a team named RAMCO, some construction company sponsored it. At some point I stopped playing but never stopped loving the game.

When I finally had boys old enough to play baseball I, of course, had to get into coaching. I coached T-ball for four years then Gig Harbor started up the Little League. Now that was serious so I stepped back thinking that I would let better coaches than me take over. That first year was a nightmare with one son playing for a coach who had a little bit of problem with the bottle, if you know what I mean and the other playing for a coach whose philosophy for those 9 year olds was to let them learn by making mistakes, not by coaching. I had to step back into batter's box so to speak and start coaching again. This wasn't an easy task in the "Good Ole' Boys" club but I managed and eventually took my team to the championship without sacrificing the fun. Go Angels!

Now, I obviously don't play anymore but I still love the game. My husband is not quite the fan I am but he goes along for which I am truly grateful. And now, he has given me the best gift of all. I get to live my dream and go to Peoria, Arizona for Spring Training! This is something I have always wanted to do and my only regret is that I didn't do it when my dad was alive and take him. It was as much a dream for him as for me.

So, there you have it, For Love of the Game.

Angst

Angst is a German, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch word for fear or anxiety. (Anguish is its Latinate equivalent.) It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of strife.

Lately, I have been feeling a vague "Angst" and I can't really define it. I think I am just at a point in my life when I have realized it is there. It has probably always been there to some degree but for some reason, it haunts me now.

The funny thing, I don't think my "Angst" has anything to do with me but rather with my thoughts and worries about those I love. This is certainly understandable thinking about my in-laws who are 90 years old. I love them dearly and I have to realize that everyday with them is a gift.

I so want my sons to find their own happiness but to also know that sometimes you have to work for it. Their future is always in my thoughts. For some reason, I feel an urgent need to tell them that.

I worry about my husband who hates his job and I can see it weighing on him. Is the material world and "saving" for retirement so important that he has to suffer in the present?

I feel, for some reason, that I have been trying to be strong for so long that I am losing my grip on that. Thus the "Angst". Can I fail? Is it possible that all I have wanted in life, my loved ones to be happy and secure, won't happen? I have to push this feeling aside and get back to where I am comfortable enough to keep going, keep moving on.

So, for this brief moment in time, I will give my "Angst" its time and then it will be gone. Thank goodness for that!

Phases of friends

Last night a group of us got together at The Beach ostensibly to celebrate the 55th birthdays of two but in actuality, it gave us a reason to make time to see each other, something that is not always that easy at this time in our lives. So, this got me thinking about all the friends I have had in my life and how lucky I have been to have so many.

First of all, there are many friends from the past with whom I have no contact, not because I don't wan to, but because I have lost touch and even the internet has been unable to locate them for me. The first person that comes to mind was my neighbor, Pam Lange. She was one of two girls and four boys in the family who lived next door to me until we moved when I was 10. Even though she was 2 years older than me, we had very memorable times together. I remember dressing up in costumes made by one brother to serve food at her other brother's birthday parties, having funerals for bumble bees that accidentally got stepped on in the yard, have lime-aid Pig Parties in our attic and because of our friendship, her dad let me play softball on his team when I was 7 even though the starting age limit was 8. A combination of Pam moving on to Junior High and me moving to Day Island separated us and that bond but those memories are great.

When I moved to Day Island, I didn't have many "human" friends choosing instead to spend my days on the beach with Darby, my dog. Now that was a bond! I don't have many pictures of him which is sad because he was such a big part of my life then. The one friend I do remember for a short period of time was Robert Mauer. I have no idea what became of him after his family moved off the island. We used to spend hours making forts in the woods, swimming, beach combing. His sister even dated my brother for quite awhile.

There were lots of people who were my friends in grade school, Junior High, High School and college with whom I no longer have a connection or, if I'm lucky, a Facebook connection. But there are a special few with whom I will always connect, with whom I will always share a lasting bond and I will always strive to see and hug them in person, at least occasionally, for the rest of my life.

Pam P. We were born a month apart, our moms were in the hospital together for a time and we have always remained friends since then. There were times, I am ashamed to say, when I strayed (let's just forget our senior year) but I was her maid of honor and she was mine. Our lives have ebbed and flowed and our relationship too but we always seem to come back to the fact that we are, and always will be, connected to the core.

I was lucky enough to go from Kindergarten through graduation with a large group of people who were really all friends, as well as boyfriend/girlfriend at one time or another. There was Cliff and Susie, Pat and Sue, Wendy and Pat, and so many more I am certain I don't remember. We had a group of girls though, a group I must admit I was a little on the outside of, that always managed to become close from about March through November when we were in Junior High and High School. You see, this was the time when "The Roof" was at its prime. My house on Day Island had a roof that was not peaked toward the sky but dipped in a "V" and then surrounded by walls so that as long as the sun was shining, it was warm and we were able to subject our bodies to the rays of the sun, caring not one bit what it might do to us. Our conversations during those times were sometimes fun, sometimes healing, sometimes serious and always to be remembered. Now, that group still meets once a year for a girls weekend which is something I look forward to from the time it ends to the time it begins the next year. These are friends with whom I will always be connected.

My list of friends would not be complete without including Spin and Marty (that's what my Dad called them), Scott and Mike in real life. To be honest, I'm not sure how this friendship started. All I know is that they were important to my happiness my senior year. While we explored the boyfriend/girlfriend thing we all found that we were best as friends. We still are. Amazingly, we are all still happily married and even our spouses get along well when we get together.

When I went away to WSU to college I had friends who wanted me to room with them but I elected to go for the unknown and in doing so, I met Jill. Jill is still one of my bestI went away to WSU to college and while some friends wanted me to room with them, I chose friends, even though she only stayed at WSU for a semester. She is an artist and went to an art school after that. She married her highschool sweetheart who turned out to be a best friend of Mark and two of them thought I should meet Mark and lo and behold, Mark and I ended up getting married, even though Jill and her husband ended up getting divorced. There have been times since then when I haven't seen or talked to Jill for years but then when we do reconnect, we pick up where we left off. She is truly special to me and always will be.

I will always treasure every friendship I have had, lasting or not. But the one that is most important to me is the one I have now, with my husband. He is the one who knows me the best, puts up with me, and I with him. No matter what, he has my back and he gave me the greatest gifts of my life, my sons. Our life has had its ups and downs, it hasn't always been easy but every moment has deepened the bond we share.

A long post, but a necessary one. To each and every friend I have had, I say thank you for helping me become who I am.

Christmas 2009

Wow! What a holiday season! I really meant to post this sooner but I kept thinking about little things that made this such a great year that I would possibly have missed if I had rushed into this.



Every year I can't wait to start decorating to really start the holiday season and of course, the first thing to go up is the Cougar Christmas Tree in our "Cougar" room. Isn't is lovely? At last count, I had 162 Cougar ornaments and this year I used no filler ornaments to make the tree look more complete. I really love this tree but the photos really don't do it justice. These photos do show two of my homemade gifts this year though. The two ornaments with baby photos of my boys in them were made with much love for me by my husband and if you look closely, there is a knitted garland on the bottom of the tree. It is not properly placed because that needs to be done before the ornaments are put on which will be the case next year. My wonderful son Kale made that for me along with a Cougar house key and a hand painted wooden Cougar ornament for the tree.



Once I had the Cougar Tree in place, the holiday season was underway. I hung the garland above the living room, got out the Dickens Village and candle collection. This year they were placed a little differently, not my best effort, but still beautiful and festive to be sure. The last thing to be done was the main Christmas tree. With all of us involved in making gifts this year it became a very difficult thing to get us all together to go get that tree. So, I ended up going with just Kale to the tree farm and lo and behold, we ended up with one of the most beautiful trees for our living room that we have ever had. I feel bad that it had a tag on it meaning, I think, that someone else had picked it out to come back and cut but it was so late in the season I choose to believe the did not come back and it was meant for our living room. I had a lot of fun with my son and the tree went up without a hitch! I was sad that it was just the two of us who decorated it though. Hal had to work and Dad was working on his gifts. And, of course, when all was said and done, Kale won the award for the best placed ornament, again!



But for one day at Bellevue Square all of us were able to avoid any shopping at a mall. My husband and I did have to do some shopping for other relatives but only one day and it became quite comical after awhile, we just had to laugh. Suffice it to say, I don't like Bellevue much.



I was able to take the entire week leading up to Christmas off from work and so was my husband. This did help tremendously in reducing the stress of preparations for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both at our house. It also allowed me to complete my homemade gifts relatively stress free.



Christmas Eve was without a doubt the best it has been in a long time but I can't really figure out why? Was it the little one, great-nephew Haywood and all his wonder that made it special? Was it being able to provide a little help to our brother and his wife? No, I think it was just the comfort of us all being together. Christmas Eve has become so familiar for us and even though the house is small for a crowd of 18, it seemed it could hardly contain the contentment within us all. And, no one had to be pushed out of the driveway through snow when they left!



Christmas Day started slowly. Grandma and Grandpa don't get going so fast in the morning anymore so they weren't scheduled to be there until 10:30 am which meant we could all sleep in a little, a welcome relief. Of course, I had to get up at 7:30. It was Christmas! I shared the morning with the cat who immediately found his catnip cigar under the tree and proceeded to get high and crash! He seemed to love Christmas as much as I did and I believe eventually found the lap of everyone who visited.



Once Grandma and Grandpa arrived at 11:30 we poured the coffee and Bailey's and started the gifts exchanges. With what we thought were fewer gifts, it shouldn't have taken long but each homemade gift was so fun and unique that it took us all a long time to look at each one. I have already referenced the garland and ornament given to me by my oldest son. Then my youngest gave me a stained glass box with silver trim and WSU on the top. My husband gave me the aforementioned ornaments and a CD that he had made from an old reel to reel audio tape of my performance as Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel in highschool, complete with CD cover carrying my name and photos he dug up from who knows where.

The boys gave each other compilations of their travel together this past summer. Kale to Hal, a canvas collage of photos, tickets, and a map of their journey from England to Romania, Italy and Spain. It was so artfully done and took us all a long time to take it in. Hal to Kale, a DVD complete with photos, music, videos taken en route and text. We only go to watch it twice that day. I want to see much more of it!

My gifts were not so much physically made by me but I put together the materials to have them made. I did make Cougar fleece blankets for everyone and they were a big hit. They are very snuggly and warm. I made them during my lunch hours at work, thanks to the help of a coworker who showed me how. I think the big hit was the individual calendars I made for both boys, my husband and even my in laws. They were alot of fun. I also had professional looking books of my mom's Easter story "The Painted Bunny" made for the boys.

A wine rack was Hal's gift to his dad. It was incredibly well done and will fit in well in our house, we just need to figure out exactly where. I know he worked a very long time on it and had the help of a very good friend to do it. Kale made a very professional looking guitar stand for his dad which will hold up to 5 instruments and this will help him keep track of all of them and they will no longer need to be scattered all over the house.

Unfortunately, I don't have good photos of the rest of the gifts that Dad made. He made a hollowed out book to hide things in, a "Cups" game, and two skim boards for the boys that are just like they had when they were little. And, we made homemade Blackberry Liqueor from blackberries from our yard which turned out yummy!

Christmas Day was made even more special because Auntie Neva came to dinner. This is Grandpa's sister and she has not spent Christmas with the Iversons ever since I can remember. She sadly recently lost her husband and I was thrilled when she called and asked if she could be part of the Iverson Christmas again. I had a great photo of her and her brother and had it framed for each of them. She teared up when she got it so I am assuming it was well liked.

We never know how many more Christmases we have with Grandma and Grandpa and I was really thrilled that this was so special. While Christmas is over, the warmth of the love of two great families lives on all year long.

Thanks to all who are special in my life, you all know who you are.