by Kathy Brasby | Oct 7, 2019 | Family, Humor, Stories
This all started because I wanted to find a simple parking spot before the baseball game.
My son had invited me to attend a Colorado Rockies game.
Panorama by Timothy Brasby
With the baseball field in downtown Denver, parking can be a challenge. So I got online and found a deal so that we weren’t hassled by parking drama. He’d found great seats so surely I could find great parking.
We wound our way through the narrow streets in the downtown area and, finally, thanks to Apple Maps, found the spot. We parked in a relatively empty parking garage. That was a clue.
“Is this a residential area?” my son asked. Well, yeah, maybe so. Where was Coors Field anyway? Neither of us knew.
The online site had offered a 9-minute walk to the stadium for only $4. Since track and field has conquered the 4-minute mile, obviously a parking spot a mile away would take only 9 minutes to travel.
The online ad claimed a short .3 mile stroll. Apple Maps insisted it was a mile. Apple Maps knew.
My son was a good sport. We had strong legs, and the weather was beautiful. Away we went.
We crossed the street near a bar blasting music that would incite riots or serial killings. Yep, residential neighborhood for sure.
And then we saw a banner across an alley, warning “No Alchohol Past This Point.” Why would you keep alcohol out of the alley?
We found out shortly. First, we noticed that a Budweiser semi and a Busch semi were parked head to head on the street. The Busch truck had an open stage at the back end with some guys in delivery uniforms hammering on electric guitars and head-banging the lyrics. The Busch band?
Then a gaggle of guys wearing lederhosen and toting tankard filled the street before us. Being a polite baseball fan, I came to a complete halt before I ran into the groups heading for a booth.
There was a line of booths. I did not know there were so many kinds of beer. Booths for the well-knowns and booths for craft beers. And, of course, stalls for Wienerschnitzel and pretzels.
We had stumbled onto Oktoberfest in downtown Denver.
The Rockies’ mascot, Digger, came by.
Baseball memories were being made in the stadium and we were not there.
I wondered if Apple Maps had miscalculated. Maybe she sent us to Austria.
We had kept a 12-minute-mile pace before, but now we were sidestepping whole packs of people. We could see Coors Field in the distance now, like a mountain peak rising out of the mist.
This wasn’t the first time I was glad my son was 6’1” and lifted weights. Not to protect me but to plow a path through the crowd. People weren’t rowdy, but there were a lot of them. An ocean of people milled between Coors Field and us.
Three blocks later, we broke free, hustling into the open street where Coors Field rose majestically before us. It was almost as good as topping a 14,000-footer in the Rocky Mountains. Well, better since it’s really, really hard to conquer a 14-er, and we had accomplished this.
We could hear cheering. We were a little late, but we had made it. We stretched out our walk toward the main gate, ready to cheer on our baseball team.
“Did you notice?” my son said as we left the Oktoberfest crowd behind.
I glanced back at the Wiener schnitzel swarm. “What?”
“The Rockies are playing the Brewers tonight.”
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 30, 2019 | Humor, Stories
I’m not really a hoarder but what do you do with that stuff you’ve been saving for a long time in a box you just discovered at the back of the closet?
Aha, you relate.
Theory A says that, if you haven’t seen the contents for a long time, just throw the box away and be done with it.
I’m way too curious for that.
It’s like Christmas inside such a box, only with things that are dusty and grimy. Other than the dirt, new treasures.
who knew I had saved a keychain from Union Station in Kansas City?
What does one do with keys that you can’t identify? Throw them away? What if they are needed for a lock someday and I threw away the key?
On closer examination, I’m pretty sure one of the keys is to the office door where I worked before I was married. Maybe it could go.
I found two keys that looked like they opened a safe deposit box. Since we don’t have one, I suspect we had to pay a big fine to get the box opened a long time ago since I couldn’t find the keys. And I’m going to throw them away and waste that fine?
Then there are the paper clips. The bottom of the box was layered with paper clips. It feels wasteful to throw all those away.
Oh, boy, more keys melding with the paper clips. Do they multiply into clip keys?
There’s a single white Lego brick with a blue cone stuck on the top. Ah, memories of the little boy who built mansions with Legos. He’s out of college now, so maybe the brick could go.
Why on earth are there so many pen refills? I love a good pen but, since keyboards have invaded my life, I apparently don’t use pen ink much.
I already know to throw away the membership card to some club I forgot I ever belonged to. And the participation ribbon to some event that I neglected to record on the backside.
Business cards? To keep or to pitch? Most went in the trash, but I found one from a friend who is now deceased. Stays. And another from my brother. Stays.
I have a big box of brass plated fasteners, those brads that push through punched holes and then you bent the ends to hold papers together. I use a stapler these days, but I apparently am a collector of vintage supplies, so there’s that.
Oh, I just found two needles for inflating balls. In the office supplies. That could explain some things about our flat basketballs.
I also uncovered the combination to the padlock I used for four years of college. I still remember the combination. Well, after looking at the paper. No, I don’t know where the padlock is but think of the memories.
It gets worse: erasers, especially the ones that fit on the end of pencils. I don’t use pencils. A guitar pick. A marble. More keys. Another key ring.
Fortunately, I am not a hoarder. But if you ever need a pen refill, I’m your girl.
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 16, 2019 | Family, Humor, Stories
In those carefree BK (Before Kids) days, I imagined baking cute birthday cakes for future kids. My mom used to make little train cakes with gumdrop windows. The train cars perched on licorice rails with a green coconut base. So cute. I knew it was in my blood.
I bought a puppy cake mold before I had kids. My first cake using that mold was a pile of crumbs that I shaped like the foothills of Colorado. Drizzling icing on top was supposed to mimic snow. I hoped nobody would notice because I didn’t have time to bake another cake.
One first-birthday cake was supposed to be a bright soccer ball but looked more like an egg that had fallen from the second floor.
Before Pinterest Fails were a thing, my cakes were trailblazing the way.
As some of the kids got older, they didn’t ask me for cake decorating advice. They invested time in 4-H cake decorating units. Kids can be wise sometimes.
One daughter learned how to decorate a one-layer cake for her first project.
She baked her show cake the afternoon before it had to be entered at the county fair. When the edge of the cake wouldn’t release from the pan, she solved the problem by cutting away the perimeter.
Most of the entered cakes were 8” round, but hers was more of a 5” lumpy. She slathered on icing, but it was like trying to hide Mount Everest under an ice cream cone. No champion ribbon that year.
Another daughter was the creative sort who felt stifled by the rules for the unit. When she was required to form a mat of frosting stars, she didn’t understand why the cake couldn’t show through. It would be like hiding the tuba in the marching band.
No blue ribbon that year, either.
Our son, at age 10, signed up to learn cake decorating and even went to a workshop where he and 25 girls learned the fine art of placing dots of frosting on waxed paper. This, of course, made no sense to him until he licked clean the frosting after the workshop.
We found out later that he signed up so that he could be in charge of the family birthday cakes. He figured if he’d finished cake decorating, I’d let him make the cakes.
Maybe to up his game with the frosting. Many family birthday cakes had a finger lick on the side before we got to the candles.
I never caught him in the act, but I suspect this had been a goal for his life since he was four.
His show cake came together on a hot summer day with frosting that needed a lot more sugar than he put in the bowl. Imagine a lava flow sliding across his design.
The lava-icing flow continued until he got the cake to the fairgrounds. His frosting border was supposed to be a circle but resembled the outline of Texas.
No blue ribbon that time either.
But his father bought back the cake, took it home, and served it to our family. Oh, yeah, everybody ate a piece.
We haven’t had any cute train cakes in our house, but one good thing has come from all this cake-decorating training: along as there is plenty of frosting, our family is content with a pile of cake crumbs.
by Kathy Brasby | Sep 2, 2019 | Humor, Stories
If you’ve come along on some of my blog adventures, you know I live on a hobby farm with goats. Well, other living beings, too, but this story is about goats.
Remember Rocket, the confused male goat? If not, go check out his story. Rocket has fantastic (code for odd) stories, and I have another of his adventures to share.
Goat romance is a precious thing. Rocket was a classic romantic who spent a lot of time alone, pining for his girlfriend. Now the girlfriend varied from week to week, but Rocket was always ready.
Rocket’s place ran parallel to a small pasture where two does – goat ladies – lived. One day I noticed that one of the does, Lulu, tiptoed along the fence line in shy come-hither steps like a young girl hoping the star athlete would see her. She was ready to meet Rocket.
The other doe, Maybelle, was oblivious. Her afternoon snack held more interest than did a male caller. She ignored Rocket.
I did mention that Rocket was always ready for romance, right?
I opened the gate and Rocket roared into the pasture, legs churning in a blur like Roadrunner cruising the desert where Wile E. Coyote schemed.
Rocket had more hormones than brains. And his pick up line was about as sophisticated as Blinkie the Clown.
Chanting “Hey, good lookin'” as he flew into the pasture, he focused his loving gaze on Maybelle. Not Lulu. Wrong girl.
When a female goat is not in the mood, a hormone-fueled buck is as attractive as roadkill. Dead gym socks smelled better.
Maybelle saw Rocket hurtling toward her and took off like a jet. Her legs were whirling faster than the back tires of a quarter-mile drag racer. I wondered if she’d need a parachute to get stopped. If she ever stopped.
I watched the pair bolt around the perimeter of the pasture, legs spinning. Rocket’s head was up as he sang melodies to the beauty of his new girlfriend.
Maybelle’s head was down; she had no time for nonsense. Kentucky Derby winners might not have been able to catch Maybelle as she circled the pasture.
Meanwhile, Miss Lulu waited by the pasture gate for her handsome hero. She sent little air kisses to Rocket and twirled her tail like a string of pearls. Cute red hearts floated above her head like balloons at a Valentine’s day party. Red confetti filled the air.
As the racing pair headed down the backstretch, their path took them past Miss Lulu who by now was flashing her lashes and tossing her hair like Marilyn Monroe.
I did not know a thundering buck could make a 180-degree correction without turning inside out, but Rocket did it.
Suddenly, he was bringing roses and chocolate to Miss Lulu. Their foreheads touched like sweet kisses. Violin music began to play.
Meanwhile, Maybelle’s parachute must have worked. She leaned against a fence post, heaving for air while her life passed before her eyes.
If I ever get a racehorse, I might consider calling it Rocket. But I actually think Maybelle might be a better choice.
by Kathy Brasby | Aug 27, 2019 | Humor, Stories
I am beginning to embrace the unique vibes of retro nerds. Retro isn’t necessarily my jam but you gotta try new things, right?
Besides, those sweet people are passionate about their favorite retro item, and I might be able to use them. Er, learn from them, of course.
I’m talking about CRT TV nerds. For the rest of this post, TV equals CRT TV so don’t be thinking of today’s refined thin TVs.
My sister, Ann, and I do some property management, so occasionally we get to empty out a house that was abandoned by a tenant. This doesn’t happen much, but we have cleaned out a lot of junk over the years.
Junk including those TVs. It almost seems required to leave old TVs behind.
When tenants move out under less than great circumstances, they leave behind TVs like crumbs or mouse droppings.
One house had four TVs left behind, ranging in size from 16” to 60”. Do you know that a 60” TV can weigh over 250 pounds? How on earth do tenants get those into basements? The narrower the stairs, the more TVs in the basement.
I assume they bought beer for the entire fraternity.
We lugged all four TVs out of the basement with help from two high school boys who overestimated their muscles. They needed a fraternity, too.
Perched on my pickup bed, the TVs looked kinda like Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear on my pickup bed.
I am told that there are nerds who love old TVs. Playing games like Super Mario All-Stars is fantastic on a old TV. Watching VHS is also a rush, too, I guess.
Woohoo.
We didn’t know any retro nerds, though. We considered leaving the TVs on my pickup bed until someone stole them, but that was only one of we. The other considers our town’s people way too honest for that. Or too smart.
So we went to Plan B. We could haul them to the county landfill.
Off we went with the TVs and a few other choice items: a table with a broken leg, a floor lamp that didn’t work, half a couch.
The attendant at the landfill gate directed us to the area for broken furniture and then to the building for electronics. Um, who was there to help us? Nobody.
So we had a 250-pound VW Bug TV and just my sister and me to unload it. One of us wanted to use leverage to push it off the pickup bed. Nope. The other we said we had to unload it gently or we’d have broken glass everywhere.
So we broke out all our load straps and wrapped them around the TV. Then Ann found a plastic stand and pushed it into place behind the pickup bed. We planned to lower the TV onto the stand and then onto the floor.
She was in charge of guiding the TV onto the stand. My job was to release the straps bit by bit. Quit laughing. This is a serious story.
We managed to get the TV to the plastic stand. The TV settled on the stand, which immediately collapsed.
The TV crashed to the floor. Huh. No broken glass.
No wonder those retro nerds loved these TVs. They’re indestructible.
“Are we going to leave it there?” Ann said, studying the crashed TV.
“Unless you know a CRT nerd, we’re out of here,” said the other we. I won that time.
by Kathy Brasby | Aug 20, 2019 | Humor, Stories
Our family has had some fantastic travel opportunities over the years, including spending a week in Cuba. Imagine that we took two teenagers and loads of video equipment into Cuba and didn’t lose anything. Although you could debate that.
All week we had seen El Morro lighthouse and castle across the harbor from Havana, and finally, we found time to visit.
From our hotel, we hailed a government-approved taxi which drove us in a cute little Russian car to the parking lot of El Morro. The uniformed driver promised to return in two hours to take us back to the hotel.
Promised. No problemo.
The tour went great. The hosts inside were friendly and helpful.
We bought a few trinkets and then headed out to the parking lot to wait for our promised taxi driver.
We knew the chances of him returning weren’t great, but we’re polite Americans, so we waited.
Three young Cuban men approached us. “Do you want souvenirs?” They pulled out a silver coin. “See? Che Guevara.”
“Not interested.”
So the three men stepped away. I suppose stretching your neck and looking far down the street is probably a universal signal. They quickly figured out we were waiting for a car.
“Do you need a ride? We have a car. Cheap ride. Only $10.”
We’d paid $6 for the taxi ride over so my husband wasn’t paying $10 to these guys. They tried to negotiate but finally agreed on $6.
The windows of the driver’s car were all down, and the driver rushed ahead to open the door. We thought he was helpful.
He was but only because there were no outside handles. I know, I know. Red lights should have been flashing in our brains.
We climbed in and buckled up. There were no liners on the door panels, and we could see all the rods running to locks and windows. We kept our hands to ourselves.
The little car scooted down the highway and then dropped into a tunnel under the harbor. As the car began to descend, the driver pushed in the clutch and turned off the engine. We coasted to the other end of the tunnel.
I’ll bet he saved a tenth of a gallon of gas with that trick.
He started the engine once gravity threatened to stall him, downshifted, and sailed right through a stop sign.
In Cuba, taxi drivers needed special permits to serve foreigners. Our driver had no taxi permit and no permit to take us anywhere. I think his idea was, once you break one law, you might as well break a bunch.
I don’t know what the speed limit was. It seemed irrelevant to our driver. Might as well break another law. We did stay on all four wheels.
He cruised up to our hotel, double-parked in the narrow street, and shut off the engine again. Another tenth of a gallon saved and another law broken.
He jumped out to open our doors because apparently, the inside latches on the doors needed a secret twist before they’d open.
We paid him. In that country, he may have just made half a month’s wages.
We’d just taken an unlicensed taxi ride with an illegal driver in a foreign country and we lived on.
But I gotta be honest. We came away with our possessions and our teenagers, but I think we left our minds somewhere on that lighthouse.