Our game was rained on but not rained out -- which is a shame because we managed to lose again. We at least made an out in the field -- Cookie fielded a ground ball with the bases loaded and trotted it over to home plate for the force play. It was the only out we got aside from their strikeouts.

Then I got home, lit the tiki torches, poured some vermouth, and lay in the hammock until it got dark. I have multiple mosquito bites to show for it. Now I feel a need to go to sleep. Maybe I'll read a little first -- got a few books loaded on that Kindle (and I'm pretty sure I'll never get through them all).

I've been meaning to post a reply to Tommy's tale of woe. However, there are so many different angles of attack that I hardly know where to begin. Let me count the ways:

• It wasn't a shave in Bronxville, so at least your life wasn't in danger
• Your strange haircut could start a trend; I'll monitor the fashion mags
  
• Goldberg had a distinctive look; perhaps you too can pull it off too
  
• Consider extensions -- cornrows might actually look good on you
• At least your hair still grows back

Not much happening here in Berea. Just another couple weeks of baseball. Da Chimpz won their second game of the season on Tuesday, and they did it in style -- without making a single out on the basepaths (the other team was kind enough to strike itself out to end their rallies). We're supposed to play tonight but just like last night we see the storm clouds looming. That was some huge downpour we had yesterday evening to rain us out. Hopefully we'll get our game in today.

And continuing one of our favorite blog themes, here's a link to high-tech toilets.

There are no words in the dictionary poetic enough to describe the resentment and hatred I feel towards the woman who cut my hair.

Hair is a temporary thing, I understand. It'll grow back, and eventually look nice again. But my haircut blows, the way things currently stand, and it is really frustrating. Like, really.

I went in for a haircut, expecting to come back out of Mastercuts with a lighter head and a fresh outlook on those little tubes we call our hair. What I ended up coming out with was a grudge held against that terrible foreign woman who can't cut hair and against that large mole she sports on her face.

Not once, while describing what I was hoping my hair would be like, did I say the words, "I'd really like to look like a child molester...I think it'd be a real treat!" That look just really isn't my thing. I don't think it fits my personality.

Most of me wants to say that it's really not a big deal, and it's really not worth getting upset about. A lot of me really feels that way. But this other portion of me that strives to look clean and attractive and fit really thinks it would be a gift to society if this woman found some kind of large inheritance and never, ever, ever have to cut hair again.

So here's to the foreign woman in Mastercuts who fails at her job, may she live long and never have to pick up a pair of scissors again.

Well, our Mets are continuing their typical style of play... which is to say we're still hoping to make an out in the field. We're getting close. Our bats were alive tonight, as evidenced by the 21-17 score (at least that was our calculation -- the official score may have been even higher).

Poor Cookie us slumping -- tonight he got the Golden Sombrero as he struck out at each at bat. Eh, he gave it his best shot -- even came close to making a few plays at first base.

We're off until Tuesday, so maybe we can do some more practice with the glove. As for me, I want more time in the hammock out back. Spent some time in it just now, lounging under the tent, sitting up every few minutes to take a sip of Stock vermouth. The sky stays lit until around 10 p.m. around here, and I lose track of the time easily. Right now I'm waiting for the Indians game to start. They're on the west coast playing the Dodgers. Which makes me have to say:

Have another beer, Torre.

Hoping to not suffer the same fate as Willie Randolph over at that other Mets team, I led my Berea Mets onto the field last night with only the faintest hope of pulling one out -- at 1-4 we faced the team that had an 8-0 record.

We were realistic. And we were short-handed -- this league allows 11 fielders but we only had 10 who showed up. And after our victory on Sunday I had returned the line-up to rotate all players through the positions, regardless of their level.

But then an interesting thing started to happen. The game stayed close. We held them scoreless in the first, and we even turned a rare double-play. In the second our bats got hot. We scored a few runs; in their half of the inning they got some back. We see-sawed. Every play was an adventure. A few calls by the umpire were, uh, questionable, and I felt myself ready to pull a Lou Piniella but I held myself together. The fourth inning ended and our game had reached its hour allotment -- but the score was tied and they allowed the game into extra innings.

We scored a bunch of runs in the top of the inning and things looked good. Every play was a gut-buster. But we gave all the runs back in the bottom of the inning and we lost. I walked off the field consumed by fury at the umpire who had demolished our chance for an upset victory. Eh, just a kid.

Anyway, I told the team how great a performance it was -- shorthanded in the field we still came just inches from beating the undefeated team. And as we migrated back to the parking lot a few parents who'd seen the plays better than I did assured me that we really did win that game. Oh well.

Cookie and Mojo both reached base, though Cookie over-ran a fly ball in left center, and Mojo let a throw to second bounce from his glove... Eh, better luck next time. (And we're going out tonight to practice!)

Well, the Berea Mets finally put one in the win column tonight. And what a struggle -- I had to ride herd on the fielders to keep them alert, but also keep the kids from getting too anxious when stepping up to the plate to bat. In the end the score was 7-4, which doesn't sound close but I was sweating every play.

Now Dan and I can relax a bit -- we know winning isn't everything, but we felt it necessary to not allow losing to be everything either. No still shots for the blog, unfortunately, but there is some video and if I can edit the clips down I'll get them onto Youtube. And if you're Franco Corso's IP attorney don't you worry: I won't be setting any of the videos to your friggin' lounge music. (The Italian Festival came and went already this year -- no Franco, but Dan tells me her got there in time to catch some of the Midlife Chryslers.)

Today for Father's Day the boys made me posters with drawings of things that I like -- giant cups of coffee were most prominent. There was also a subway train (do they read this blog?). We tried to go to the Station Restaurant with Joe and Jean for lunch after Mass, but after standing at the reception counter for more than a few minutes with no one paying us any mind we decided to drive over to Max & Erma's -- rolling past the Browns practice facility (which I knew was in Berea, but I never knew exactly where).

Da Chimpz both got hits in tonight's game.

Speaking of old photos of ancestral homelands, I found this interesting site.

Big Vin might be interested in this old snapshot of his old salt mine:
It's a warm and humid night here at Berea-Rose. Da Chimpz played baseball last night and we lost again. Even the Berea Mets are struggling this year. With our 0-4 record I'm starting to feel like Willie Randolph.

Haynie Road only makes me think of one thing: "Slow for Horses."

And that makes me think of one more thing: "Good for Cats."

Steve needs a new outfit. I suggest he go shopping for new clothes immediately.

Those pictures were awesome. I was wondering if they were shot with a 110 camera. Do they make those anymore? The flashbulb stack on top of it. Every picture looks like it was taken from down the street.
I felt like i was watching an old movie.

So for those who have not heard from Steve. He is doing fine. He has started a new group in Jupiter. A sect known as the MukWuks that kneel once a week and face PukNuk Gorge reciting lines from EasyMoney, but only those said by monty capuletti. The group survives solely on brewed arabica beans from pelaponesia. They do not repond to voicemail or missed call lists. They only correspond when the beans are ready for harvest. Here he is pictured leading a meeting. These meetings are held on haynie lane in jupiter farms.

Something about the mastandrea/fatone gene combination requires you place any and all object atop your head. It is a compulsion we cannot resist. It is as if we were possessed and forced into it. I knew this not only from going back and looking at old photos, there are hundreds but Ellexa finished a box of Cheerios one morning and proclaimed look daddy........A HAT. An put the box on her head. Since then all objects at one time or another them became a hat. Thus passing the gene on. She may resemble jessica's family but she is all mastandrea when it comes to her personality. She has even shown signs of changing the words to songs. We are working on some as we speak. Now if we could just get her to announce she need to sit on the potty before she makes the cake we would be living it up. So...Here we are in our hats. Someone once said "LIFE IS LIKE A HAT" I vaguely recall the complete haiku but it seems to be a piece to the mastandrea explanation. I do not think Ellexa enjoyed this hat as much as i did. Later on that evening she would spill entire cup of blue easter egg coloring on her stomach and sport a blue belly for several days.

This one is for the Mastandrea Dictionary. Its a great word. Wonder if that draws any hits from google.
This is a sphygmomanometer.

That's the other bizarre thing about this blog -- out of all the nonsense that we post here, chock-full of the oddest configurations of searchable keywords, Google only seems to send us readers searching for their favorite off-broadway cartoon character: bugs buny.

You'd think this guy from Bratislava would have stumbled upon our site through some other, more befuddling keyword match. But no -- on this whole world wide web, there isn't one person searching on the terms "Bratislava steam pipe."

So I was sitting out back in my little gazebo tent earlier this evening, reading some Yeats off the Kindle (still can't decide if I like the thing) when I sat back and stared at my Jeep parked in front of our two-car garage. I reflected, as I did earlier this weekend, at how quickly we went from parking both cars in the garage (back when we first moved in) to parking only one car in the garage (when I got fully stocked up on yard gear) to parking both cars outside (now that we own so much crap that there's really no room to do much of anything in the garage, much less park a car).

I couldn't help but reminisce on what life was like for me exactly 20 years ago. I'd just moved off campus hauling all my worldly possessions in a VW Beetle, then tooled around the NY metropolitan area for weeks and then months in that chariot as I searched for a job, then searched for an apartment, and then searched for a life. That car was cool. But today I'd not be able to fit a small fraction of my stuff in it.

My backyard reverie was cut short by the return of Cookie and Mojo. Alane had taken them to the town pool. Cookie came around to the back.

"Wanna know why my bathing suit is completely dry? Because someone vomited in the pool!"

I found his tale of pool-clearing disaster to be utterly fascinating. He filled me in on some further details and went into the house. I followed along myself a few minutes later as the sky darkened and the raindrops started falling. Thunderstorms had been in the forecast for this evening. When the storm got fully going (but before the lighting) I decided we should go outside and experience the rain from under our tent. Da Chimpz thought it a great idea -- until the wind started blowing rain sideways and right into us. As they were hustling through the back door the wind gusted strongly and picked up the entire gazebo tent; the swirling air was about the carry the friggin' thing to the neighboring town of Middleburg Heights before I grabbed one of the posts and pulled in back down to earth. I hastily repositioned it, tried to do a better job staking it into the ground, and cautiously backed away, drenched, to take my sorry ass back in the house.

I was damn-near relieved of at least one physical possession tonight. Serves me right.

Aha! I think I finally have something figured out here:



Also be sure to see this.

Okay, here are a few more to keep the pot stirred.

I'm getting frustrated at how so many otherwise fantastical snapshots are coming out blurry -- I'm worried that it's my gadget that's doing it, but I suspect the slide itself is blurred.

Anyway, we need to start attaching names to faces here. Bazzukajoe said he'd put Big Vin under interrogation tomorrow. I've already e-mailed Guido to help me track down the make/model of that sweet Euro-sled that's parked in the family courtyard... near the horse-drawn wagon.

It's pretty hot here at Berea-Rose today. I think it's time to open up a bottle of port and sit in my backyard to enjoy the evening breeze (if indeed I can catch one). Alane has Da Chimpz over at the town pool. That'll keep them busy for a while. Sea-monkeys.

The stout-hearted (and -waisted) people of Northeast Ohio are proud of their Left-wing pieties, and are surprisingly willing to display their silly ideas publicly. I say surprising because you'd think they'd understand by now that they're putting the region's economy in the crapper... But I digress! What has always fascinated me is the bumper stickers people attach to their cars -- gratuitous offerings to an indifferent world of some keen insight into the driver's normally-marxist worldview. Most often the message consists of some environmental nonsense or a general condemnation of America's national defense.

But just now, driving back from the supermarket, I saw something different. On the tinted rear window of a black Ford Explorer, I saw a decal that said "As I Lay Dying."

And I thought to myself, "Imagine that -- in an area where most people still haven't scraped off their repulsive Kerry-Edwards stickers, this guy is driving around displaying his affinity for the timeless work of modernist American author William Faulkner."

How odd. And yet how refreshing!

As we drove, it happened that we both had to stop at a red light on Bagel-y Road. His car was stopped right alongside mine and I noticed his windows were rolled down. I actually considered rolling down my own window, pumping my fist in the air and yelling "Faulkner rocks!"

Turns out it's good that I didn't. I may as well have called out "Absalom, Absalom!"; he would've been just as baffled.

Eh, thrash metal never appealed to me. I suppose it never will. Driving the rest of the way home I was passed by another car sporting a Hillary '08 sticker. I guess we're all out of touch around here, in one way or another.

At the risk of turning this blog into a Mastandrea Genealogy project, I just have to start figuring out who these people are. That group, posing at the side of the road -- that's some crazy picnic. Perhaps the car broke down and everyone had to psych themselves up for some heavy-duty pushing?

And speaking of the car -- it too fascinated me. There are other shots of it, but I cannot tell the make and model. All in due time.

And the girl: she looks to have been about two or three when this picture was taken in 1968. That would make her about my age. I bet Vinny remembers who she is.

These are some very cool pictures, but alas, many of the originals are not quite as cool -- faded over time, or perhaps underexposed at the time of development, or blurry at the time of exposure. Eh.

We need to do a shout-out to the cuz-brigade in Bari to start piecing all this together (well, at least those parts that have not been retained in the Big Kahuna's steel-trap memory). Maybe we need to start a foreign-language edition of the Macaroni Dish -- kind-of an "Il Progresso" of the blogosphere... except maybe one that doesn't go out of business the way that newspaper did.

I gotta get myself some kind of online photo account. I just don't think I can fit all this stuff on the blog.

Oh, and the photo with the giant wagon wheel -- a striking image. And a revealing one. To this day, Big Vin will not eat wagon-wheel pasta. Now we finally know why: take a good look at what's caked on the sides of those wheel edges. Yech.

See, it's all coming together. Who said history was a futile pursuit?

So here I am, playing with my new slide scanner, running through the heaps of ancestral detritus that has been locked in obsolete media formats... when I come across this.

Look at this strapping young man, ranging the wide and cobble-stoned avenues of a modern European city, in search of... in search of what?

Dig on the scenery: that's some busy metropolis, folks! Makes you feel like you've just joined a Fellini film, in progress. And check out the tram -- reminds me of the surface transit in Amsterdam, where if the bicyclists don't run you down, the trams or the automobile traffic will.

But back to the business of anthropological archeology...

I decided to study the situation a little more closely. Then I found it. Yeah, he was searching for something alright -- some t-bone steaks, a few bracciole, and maybe a nice key-lime pie to have with coffee after the dishes have been cleared.

That man has always been on a mission.

Anyway, I've got a heap of transparencies that need to be converted. I'll get to them, slowly but surely. So expect more to be posted here -- along with worldwide blegs to help us attach names to all the people portrayed in these snapshots. There may be some people in Giovinazzo who'll be surprised to see 40-something year-old snapshots of their aunts and uncles. And donkeys.

Got myself a new gadget this week (how surprising). It's a doo-hicky for scanning old slide transparencies into image files. Technologically it's a total piece of crap -- installed the app on three different PCs and could only get it to work on one, and even there it works only in a non-standard way.

Oh well, at least I was able to scrape a few old snapshots from some long-forgotten media that has been mouldering in my attic. Here's an utterly fantastic shot of our patriarch and Maximum Leader taken on the day of a certain wedding, many many years ago...

The blog should be lots of fun this summer -- especially now that we can say pretty much anything we want about Steve without any fear that he'll read our comments, his PC being heisted and all. That guy has the worst luck. Even the ocean hates him. And so does Bazzukajoe's car.

(Not even sure what that means...)

It's warm and muggy at Berea-Rose today. Da Chimpz are halfway through their summer vacation. Yep, they were home today with no scheduled play events. Same tomorrow. But next week that all changes -- day camp every day. They love it, and so do I -- morning drop-off time is much earlier than regular school and I plan to take full advantage of that. Nyuck nyuck.

Uncle Vinny owns several chairs -- each of varying capability, suited to somewhat different terrains and circumstances.

But as of this very moment, he needs only one.