Squinters for Obama!

I should have gotten a press pass ... 

Attending Barack Obama's rally today in Sarasota hadn't occurred to me, until I was held up at University Parkway and U.S. 41 as Obama's motorcade passed. 

For the hell of it, I turned toward my buddy Roger's favorite Ed Smith Stadium, and walked one mile to the field, where I ferreted my way through the town's underground democrats. 

Before I leave for my 4 p.m. massage, I'll leave you with four observations from the ground:

1. One Obama supporter was in such a hurry to park his Ford pick-up truck that he drove it off the road and into a grassy ditch, where he instantly buried the back tires in the mud. I'm not sure how the christ he's going to tow the thing out. He ran the hitch underground.

2. Two teenage boys discussing the nature of their mothers' apathy: "My ma never votes," said one boy. "Where does she live?" Asked the other. "Pennsylvania," the boy replied. "Shit, dude. That's a swing state," said his friend.

3. Sarasota City Commissioner Fredd "Glossie" Atkins doing a kind of Christmas storefront Santa Claus jig in the front row bleachers. When the speech was over, Glossie held up five fingers and repeatedly yelled, "Five days."

4. An exasperated man in a Montgomery Air Conditioning & Heating uniform elbowing his way through the crowd, frantic because he couldn't find, "the wife."

Dummy watches figure by drinking Mich Ultra

Go Rays!

This is the uber bizarro Rays dummy sitting on the porch four houses down from my apartment.

However, I should point out that Joe and I no longer live at our apartment in Old Northeast as we relocated 20 blocks north to a home we bought two weeks ago on 2nd Street across from the idyllically-named Coffee Pot Bayou. 

Since I'm in the middle of finishing a story that helps pay our mortgage, I best not piss away the valuable midnight hour.

But I promise you I've got a crapload of self-indulgent, heartwarming stories to sum up the last three weeks of my trifling life. None of which will include Saturday night's Tampa Bay Ray's nail-biter victory over the Boston Red Sox. (For more on that click here.) 

So, as my Aunt Dot would say, I hope you have a blessed Monday. We'll be in touch soon. 

Grandpa Ra

I stayed with Joe's grandpa a few weeks ago. I started this post while we watched a baseball game on the couch:

Joe's Grandpa Ra (his mother's father) has lived with Joe's parents since 1985. When the Bardi family moved to Tampa in 1989, Grandpa Ra moved into a garage-converted apartment separated by two doors and a laundry room.

Last month he celebrated his 90th birthday. Save for the cane he keeps by his blue recliner, Grandpa Ra isnt hearing impaired, memory impaired or anything impaired come to think of it. 

He's also three times the cook I'll ever be. 

A Brooklyn, N.Y. native, Grandpa Ra was a diehard Brooklyn Dodgers fan until Walter O'Malley moved the team to Los Angeles in 1958. In the years that followed, Grandpa Ra begrudingly rooted for The NY Mets.

Joe says he still hasn't forgiven O'Malley for the move and when I asked Grandpa about it, he said, "Joe's goddamn right." 

So I persisted. 

"You're still upset about it after all these years?"

And he shouted, "UPSET?! Agghht."

Agghht is Grandpa Ra's favorite expression. He uses it to punctuate his frustration at the beginning of sentences. (And to mark his frustration at the end of sentences.) It's an endearing conversation staple. 

Example:

Me: "If the Rays make it to the playoffs, will you go to a game?"

Grandpa: "Agghht. I don't like going to the games because I have to get up so many times to go to the bathroom."

Me: "Even if it's the playoffs?"

Grandpa: "Agghht. Can I fix you a sandwich?"

(In the middle of this conversation, Joe walked through the living room and announced that he was going to take a shower.)

Grandpa: "Why dont you just jump in the pool?"

Joe laughed. Shook his head and walked into his parents' house presumably to take a shower. Grandpa shrugged, made the agghht noise and turned his attention back to the TV presumably to the baseball game he'd been watching.

"You know," he rasped. "Lou Gehrig. They called him the Iron Man, and then he got a disease and just like that he was gone."

"Yeah, it's pretty sad." I said. 

"Iron Man. Agghht. He lived two years after he got that disease."

To change the subject, I asked Grandpa Ra if he ever caught a baseball during a game.

He smiled and said yes:

"At a Philadelphia-Mets game at Shea Stadium. MaryAnn wasn't married yet. They tried to kick us out. They said I interfered with the play. They come over and ask me for the ball back. 'Hey,' they said, 'you either give us the ball back or we make you leave.' I said no. And I tell you what, they made us move, and they gave us better seats than we had before. The whole family. We had the best seats in the house."