H is for Home Run: What It Means To Be An Australian Baseball Fan (#atozchallenge)

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Have you ever felt like a square peg in a round hole? I often feel that way with my love of baseball.

Living in Australia, I am surrounded by a sport’s mad culture. Relative to its population (currently just under 23 million), Australia packs a mighty punch on the world sport scene, particularly in relation to non-winter sports. We are one of only two countries that have competed in every summer games of the modern Olympiad, having won a total of 444 medals.

Our national games are Australian Rules football/ rugby league in winter and cricket in summer. In some parts of the country it is almost mandatory to introduce yourself by which footy team you follow… “Hello my name is Joe and I am a Sydney Swans supporter. It has been three weeks since I last entered a football ground” and to speak “footy tongue” so you can converse with shop keepers and cab drivers. For years Australia dominated world cricket – all forms: test cricket, the one day game, the world cup, we were the force! The force at the moment is “consolidating” – the wonderful euphemism used by cricket lovers who are in denial and refuse to use the “s” word, or “slump”.

Me, I’m a baseball lover. That good old square peg in a country that dotes on cricket.

I am not sure how much you know about cricket, but the long form or test cricket is a game that is played over five days… as in five whole days! The usual result is a draw, pushing keys into the grass to test the pitch is considered normal, commentators count the number of seagulls present on the pitch to stay awake and players stop the game and take tea in the afternoon. All I can say is please point me in the direction of the national paint drying championships right now!

Baseball has a small following in this country and is played if you know where to find it. But you have to look! Kids as young as five can sign up for the sport and there are clubs scattered throughout the country, although nothing as comprehensive as America’s Little League. We have a Major League baseball nursery on the Gold Coast and talented players are scouted and signed to Major League baseball teams at the age of seventeen. There have been about thirty Australians who have played in the Major League, about a dozen of whom are currently active. Our highest profile player is probably Grant Balfour, currently with the Oakland Athletics.

The Major League baseball season has just started in the States and all is right with the world again. I am always slightly conflicted this time of year as it means winter is headed our way, but thankfully we have the baseball to warm up and bless our little cotton socks. Baseball is generally played in the States in the evenings so it means we get the coverage during our morning – usually when school or work gets in the way. The best thing that has happened for us starving Australian baseball fans is the internet. We can now stream live baseball games and get the play-by-play in real-time, complete with American radio ads.

So this is how to spot an Australian baseball fan:

they desperately scour the internet for snipets of major league baseball news and happenings
they have lots of American friends
they know what a walk off homer is
they linger at social venues with ESPN just to catch a glimpse of play at lunchtime
they know that any cricketer who wants to know how to throw a ball needs to train with a baseball player
they pine for Autumn because that’s when opening day comes around and know that winter is baseball season
the will pay a scalper a bomb when they are in America to get tickets to a baseball game
they stand up to stretch in their lounge rooms after the end of the sixth inning
they spend summer and winter watching their children play baseball and have an all year around baseball tan

We are knee-deep in our football season at the moment and I have my head buried in the Boston Red Sox (when not blogging, of course). Thankfully, my blog has had a better start to the season than the Red Sox, but I live in hope.

And my ultimate home run? My family visit to Cooperstown and Fenway Park last year. Da da da datta daaaaa…… charge!

D is for Dinner Time: Why I Won’t Budge

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You gotta love dinner time. It’s that time of the day when all you want to do after a hard day’s work is wind down, destress and sigh with relief. But alas, the battle is about to begin. You know the battle, the one to make a meal that all family members will eat, is regarded as even remotely nutritious, that won’t require three years in chef school to put together nor end with a mound of pans to wash. Yes THAT battle.

I have never been a natural cook. That hasn’t stopped me from having the goal to build up an exotic repertoire of edible meals which my family will eat. Alas…this has alluded me for several reasons, including the time factor, the shopping factor and the children factor. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked through recipes that to me look delicious and not too complex and discounted them out of hand because of my children. You’ll know what I mean if you have ever had a meal rejected by one of your offspring because “of the green things in it”, “the weird smell” or because “it has onions and/or mushrooms in it – ugh”. Then there’s the children and the universe factor. This is my term for when one of my children suddenly decides they don’t like a dish anymore after eating it without complaint for 10 weeks straight just because Mars is no longer in line with Jupiter or whatever.

One thing I do regard as sacred is eating around the dinner table and engaging in conversation (schedules of course permitting). As a family we can manage this about four times a week and despite the aforementioned battle, it is one of my favourite times of the day. To me the dinner table is the family board room, where all line managers report and debrief. On a good day with messers 12 and 17, we move beyond the teenage script:

“How was school?” – “Good”

“What did you do?” – ” Nothing”

and we laugh and engage. Decisions are made. Strategies are discussed. Timetables are coordinated.

My dinner time rules are:

eat only at the dinner table
no mobile phones, computers or other digital devices to be present
no distracting television in the background
all participants are to stay seated at the table until the last person finishes eating – I have no wish to be seasick by the end of the meal with all that bopping up and down
every member pitches in to clear the table at the end of the meal.

My kids are great lobbyists. Over the years, they have tried to lobby to bend these rules. Each rule has had its great lobby moment with number two getting a work out at the present.

In this hectic world we live in and given the ages of my children, dinner time is one of our last remaining opportunities for face time as a family. Engagement and communication is essential to the knitting of the family fabric. I often marvel at these times just how witty and articulate my offspring can be – even if their wit is directed at my cooking or my person. There is no amount of text messaging or fantastic television shows that will convince me to give up this ritual.

Through this, I hope I have instilled in my boys the art of conversation and value for each other. I hope they continue with these rules when they move to the next stage of their lives, some of which were passed on to me by my own parents.

Now, if I could only teach them the art of eating a chicken leg gracefully with utensils and that sometimes green stuff is actually edible….

This post is part of the you know what Challenge

Air Guitars and Wooden Spoon Microphones

Do you go through periods where you have a “Song of the Moment” or “SOM”? A SOM is a song that bears one or more of the following characteristics:

makes you smile and lifts you when you hear it
you have on endless repeat for a month
takes up permanent residence in your head
when you hear it randomly played on media it makes you turn up the volume
makes you feel you are caught up in a moment of serendipity
makes you pause when you hear it

I am having a SOM period at the moment. Every time I hear my SOM randomly played by others, I just feel lucky. So far, my SOM has turned up without me initiating it in my car, in my house, online and in my zumba class. The feel good gods are surely smiling down on me!

A SOM should come with a warning label – WARNING: this song can induce behavioural changes.

Behaviour Can Alter After Exposure

I have been in the car and my SOM is played on the radio. The worry of reaching my destination on time is immediately wiped. Having reached my destination half way through the SOM, I do not exit the vehicle, but rather wait until the SOM is over. The fact that I might be moving my lips and talking/singing to no one whilst tapping the steering wheel like a mad woman does not cross my mind.

My SOM is played on the radio in the kitchen whilst cooking the family meal. Being the clever multitasker that I am, I turn up the volume without missing a beat on the cooking front. The kitchen fades away and in its place a concert arena is formed. The tin of coffee becomes a drum, the lights above the stove become a spot light and my wooden spoon is transformed into a microphone. I also intermittently grab my air guitar when the riff allows. Bring on the adulation! As the SOM ends and I am transported back into my kitchen. I notice the flour on the radio volume control, the coffee tin slightly dented and an array of wooden spoons sitting on the bench. Out of the corner of my eye I see my sons rolling their eyeballs and shaking their heads whilst stalking out of the kitchen. “You sure you don’t want to hang around for the encore?” I yell. I have become a legend in my own meal time.

Ultimately, my SOMs become timeline entries in my music catalogue. At some point my SOM becomes the song of the previous moment and life moves on. I don’t always have a SOM, but when I do, it heightens my belief in random luck and whimsy. That can only be a good thing.

And my current SOM….

And yes, I was around when Toto released their original.

Have you ever had a SOM?

Does Your Kitchen Suck?

Actually, my kitchen doesn’t suck all that much except for that long agonising pause between the menfolk creating culinary magic and cleaning up the utensil carnage that follows. Its the time when our family kitchen becomes the dreaded black hole, sucking up all the household manpower to return it to it’s natural state.

“My Kitchen Sucks” is the name given by my early teen son to a current television show airing here called “My Kitchen Rules” or “MKR” for short. MKR is ostensibly a cooking show in which teams of two fight it out in various tests and challenges to display their culinary skills. Every so often two teams have to take part in a sudden death cook-off in which one of the teams is eliminated. At those times, the show gets very intense, even more intense than some of the dishes that are created. MKR has been airing four nights a week for the past month or so and its ratings are soaring.

For all sort of reasons, MKR is riveting. The factors pulling me in to watch it night after night are, in order:

the mix of personalities appearing on the show
the incredibly hot French accent of Manu Fieldel, a French chef and judge on the show
the interaction of the said personalities both within teams and between teams
Manu’s French accent
the tactics and brown-nosing to which some contestants resort to stay in the game
then there is of course, Manu’s French accent
the food
did I mention Manu’s French accent?

In short, the show is a fascinating study in human and not so human behaviour. I generally don’t watch much television, so the fact that I religiously make an effort to watch MKR four times a week is eye opening!

Our family has taken to watching the show together, because it airs in prime time. When I say watching the show, I mean that all family members are in the one room and look to be facing the operating television set. I am assured by the teenage members of my household that having a computer screen and a keyboard between them and the television screen only enhances their concentration and enjoyment of watching the show.

My Kitchen Rules (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the minutes before the show commences, the family gathers and assumes their positions. Its at this time the teenagers start their cacophony of complaints which I am tempted to set to music – it’s just so lyrical. “Are you really going to watch My Kitchen Sucks, again?”, “You don’t understand, NO-ONE at school watches it” and the ever present “Can’t we watch something else?” To which I dutifully respond “ Yes”, ”hmmm” and “no”.

Recently, I unexpectedly had to spend a night away from home. I thought this would provide much needed relief to my long suffering teens by presenting the opportunity for an MKR-free zone. The circumstances were such that I could still watch the show that night and as I did I wondered what the teens would be instead watching during their emancipation. The show ended at 8.30pm. By 8.35pm, I had a text from my eldest teen “Mum, T and C got eliminated from MKR…. did you watch it?” The irony in those few words and the timing were delicious.

And my take away (no pun intended) from this incident? First, opportunities for bonding arise in the most unexpected and sweetest of ways and second, I never met a French accent I didn’t like.

Bon Apettit dear readers!