It was a week ago that my best friend and I were sitting peacefully at the kitchen table enjoying the complete, although temporary absence of noise, talking about the stuff that us females like talking about when men/kidz aren’t around, when Barry Lamar Dog suddenly alerted to the sound of my husband’s truck. Husband doesn’t come home for lunch and I was astonished (and worried) to see him, and he came in the door with one of Those Looks that men give when they got somethin to say but REALLY don’t want to get into it all.
Um, Baby, he says, um, well, uh, I don’t got the time to, um, and maybe you might could, um…
Might could, like, WHAT?
Well, uh, in the truck, uh, well, cmon out and see, uh
So out I go and wrapped/lying on a rag was a pile of little bitty baby Dogs, looked fresh born to me. I stared at him – you brought me brand new babies??? Where you get these? Where’s their mama? WHERE you just happen to get baby Dogs???
Uh, well, um, I had just got out the truck and I hear, uh, kinda sounded like crying and I gone over to look and there they were in the grass and I didn’t see no Mama Dog and uh, I ain’t got time to take em to the Humane Society and um, uh, maybe you might could, um, uh, yeh, uh, I gotta go. Translation – I had sneaked out to KFC and yeh, I know I’m not supposed to be eating that stuff but I, um, forgot – yeah, forgot and I couldn’t just leave babies to die of cold/hunger so you deal with it.
So of course I told him – you spending the rest of your lunch getting me some puppy milk replacer whilst I clean and check them because they gotta eat every 2 hours just like a human baby. And you DO know the shelters can’t take puppies this young because they gotta be able to eat. These babies, they gotta be fed and cleaned. You know, just like, you know, BABIES???
So I got Charlene to heat some towels for them to lie on so they wouldn’t die of cold and I went to see if I could find all the old bottles I used to feed Barry Lamar Dog when he was a baby. By the time Husband got back from Petsmart with the formula, I had checked and cleaned them and I had 8 live pups and 3 dead ones.
I had the Dog gate up so big Dogsss couldn’t come into the kitchen while I was fixin up the babies, and pretty soon Phat Stuff and Dog Pappas lost interest, but Barry Lamar, who has always had a soft spot for babies, insisted in coming in and checking them out and after Charlene and I finished feeding them, we let them snuggle next to him for a bit – I knew the poor babies would be all confused when they woke to find themselves next to the Wrong Sort of Dog for feeding.
In spite of my best efforts, three of the pups didn’t make it, but we now have 5 lively babies who have to be fed and cleaned every 2 hours around the clock. Naturally, Husband got to sleep all Thursday night so he could go to work Friday, but you best believe I had him doing shifts with me on the weekend, him grumbling all the way, me ignoring it. The twins have been incredibly helpful – surprising for 5 year olds, but they have their Daddy’s gentle and patient way about them, and yes, I HAVE explained that we are just puppy-sitting for a few weeks until they can go to their homes so we won’t have as much tears as we might could if we hadn’t warned them from the beginning.
And of course, all yall had to hear about our new additions so you might could understand why I’ve been one poor correspondent this past week. The good thing about dogs, is that the number of weeks that you have to get up every two *(^*%^@! hours around the clock is significantly fewer than it is with a human baby. In fact, only 2 more weeks of this.
But I suppose it is now time to talk about baseball and today is not only the beginning of my 9th year of marriage to the same man (hard to believe) but the beginning of the 46th season of Astros baseball. I know that simply saying “pitchers and catchers report” is a bit more accurate, but I am SOOOO delighted that I actually have something to talk about besides steroids.
Catchers are: Brad Ausmus, who is supposed to be the backup, JR Towles, who has the inside track on being the starting catcher, Humberto Quintero, who is supposed to be this good defensive catcher (which I’ve seen little evidence of in any of the past 3 years) who, Ed Wade explained a few weeks back, is in “competition” with Towles for the starting job. Good grief. This is the guy that Woody Williams, a laidback guy who has thrown to dozens of catchers, refused to throw to after about 8 games. Ahem.
Where was I? Oh yeah. NRIs are JR House (who I thought had been moved to first base), Alberto Castillo, age 38, who has bounced from team to team between majors and minors since 2002 and whose hitting “prowess” over the past few years makes Brad Ausmus look like Piazza 1999, and Joshua Johnson, age 24, who is a 6 year minor league FA who spend last year in AAA Durham, got 102 PA with 4 BB, 38 K and had an OPS of .742. No Lou Santangelo.
Pitchers on the 40 man: (guys in bold print will, in my opinion, make the 25 man – yes, I know there are only 10. One more will be a lefty. The other will be either Sampson or Paulino. Of course, it may be neither Sampson nor Paulino but instead some crappy FA picked off the scrap heap because of his “Veteran Presence.”)
Backe, Borkowski, Brocail, Jack Cassel, Paul Estrada, Geoff Geary, Samuel Gervacio, Ryan Houston, Brad James, Mark McLemore (lefty), Nieve (who is still recovering from TJ and may not be pitching even if he throws), Oswalt, Chad Paronto, Felipe Paulino, Chad Reinecke, Wandy, Sampson, Valverde, Villareal, Woody and Wesley Wright, our lefty Rule V guy.
NRI pitchers (and yes I DO know that Moehler might could make it onto the 25 man again this year)
Mike DeJean, Runelvys Hernandez (shudder), Carlos Hines, Brian Moehler, Josh Muecke (age 25, just finished AA, one of our lefty minor leaguers) and Stephen Randolph (unfortunately, a lefty who can’t get ML hitters out worth spit.)
Of course, I don’t think that pitching 10 – 12 innings in spring training really tells you much at all, but it will have to do.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
Darn! You got Geary. He’s a guy I really liked here in Philadelphia. After he got past his struggles last year, I felt he was a solid member of the pen for us. He’ll do a good job for you.
Best wishes to you in nine years of marriage and with the pups. I’m married 5 and a half. No pups!
Lisa,
That’s exactly the problem we had last year: they operated under the delusion that they were contending, instead of giving an extended tryout/opportunity for certain players to rebound. (I’m referring to the three or four players we’ve talked about ad infinitum- I’ve been told by friends and family to quit w/ the “Ensberg-Burke-Scott didn’t get real chances diatribe.)
The win now insistance from the front office is merely delaying the inevitable. I’m not being a pessimist, but when your farm system is an F– you’re not… well, you get the idea.
I say play Towles consistently for a couple of years; so that when he’s in his late 20′s he won’t be a mystery like Lane or whoever.
Spring Training is like when you first see your christmas present under the tree. Its exticing yet unfullfilling.
Given the Astros severe distrust of their home grown talent, I bet that if Towles struggles even a little bit in April, Ausmus will catch the majority of games thereafter. I hope not.
And you’ve got to hope, Lisa, that Ausmus spends most of his time w/ the mask off, showing off that gorgeous face of his. (If you haven’t been a major league hitter for about a decade, you got have something.)
jon,
good to hear a phillies fan have positive comments about ANYONE we got from your Organization. I sure do hope you are right – and i remember him as being pretty effective in 06
joel,
actually, the presents under the tree bit reminds me of one of my gf – she likes you to wrap every single little thing in different wrapping and in different size boxes so as you can’t guess what each one is – like if you get 3 CDs, that’s 3 different boxes. She also wraps up all the ordinary stuff you gotta get for your kids – new socks, batteries for toys, etc. Of course, there is also all the stuff that has got to be put together to work too. and all that among the actually GOOD stuff like, say, perfume.
lots of trash among the treasures. lots of stuff you don’t know if it will work. lots of stuff you don’t know if the recipient will like.
yeh. i LIKE that!!!!
kevin,
me (and most other females) would hope that brad would take off a leeeetle moren just the mask you feelin me here.
i just HOPE you are wrong about them not giving towles a good long time to catch on. but it would be JUST like mclane to insist that this team is going anywhere.
hopefully, brad, having SOME brains, would say he is too old and tired to catch 4 games a week and he signed on to TEACH towles and you can’t teach someone who ain’t there…
u suck
joel
sorry i angered u like that. i just meant that along with the guys you can depend on in ST there are a whole lot of others who you don’t know how they will turn out
im not angry. i guess it reads like that.
i wrote that with a smile on my face.
aside from that your response to my christmas post is accurate.