Red Nose

Soldiers vs Shrinks

Come On In!
Originally uploaded by Bozoette

My volunteer stint ended with a wonderful group dinner at The Shed, a fabulous barbeque joint (and I do mean joint) in Gautier, Mississippi. Some of the KaBOOM! crew joined us for beer and baby-back ribs, pulled pork, beans, and slaw. A great time was had by all!

I found out from Abe, one of the KaBOOM! crew, about one of the challenges of running a playground build with many different types of volunteers.

He loves the builds with volunteers from the military. When you tell them to do something, they say, "Yes, sir!" or "Yes, ma'am!" and then they do it.

He's also done a build in Los Angeles, where many of the volunteers were psychologists. Evidently, when you tell psychologists to do something, they say, "Why?"

He's not so hot on those.

A Hand Up

One week ago our bus drove down School Street in Pascagoula, Mississippi, stopping at a construction site.

We were working with Habitat for Humanity that day, helping build two houses. One of them -- on the left in preceding picture -- is the house that Jimmy Carter will be working next month during his yearly work stint with the organization he founded.

I worked on that house, too. Because the walls are premanufactured, there are a lot of nails that just missed the studs -- these little babies are called shiners. I pounded out shiners so that they could be removed and repounded into the studs. Some of the studs on the inside of the house are made from the big Christmas tree that stood in Rockefeller Plaza last Christmas. This sounds really cool -- and it is really cool -- but the experienced carpenters hate the stuff. The wood is really bad, very sappy and soft. But as long as it's just used to help hold up drywall rather than exterior or weight-bearing walls, everything is just fine.

My big job that day, though, was adding siding to the shed for one of the houses. I am now a Siding Queen. I can measure, cut, and nail up siding with the best of them.

Okay, maybe not with the best of them. But I can do it.

This was my shed. Doris was my team lead. She and her husband Bob are Habitat groupies. They're retired, live in their RV, and go from project to project, building houses for Habitat for Humanity. Now that's pretty cool.

Doris taught us how to do everything and made sure we did it right. I want to be her when I grow up.

One of my team members was Melissa, who is buying one of the other houses being built on School Street. In this picture, she's in the red shirt, helping my colleague Bertha measure the siding.

Everyone who buys a Habitat house has to qualify for the no-interest loan, and they have to put in 150-200 hours of sweat equity by helping to build the houses. Melissa's a single mom to two boys, and you could see the excitement in her face when she talked about her home-to-be.

A couple time we had to tear off pieces of siding because we didn't line it up right with the other walls or because we didn't snap it together quite properly. Doris was making sure this shed was done right! But finally we finished, ahead of schedule, and Doris had us sign the last piece of siding before we nailed it in.

We didn't build a whole house that day, but we helped a lot. And I will never take homeownership for granted ever again.

As the Habitat for Humanity folks say: It's not a hand OUT; it's a hand UP.

(All the pictures from the day are here.)

Build Day

While we were building houses for Habitat for Humanity (more on that later), the KaBOOM! team finished up the site prep and got everything ready for the big build day on Saturday.

Over 150 volunteers, from the military, AmeriCorps, and the community showed up to assemble the playground. Here's what we found when we arrived bright and early on a perfect spring morning.

Because the folks in my group were acting as build captains, we got to the site at 6:30 am to get our briefing and get our flare. I headed up the Scarecrow team; in a brilliant display of humor, the KaBOOM! leaders assigned the two biggest and brawniest guys to lead the Puppy and Butterfly teams. Hee!

I had a great group, especially given that I know next to nothing about hardware and the assemblage thereof. My illustrious Scarecrows built two of the more complex components of the playground, the tire swing and the transfer station on the main structure. Here are some of my scarecrows, helping to attach the transfer station.

We were supposed to take a 20-minute lunch break, in shifts by team, but we were so far ahead of ourselves that Bing, our project lead, had everyone take lunch at the same time for one full hour! Box lunches and drinks were provided by the community, and they were damn good, too.

After lunch, it was back to work. Concrete was mixed and poured, the barren slab was painted brightly, plants were planted, benches and trash cans and planters were built and placed, and finally, last of all, yards and yards of mulch were spread evenly and deeply all over the playground.

And then, just after two o'clock, it was done! (Almost) nothing to everything in six hours!

We even had a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The kids themselves made the ribbon, there were a few brief speeches, and then this sweet little girl officially cut the ribbon!

(I took about a ton more pictures than the few I've shown here; I've got them all posted here.)

Today, Wednesday, is the first day that actual kids can actually play on the equipment, because the concrete had to cure for three days. I wish I could see them; heck, I wish I could play on it my own self!

C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS!

We interrupt the Gulfport volunteering trip report to expound on the amazing, beautiful, heartstopping comeback by my Cardiac Caps to tie the first-round playoff series with the F(in)lyers. Joe and I were worried at the end of period 1 when our boys behind by two, but we kept our fingers crossed and rubbed the red rabbit's foot for luck.

And then... magic. First, Babyface Backstrom, then Sasha Semin, and then Ovie smashed through his scoring malaise and executed a picture perfect breakaway to put the team up by one goal. And then... Ovie smashed a slapshot past Martin Biron to seal the deal and force Game 7 here at home!

Joe leapt like a gazelle around the living room. Had he had an armful of flowers, he would have strewn them hither and yon.

Prep Day For A Playground

We got to the Ocean Springs Boys and Girls Club bright and early Thursday morning. We met with the KaBOOM! project managers, Bing and Jen, and found out exactly what we were going to do: get the site ready for the big build on Friday. Normally, all that's done on prep day is unloading the playground components, grading the site, and digging the holes. Then, on build day, the volunteers get to see a playground rise, in its entirety, from bare dirt. The KaBOOM! folks call it "From Nothing to Everything in A Day."

This build was a little different.

Because the design called for two tall shade hats (a must for southern Mississippi summer days), we were going to put up the poles for the shade hats as well. Okey-dokey then!

Here's the site.

First we had a nice nosh, complete with good coffee, which lulled us into compliance. Then we gathered at the big semi and unloaded the playground components, placing them in two big POD storage containers for build day on Saturday.

Some of us got to cut all the wood for the wooden benches, planters, and trash bins. Others folks assembled some of the components we'd use later to stabilize the shade hats. I got to shovel dirt. A big old drill, attached to a BobCat, actually dug the holes; I got to shovel the dirt away from them. It didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked, what with big old tree roots and collapsing hold walls, but eventually the holes got dug.

Then it was time to tote the tall poles to the holes and raise the shade hats.

Then the construction manager, Treynor, got to go up in the cherry picker and bolt all the pole arms together in the center.

Oh yeah, we got to hold up the poles and make sure they were straight. I was doing that when I started feeling kind of dizzy, so I grabbed a big guy and made him take my place. I figured it was probably better than fainting and falling in a hole and having the poles (and everyone holding them) fall on top of me. Yah.

Then we attached some of the preassembled components, the better to keep the first shade hat straight and facilitate the planting of the second shade hat.

At the end of the day, the bare bones of the shade hats were up, with concrete poured in the holes, standing straight and tall. These structures are rated to withstand 150 miles an hour winds, so no worries about hurricanes!

The base crew did more work after we left, to ensure that build day would go smoothly. But that's a story for another day!

Going to Gulfport

Tonight I am packing my suitcase full of t-shirts, raggedy-ass pants, and one nice outfit. I'll toss in a rain jacket, some sunscreen, and a sweatshirt in case it gets cool.

Tomorrow I'll get on a plane and fly to Gulfport, Mississippi, where I'll meet up with a bunch of other coworkers to build a playground for kids in an area destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We're also going to work with Habitat for Humanity on rebuilding a house in Pascagoula.

My company sponsors these trips. I get the time off through a special volunteer leave benefit. My hotel and meals are paid for. The only out-of-pocket expense that I have is airfare -- so I do get to pay to go down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and work my ass off (if only!) for three days. But for some reason, I just have to do it. I just have to help. Simply giving money isn't quite enough, not when my company makes it so easy to actually go there and use my hands and see the results.

So off I go!

Afterglow

It seems to me that I slept most of this weekend, but I really didn't. I think it's because the afterglow of the stellar Caps win Friday night mellowed me out and quite possibly made me sleepy. Or maybe it was the Other afterglow (don't worry, I'll stop there). We did do some napping, but not as much as I would have liked. Sleep is one of my favorite activities, after all.

At any rate, it was a pretty great weekend. The game was amazing -- I have never seen that arena so full of pumped-up fans! The emotion was intense, especially in the third period when my Boys came back from a two-goal deficit to win the game on Ovie's 66th goal. When that horn sounded, the whole place went berzerk. Joe and I just grabbed each other and jumped up and down for about five minutes. Here are some pictures of the fun!

Then, as we were waiting for the subway train, who should come up behind us but my sis and her husband! So of course the evening couldn't just end -- we took ourselved to our favorite all-night house of gourmet eats, The Tastee Diner, for breakfast at midnight. (Well, Sis had a BLT and a glass o' wine, but I suppose the bacon brings it close enough. And who doesn't like a nice glass of white zin for breakfast?)

Saturday was low key, because at this age I am easily exhausted. Sis and I agreed to show up to exercise class -- and we did -- and then take Mom to lunch -- and we did. Since spring is in the air, Mom is fantasizing about moving back to her house, and we had to gently remind her that it wasn't going to happen. She resisted, but we persisted. I took her there after lunch, where I'd like to think that reality crept up on her. I could be wrong about that, of course.

Then came the Afternoon of Snoozing, followed by a delicious dinner that Joe fixed (the best kind!), followed by the Evening of Snoozing, followed by the Stumbling Up to Bed.

Yesterday we worshipped at the Cathedral of Weekend Breakfast, where the French toast is a sacrament and the coffee comes in a pitcher. Thus fortified, I parked myself in front of the computer and paid bills, did Mom's taxes, went through all of her latest hospital paperwork (my God! the trees that have died in the service of insurance company EOBs), and got her bills in order.

All the while I was trying to ignore the drubbing my Caps took at the hands of the Evil Team from Philadelphia. That's okay; we'll get it back together. It's a long series!

Open Heart

Last night I attended another Girls' Night Out with my high-school pals, and a splendid time was had by all.

This one was special. One of us had a pretty close call with the Grim Reaper recently. Last night was her first night out since her open-heart surgery to repair a faulty valve. She's had this condition since she was a kid; the doctors have been monitoring it closely, lo these many years.

Everything seemed hunky-dory, and she was living her regular normal life. One morning she was doing her regular normal exercise routine on her treadmill and she collapsed in a heap! Luckily, she didn't hit her head or otherwise get hurt, and she felt fine when she came to and picked herself up.

So she went upstairs and told her husband, who hustled her right off to the doctor, who hustled her right off to the hospital, where they cracked open her chest and replaced the valve.

Our friend network is great. Another pal called us all up and left voicemails for us about this event. I, of course, neglected to check voicemail for a couple of days. I gravitate toward email rather than voicemail (go figure). The next day I read my email and there was a message to all of us telling us that our pal had made it through her surgery and was sitting up in a chair in the ICU.

What. The. Fuck.

My rather panicky response to this email was quickly answered and I calmed down. (That ought to teach me to answer the goddamn phone.) Nothing like finding out that a friend your age has had major open-heart surgery to make you feel slightly less than immortal and inspire a good Act of Contrition.

At any rate, she's doing just great. She's all healed up and her ticker's ticking right along just the way it should.

So this dinner was a real celebration of many things, but especially of the joy of being together, still kicking, still laughing, still crazy after these years.

Shakespuck

Well, we had tickets to Macbeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theater, the one with special effects by Teller. We got them months ago, back when the Caps were still in the basement of the Southeastern Division.

And then a miracle occurred, and lo, my boys are in the playoffs. As soon as the horn blew at the end of the game, I jumped online and bought playoff tickets. We have not had a chance to see one, single game this season -- not one! -- so it was only natural that I would immediately get tickets for the first game. After all, the first round starts Wednesday! The ninth! I was lucky; I nabbed two tickets in the lower bowl for the first game. I was confident that, when the dust settled and the first round schedule was finalized, that we would be just fine.

As I said, I was kind of hoping that our first opponent would be the Ottawa Senators, partly because the Caps swept the Sens this season -- I mean, we even beat the Senators when we were bad and they were good!  -- and partly because I wanted those Timbits from my pal. Of course, I'm assuming he would have agreed to the bet.

However, the goddamn Penguins had to go and lose to the Flyers, so we instead meet the Flyers in the first round. Normally I would experience only a mild frisson of disappointment at this, but then the NHL announced the schedule.

The first game?

Duhn duhn duhn...

Friday night.

Okay! We'll just get tickets to the second game!

Um. Sold out.

Okay! We'll just get tickets to another performance!

Um. Sold out.

Decision time.

We are simple people. Some might say we lack an appreciation for the finer things in life. Some might even call us unsophisticated boobs. I knew what I wanted to do; I asked Joe.

He looked at me. I looked at him.

C-A-P-S Caps! Caps! Caps!

Fifteen minutes after I posted the Macbeth tickets on Craigslist, they were gone. I'm sure that the very nice person who bought them will enjoy the show.

Meanwhile...

Is this a hockey stick which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have the puck, and yet I see the net.
Thou art MVP, Ovechkin, sensible
To skating for the score, for thou art but
A dagger of the ice, a fine creation,
Proceeding from the hockey-obsess'd brain.

Stanley Cup, Here We Come!

The Washington Capitals are the Southeast Division Champions of the National Hockey League!

WOO!

Tomas Fleischmann, Sergei Federov, and Alexander Semin scored the three goals for our boys; Semin's slapshot for the insurance goal was a thing of beauty! So thank you, Florida Panthers, for beating the Carolina Hurricanes and for losing to US!

So now we're in the Stanley Cup playoffs! It's the Caps first appearance since 2001-2002. The first round starts next week; we'll probably play the Ottawa Senators. I will have to see about a friendly wager between my pal Jamie, who hails from Ottawa. Hmm -- perhaps he would be willing to put up some Timbits against some Munchkins? I shall have to think about this.

Meanwhile, I have already purchased our tickets to Game One.

Oh, take me where the hockey players
Face off down the rink!
And the Stanley Cup is all filled up
For the Champs who win the drink.
With a final flick of a hockey stick
And one gigantic scream --
THE PUCK IS IN! THE CAPITALS WIN
The Good Old Hockey Game!

(Apologies to Stompin' Tom.)