I'm supposed to be cleaning house, but...

I just wanted to post before I forgot.

Today, the newspaper staff passed out their third issue of this year. It was a 24-pager, and it looks great. Fourth hour, they went out to get papers out of the car, and then spent most of the period stuffing the papers with the ad inserts.

Once they were done stuffing, almost the entire class sat and read the papers and you could have heard a pin drop in that room they were so silent. It gave me goosebumps as I moved around the room futzing around. The staff is wonderful - conscientious, involved, engaged, dependable. I can see real pride of ownership as they go about their business. It's their newspaper, their business enterprise, and they really seem to understand the whole "sink or swim together" philosophy.

I think the paper they put out today is the best one since I started at BV. They just keep getting better and better. I'm glad they're so pumped, because the November issue will be tough - two and half weeks turnaround, instead of our usual month.

•••

Now I've got to pick up the house, before Stacey, Eug and the kids get here. They're in town this weekend since Stacey is running the half as well. Wish us all luck!

How do you say "0 fer" en Español?

Because that's what I was tonight - 0 fer 2. Even with my superfans in attendance, I couldn't get on base!

Here they are: Amy "I'm doing my best to look nonchalant" Laws Meyer, Mitzi "Oh wait, she's taking a picture" Peterson, and Adam "don't bother me while I play with my wife's iPhone" Chittum.

I did, however, kick a pop foul that went over the fence and bounced off of our mariachi jukebox (aka Mike's Jeep). Whoops.

El Guapo's mojo was a little rusty in the beginning - not much offense in the first inning, and the other team scored a couple of runs. We had a little injured reserve issue - the top two in the lineup were both out tonight - a bike accident and a kickball injury from last week kept JB and TY out of the lineup tonight. Little did I know that our manager, Travis "Sparky" Young, would raise us up to victory with his shrewd kickball strategizing and cheering from the dugout.

Even with the slow start, we came away with a 6-3 victory. It's the first time we've allowed more than one run in a game.

This seemed to the be the other team's offensive strategy: Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Kick it as hard as you can. Let the girls do whatever they can.

Yeah, yeah, our team tends to do a little bunting, but every time?! Thus, it was a slow night for us out in the outfield. TJ got a workout behind the plate, though.

I shot a bit of video, but I'm going to save it up and hopefully edit a little piece together at the end of the season. We'll see how it goes.

As promised - here's the wrap from last week's game against Swunts and Swalls (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth as I typed that).

I think Creighton wrote it, but maybe Dave or someone else can correct me.

So, after this week, we're a big 7-0. I'll get you the official wrap up from this week as soon as I see it.

•••

We went to the marathon expo before the game - got our race packets and some shwag. I'm ready - I just hope it's not freezing cold Saturday. A girl can hope.

It's Half-Marathon Week

Saturday morning we're running the half. Sunday Mitzi and I ran 10 miles, and I didn't feel like I was dying at the end. It makes me think back to when I trained for the marathon in 2006.

When we got up around 8 or 9 miles back then, I seriously thought I would die from the running. Not so much anymore. Yes, 10 was hard, and it took us a while, but we did it, and I didn't feel like I was dying at the end. The weather was perfect too. Please - everyone pray that Saturday morning will be sunny and about 65 degrees.

I think on Saturday morning, part of me will feel like I'm missing out by not running the full. I'll want to be with all the "cool" kids who are doing it. (Of course, this feeling will go away around mile 11 when I realize I'm only 2 miles from finishing!).

We're going to check out the Expo and pick up our packets on Thursday night. I'm getting pretty excited - I'm ready to do it.

If I've been a little neglectful of the blog lately, running is a big part of that, and school is really keeping me busy. I'm taking a master's class, in addition to my regular teaching duties. Kat and L visited this weekend. I've got photos to post, but that will have to wait til the end of this week, I'm guessing.

We had our first yearbook worknight of the year tonight. Almost everyone showed up. The only ones who weren't there were the ones who had games tonight. We've got a great crew this year - lots of really good sophomores who I think will become dedicated yearbook nerds by the time they're seniors. And three boys this year instead of one! We've tripled the male enrollment! Yearbook always seems to attract the female crowd more than the males, but newspaper stays fairly even.

We'll be 40 pages ahead by the first deadline - sending all the senior ads in at once. It'll be nice to have that cushion built in.

Ahhhh, how cute, you're trying to use big words...

but I don't think you really know what they mean.

Check out this recap of our kickball game from last week (written by the other team).

From the WAKA newletter last week

Can you be "over prententious"? I think it's "overly pretentious." And, while I am being quite pretentious in this here blog post, that's the LAST word you can use to describe our kickball antics.

A pretentious team would not play mariachi music from the sidelines.

A pretentious team stay completely sober the entire game so that they could make sure the rules are followed to the letter of the law.

A pretentious team would complain about every call even when they're beating the other team by 13 runs.

A pretentious team would leave the sombreros at home so that they could be completely focused on the game at hand.

A pretentious team would make damn sure they got their write-up written in the newsletter.

This is not us. This is not El Guapo.


I think there's already a recap in the works for last night's game, so I'll get it posted when I see it.

We're not pretentious - you're just jealous, since we've kicked ass in every game we've played so far (knock wood).

Even playing a game with a kickball so juiced it felt like kicking a bowling ball provided by the other team, we still scored 13 runs to their 1 or 2 (I can't remember exactly - maybe a team member can clarify). Betcha didn't know a kickball could be juiced, but jeezy petes, it was. It had so much air in it that on one bounce it would fly about another mile.

"Oh, we just bought that today! We didn't air it up!" Yeah, right.

It was a big night for me - got moved up in the lineup, went from about 15th (a slight exaggeration) to third. Why, you ask? For my speed, of all things. Adam found this quite funny when I told him that. He kicks my butt every time we have a foot race, but I guess I'm the fastest runner on our team, so I've been moved up to the sacrificial lamb spot on the roster.

If I get on base, it's gravy, because my job is to advance the guys who kicked before me (who are, in fact, lightning fast). The change in strategy seemed to work for us last night. We'll see how it goes the rest of the season.

How do you like them apples?

Mom's friend Ellen brought a sackful of apples over tonight, so I grabbed some and made some apple crisp.

I've been wanting to bake something for a few weeks now, but I hadn't gotten around to it. So, I figured when she walked up with the apples, that must have been some kind of sign. I thumbed through my "Beat This" and "Beat That" cookbooks and found a recipe.

It's called "Very Controversial Apple Crisp." It wasn't at all controversial at first - Adam, Mom and I all agreed that it tasted dee-lish. But, when Mom headed home with Dad's bowlful, she called later and said HE BROKE A TOOTH ON IT!

Oops. Not all my fault, though, she said last time he was at the dentist, he was told he'd need a crown on one of his teeth pretty soon, so I'm hoping that's the one that got chipped tonight. Then I won't feel AS bad.

Now that I've told you all that, you probably want to stay miles away from the recipe, but I promise you - it is worth your time and effort. It is super easy. The worst part was peeling and slicing the apples, but even that only took about 20 minutes. (It could probably be done much faster with the right equipment.)

There's my bowl. See below for the finished product in the loaf pan. Here's the recipe, from "Beat That!" by Ann Hodgman.

4 generous cups tart apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon, mixed with 1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/8 tsp salt

Vanilla ice cream, if serving warm

Preheat oven to 375. Butter a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, toss the apple slices with the lemon juice and cinnamon-sugar.

In a small bowl, blend the brown sugar, flour, butter and salt together, first with a pastry blender or 2 knives, and then with your hands (consider it a nice exfoliating hand treatment!)

Put the apple slices in the loaf pan. Press the topping over them. Bake for 1 hour. You'll have a really dense, chewy candlylike topping (that can break teeth, apparently).

Serve warm with ice cream. Serves four to six.

And it makes your house smell damn good.

I'm hoping the 900 calories Mitzi and I burned while running nine miles today equals out to my serving of Apple Crisp!

The Upright Citizen's Brigade (or, El Guapo rocks WAKA KC)

I've been spending my Thursday nights lately down at Penn Valley Park playing kickball in the World Adult Kickball league. One of the teachers I work with mentioned one time that she plays, and the team is always looking for girl members (ah, the constant lament of any recreational adult sport), so I joined up.

If you're wondering about the Mexican regalia, it's because our team is called El Guapo. We listen to mariachi music during all of our games...It's a theme thing!

Right now, our team is rockin' the league. We're undefeated!

Even though it's a bit of a drive to PVP, I love playing up there. There's a great view of the downtown skyline from our kickball fields. We live out in the burbs, but I still get to play in the city!

Craving something new and different?

Like someone who doesn't know what the hell she's talking about being a heartbeat away from the presidency?

I don't think so.

"Darn right it was the predator lendors."
"Everyday American people, Joe Six Pack, Hockey Moms across the nation."
"Hurtin' like it is."
"A heck of a lot"
"Barack's plan to tax increase..."

Um, how exactly do you tax increase?

It's almost like you could see the mental Rolodex shuffling through the facts behind those trendy glasses. My plan was to add more phrases than that, but I got bored and disgusted so I had to stop.

Evidence that the American media has lowered the bar frighteningly so: People are saying she did well, just because she didn't completely flub it. I'm sorry, but all I could think of while watching was that phrase from "Mean Girls" - word vomit.

Do the Republican strategists really think women will vote the McCain-Palin ticket just because it has boobs?

I hope not.

By the way, the alternate title for this post was: Tina Fey for VP!