Playing Ball With The Brill Girls

We've had a busy summer so far this year.

Lots of swimming in the pool – even though I nearly blew our water pump out by running it for a day with the hose valves closed after backwashing.

I finally finished my book – although I am still in proofreading mode though – but I am extremely happy with it and anxious to get some guest readers looking at it.

But best of all – miles better than anything else this summer – has been watching Alannah and Ashley Rae play fast pitch softball for the Turtle Club this year.

Alannah had practiced year around this year as a member of the LaSalle Athletics Under 11 team. Ashley had to miss those tryouts as she had sprained her knee. So Ashley spent the off season watching Alannah – and learning from Alannah.

It really paid off this year!

The season started by the girls playing together on a house league team that I was lucky enough to help coach.

Actually the director of the league basically told me I was going to help coach – there really wasn't any room for negotiation.

And it was great! I got to stand in the dugout or out coaching first base with a pocket full of sunflower seeds – spitting shells and yelling things like "where's the next play?" and "good eye" and "Atta-girl!" and giving high fives and punching knuckles.

I had to stop calling the girls darlin' though. That was part of the left over southerner in me – and Coach Joe, who was the head coach of the team let me know in a kidding way that we can't call the girls darlin' anymore. Coach Joe coaches for a living. So I stopped.

I guess it's just another of the million zillion signs that our world is changing.

Now house league is over – and both my girls – Alannah and Ashley Rae – made the Turtle Club All Star team. And Coach Joe is coaching them – along with Coach Larry and Coach Gay – all three excellent fantastic coaches who have been practicing the girls from 9 – 11 AM most every other weekday mornings this whole summer.

So every other morning, Alannah and Ashley-Rae pack up their wagon and the pull it and each other to and from practice. The coaches tell me it's a pretty cute sight to see. I'm usually at the office wishing I could be there to watch.

I'm so jealous.

But I hear all about it. When I come home from work, and have a seat out on the back patio by the pool with a cold drink. The girls tell me all about all that happened at practice that morning , with injections of "shut up I'm telling this part" and "I wanted to tell him I did that".

My girls love ball!

And the Brill Girls are just now starting to make their mark at the Turtle Club.

"Dad, I hate it when you call us that", says Alannah when I refer to her and Ashley-Rae as the Brill Girls.

"But your Grandpa Brill would be so proud" I tell her.

Alannah hugs my neck and kisses my cheek when I tell her that.

"Oh, you always say that", she replies.

June Perfection

Not my yard!

I love the month of June.

If it were possible – my dream would be to live in a place where every day takes place in the first week of June.

The weather is still perfect. It’s not too hot – but warm enough for swimming. The gardens are still perfect and most everything is green, lush and in bloom. The lawns are still perfect. The grass is still green and not yet stressed to turn brown.

Perhaps we have misunderstood the scientists of the world – perhaps this is the purpose of global warming – to make every day of the year feel like the first week in June.

I doubt it.

But today is perfect. A wonderful morning to sit out on the back deck by the pool and look out over the gardens under the patio umbrella as the mid-seventies breeze blows across the skin.

Man the coffee tastes good on a morning like this. It’s a real shame I quit smoking.

But to be honest, had I not quit smoking, the gardens would not be quite so perfect, nor the grass be so perfectly green and trim. It seems smoking was the root cause of my procrastinating ways.

Today every muscle in my body aches. The blisters on my fingers have broken open and are sore, and the Motrin I took this morning is just now starting to melt some of the aches away as it mixes with the mocha flavored Kailua in my piping hot cup of coffee.

My faithful black lab Suzy is in her own paradise now – stretched out on the deck in the sunshine enjoying the breeze. She’s dreaming about something – likely lying on a deck in the sunshine like this in a breeze like this one.

That’s my guess anyway.

It’s one of those days where – well – you just have to come to the conclusion that all Darwinists hate – that such a day as today – with all the beautiful birds enjoying this day in our back yard – that a day like today could not simply be the result of random evolutionary chaotic coincidence.

There just has to be a divine plan.

A master designer.

There has to be an artist deity who knows just how much blue goes in the sky and how to swirl it with the white of the clouds – matching it with the greens in the grass and the leaves and the brown in the woods of the bark and the plant stems.

There must be a master aromatologist – a master of creating the most perfect aromas – as a deity – to mix the smells of lavender blossoming and cut grass blades and tree leaves that waft across in a gentle breeze – it can’t just all be Darwinistic coincidence.

The Darwinists will all comment here that such a thought is absurd.

But I bet deep in their own hearts – to experience such perfection as is today – to see such amazing beauty – more beautiful than any of the great masters could ever paint – more wonderful than any event planner could ever construct an experience – deep in the Darwinist’s heart they would find the awe that leads one to believe in a power higher than ours.

A God.

There must be.

Hoppy the squirrel just popped up on the fence that borders the back of our property. And Suzy took notice and scrambled down and across the yard – all the while Hoppy knowing Suzy’s limitations as a black lab – merely stands on the top of the wooden fence mocking her by cleaning his hands and face.

Yeah, there’s a God alright.

Or maybe I’m just a bit more sentimental today – on this beautiful June morning. Maybe I am just more emotional because of the aches in my body from all the work I did yesterday weeding and primping the gardens and trimming and feeding the grass to bring out its best shades of green.

Or perhaps it's due to that very exciting win the Detroit Tigers pulled off in the bottom of the ninth inning by a walk off pop fly hit by new rookie catcher Omir Santos to knock in the runner from third to defeat those bastardly New York Yankees to hopefully put the Detroiter’s back on track this season – perhaps that has me a bit more wistful this morning than usual.

Damn those Yankees.

Or maybe it’s just the Kailua in my coffee.

Yeah, that’s likely it.

But there is no denying this is a perfect June morning.

I am savoring every nuance of it. All the way down to how the sunlight twinkles on the top of the dancing water in the pool.

It’s all so perfect.

Until a neighbor in a nearby yard decided to start his lawn mower.

Crap.

Perhaps if I pour another cup of … coffee.