How 'Bout Them?

   The Bourne Braves start their playoff season tomorrow, and I plan on getting to one of the games as soon as my Jeep gets fixed....which is where hubber is right now. Sundays are good days to send the hub off to Auto Mart or wherever they go for that ignition thingy you need when your wife goes to start the car and the key spins all the way around without resistance.

   I was going to fix it myself, except that I had absolutely no intention of doing so. Imagine me trying to take apart anything that has gasoline in it? Thuck fat.

   I'm no help there, so I get to sit around while he gets grease on his forehead and stuff. Hahaha.....another lemonade, anyone? Besides, Gabby, Lissa and I have a lot of important stuff to do, like color and nap. Even Sloppy Dog is engaged in canine pursuits, playing in the yard with her new neighbor, a chien called "Mister Pooch." I have time to write.

   There are some gems in the paper today.

- Undertaker Brown is coaching in the Dallas Cowboys summer camp. One of the benefits of stopping vertical growth when you hit 5'1" is that your Undertaker Brown shirt still fits in 2005...even if it is all ratty and the name has worn off. While I feel their red uniforms were the best, I distinctly prefer the electric blue color of the Parcells era team to the conservative navy blue worn by Your Super Bowl Champions today.

   Undertaker- real name, "Vincent"- Brown was a Patriot linebacker when I was a kid. He was a terrifying physical specimen who had played with Jerry Rice at Mississippi Valley State. Frequently voted "Best Body In The NFL" by whatever magazine does that, this dude was jacked like Triple H, hit people so hard that they briefly saw a bright light and dead relatives acting all consoling and peaceful, and led the team in tackles every year until his knee rotted like....like I don't know what. I was saddened to see him go, and I am happy to see him land a temp job with the Big Tuna.

   Any New England fan will have an eye on Dallas, which seems to be a final resting place for old Patriots. Le Tuna always keeps his people around him, and he has several expatriots in the gang as we speak. Undertaker merely has the best nickname.

   I don't know what he was thinking, but he brought Nancy Drew Bledsoe in from Buffalo to QB his team. I'll give Bill the benefit of the doubt there, but my thinking on the matter is that he could have spent three to five thousand dollars and put a statue back there with no overall loss of mobility from the position.

   To his credit, the Bills finished on an upswing last year, and Tuna took a considerably less seasoned Bledsoe to the Super Bowl many moons ago. Word has it that Drew looks good so far....although if Dallas still has Drew Henson, Bledsoe might be only the second best quarterback named Drew on the team....not really something that fills one with confidence once they realize it.

  Terry Glenn is also down there. Strange, because it seemed like Glenn hated Parcells when the Tuner rolled over on the team in the Super Bowl. Parcells used to call Glenn a "she," which also pissed him off. Still, when New England and Green Bay tired of him and all seemed lost for the troubled Terry, there was the fatherly Big Tuna showing thathe really cared after all. Glenn hasn't torn the NFL up, but he's playing well and not being a *****.

   Dallas also has old friends like Maurice Carthon on his staff. I hope he has Al Groh down there. Groh, who I think coached on the defense, was known to walk around the sidelines with a shovel during playoff games in New England. You should always have one of those kind of guys around when you have a job you need to get done.

   Tuna is still a trip, too. Asked about the recent episode where Coach Saban in M'ami yelled at a 300 pound kid so ferociously that he burst into tears, Parcells said that he personally wouldn't consider it that big a deal when judging a player....."He cares," I guess.

   ''I've had a couple of 'em cry. Not when I was screaming at them, but crying at the situation. It's a human emotion. We all do it. That doesn't bother me.... unless it's a woman crying, at which point I try not to pay attention."

   On a personal note, I almost had to cry in a crowded breakfast nook called "Leo's," in Buzzard's Bay. After I threatened to castrate him when he began moving his fork towrds my pancakes (it seems that the "Double Hungry Man Breakfast" is merely an appetizer in these parts.....and this is no dig on Leo's, because the DHMB was an eggs/pancakes/toast/home fries combination that took up a whole side of the table and actually merits a note in the menu to the effect that several patrons have died trying to consume it), hub had the idea that acupuncture would solve the incessant tricep pain he suffers from. 

   He has had this pain since he carried in the armoire in a shoulder-based fashion that one saw in 1982-era urban teens carrying those ridiculous radios. He refuses to see a doctor, even though the last of my Percs (I was bitten by a snapping turtle...never mind, please) didn't shut him up. 

   He refuses to see a doctor, and now he decided he was going to fix it himself....sort of like my ignition,which may or may not merit a blog entry later. Unlike my Jeep, he was going to do this job in front of 40-70 of our new neighbors, who are probably going to have enough trouble getting used to me........let alone this.

"I could do it right here, with this very silverware," he said. His only experience in medicine comes from watching me get injured/pregnant.

"You could also look for a new place to live right there, at that very realtors office," I said, pointing across the street. For those of you who aren't familiar with Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts....there is indeed a realtor across the street from Leo's.

"Arrogant American," said hub, who is from Massachusetts, to me, who is from France. "You close your mind to Eastern methods." He then raised his arm, and began sizing up fork thrust possibilities.

"You-will-put-that-fork-down-this-instant..." I said as quiet/loudly as I could without losing the smile I was faking. I had taken a knife into my hand (I automatically remembered my Mossad knife-fighting training- I joined in an attempt to represent for Israel in the 1995 New Hampshire Winter Olympics team bobsled competition that never actually ended up being conducted- and a voice in my head was saying, "there are several attacks which can be made from this position."), though I was trying to look pleasant.

"Shucks, hunny... how hard can it be? I'm doing it, now."

   I shot my hand out and grabbed the plate with his toast, which I then slid behind my purse. "You get your food back when you've promised me we'll drop this."

"Grrr...O.K."

   I stared. He slowly handed me his fork as I brought his toast back within reach of him. After several fakes, we both came back with what we wanted. The rest of breakfast went off without incident.

 Parcells has his methods. I have mine.