Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Signs of Spring

About a week ago, the ringing in my left ear started up again. Though the winter in Chicago is insufferable, it does bring with it a virtual elimination of the ringing in my ear that plagues me the other 8 months out of the year. The hearing loss in my left ear is already bad, but when the ringing starts, it acts as sort of another inhibitor for sound to get through. It's just a light ringing now, but as the mold, pollen and such kick up with the onset of warmer weather, it'll get much worse.

Another sign of spring is softball. Because of the rain (and snow) we've had three weeks of softball canceled which was supposed to be used as a sort of spring training for our first big local tournament this weekend. As a substitute, I was going to Stella's Batting Cages to do some hitting.


As I pulled into the parking lot, this sign greeted me. Cook County just raised their sales tax, leading to referendums to secede from at least four cities on the fringes of Cook County. Pretty funny sign though.













Another sign of spring is the increased rat activity in Basra (the southern region of my neighbors' yard). With the snow finally melting, I was able to put the traps back out. The bait this time was peanut butter and a small piece of a chocolate marshmallow rabbit that I got for Easter. Would the rabbit help me capture it's friend the rat? Yes, he would. One large dead rat. No picture though.





This sight, though not spring related, greeted me as I walked back into my workout room. One of the wall mirrors had fallen and broke all over.
















Here's where it fell from. So I'm not going to get seven years bad luck because of this am I? It fell on it's own! Actually, I was going to take these down, but maybe this is a labor saving event for me. I can just wait for them all to fall off by themselves. Taking them down is not high on my list, but I will need to do it at some point....unless we have a small earthquake or something.







Things I'm grateful for:
#125 A softball team that is willing to practice.
#126 Cortisone, it's what's letting me throw a softball without pain currently.
#127 ice packs, I need them for the rest of my body after a three hour practice!

2 comments:

stef said...

That sign is hilarious!

el supremo de nm said...

If you do have 7 years of bad luck does it mean that Ricardo and I are going to have 7 years of good luck to keep things in balance?