The Memorial Day Game

I'm playing on the Piermont baseball team, since Rivendell didn't have enough players for two teams, and too many for one team, so they had to send some players to Piermont.  The home field is only five or ten minutes farther than the Rivendell field, but the team is young for majors, and we have just barely enough people for the field.  Also, we haven't won a single game yet. 

On Memorial Day we played Haverhill, the easiest team besides our self in the league.  They batted first, since it was an away game for them, and let me just say that their first in the order batter is a bit of a character.  He's short and chubby, and he walks up to the plate like he's the main attraction, then bends over, putting his left hand above him in a signal for the pitcher to wait, then brings the bat high above his head with his right hand, keeping his left hand in the air this whole time.  Then he slams the bat down on the plate, looking at it intently like he's trying to talk to it through his mind.  He repeats this process of slamming the bat down maybe... seven times?  Watching this from my front row seat as catcher, I can't help being mad at the kid for vandalizing our home plate, overcome with hilarity, and wondering if he was the one who put two holes in Topsham Corinth's home plate.  

We did not do well with defense in our first defensive inning, bringing on our turn to bat with five runs scored against us.  

I was top of the order, as I have been every game except for the first two.  I got a hit, since their pitcher pitched mostly strikes, each with such little velocity he pitched in an arc, with the ball just barely clearing the plate, instead of a straight line like most other pitchers.  As I said, I got a hit, a big pop-fly in between second and third, which was easily caught on the fringe of the grass.  The next out came when our second batter, Ethan, who's also our other catcher,  hit it right up the middle like he always does, if a bit into right field, and made it to second.  He then stole third, sliding in only to be "accidently" pushed off by the third baseman, who tagged him.  I don't know how our third out came, but I'm guessing it was from our third batter, since I don't remember anyone getting on base for our team in the first inning.

Ethan was pitching for the first two innings, then Ellis (the coach's kid and our fourth batter, who's my friend) was pitching for the next two innings.  In the third inning the coach put me on first, instead of having me as catcher.  I hadn't been expecting to be put on first, I thought I would either catch again or pitch, so I was a bit surprised.  The coach thought I was surprised because I never played first and didn't know what to do.  I did know what to do from watching Ellis (also our normal first baseman).  The coach reassured me anyway, telling me I'd do fine and didn't have to worry.  

That inning I got a ground ball hit right to me while another player was still on first.  I single-handedly performed a double play, easily tagging the hesitant player on first and stepping on first base for the force out.  I got the third out for the inning when a ground ball was hit right to me again, letting me easily tag first while the runner had barely gotten halfway there.  

Then I pitched in the fifth and sixth innings, after I played first one more time in the fourth.  By the end of the fifth inning the score was seven to eight, with Haverhill still in the lead. Haverhill had scored their three more points in the second, third, and fourth innings, none in the fifth.  The first two outs in the fifth came when Ellis caught one ball that must have been something like one hundred feet in the air. I caught a weaker one, which was longer than the first, which had only gone forty feet.  I struck out the next batter.  

The top of the sixth inning was a one (pause while Haverhill gets one person on base) two-three inning.  The batter who got on base stole to third, but was prevented from stealing home, thanks to a couple of Ethan's superb catches when I threw way outside of the strike zone.  

In the bottom of the sixth the starting order was the three last batters, also the three least-experienced batters.  The second-to-last batter is in third grade, even though a third grader should be in minors, not majors.   The third-to-last has a really powerful swing, but bad luck, so that whenever he connects with the ball, it hits the very bottom of the bat, and stops a foot in front of the plate.  The last batter just... well, he'll swing at most pitches, since he and his Grandma have a deal that if he swings he'll get a Fortnite card.  (Fortnite is some game that a bunch of kids and adults like, but other than that, I have no earthly clue what a Fortnite card is.)  The only pitches he doesn't swing at, he either bunts, or almost gets hit with, turning the wrong way and exposing his face and front, instead of his back.  

After those three in the order, it's me, our first batter.  In other words, if one of them gets on base, I'm up.  If all three get out, well then boom, game's over, we lost.  Our third-to-last batter struck out.  Our second-to-last batter got walked.  (This would have been more of a victory if I hadn't known him to steal even when the catcher catches the ball, easily throws it to second, where the second baseman tags him when he steps off the base.)  There have also been multiple times when he's just barely stayed safe, stealing third and home, along with his accomplice, our last batter.  Our last batter struck out too.  

Two outs.  Seven to eight.  Last inning.  This is just the sort of time when the main character in a sports book gets two strikes, then miraculously wins the game for their team.  Guess what?  I got two strikes.  I believe that one was a foul, which meant I could hit off this pitcher.  I already knew that.  Next pitch, I slammed it way into left field.  The second-to-last batter, who was now on second, could have made it home.  He stubbornly stayed on second, the little &%#@!.  Ethan made it to two strikes, then fouled all the other balls way over the backstop and into the pasture across the road where we lose all our balls.  Then he slammed it into centerfield, getting a reluctant-to-run-home second-to-last batter home, but still only at the third base coach's urging.  Ethan also hit me to third, getting himself a double and an RBI.  

Our third batter got two strikes and three balls on her, full count.  Then a fourth ball that the catcher couldn't catch, letting me steal home safely, winning the game.  

I came into the dugout and everyone started slamming my helmet, and everyone was jostling everyone else, celebrating.  One of the heartiest slammers, Ethan (who by the way has been known to ask me "what do you like better, this..."  He goes dink dink dink on my helmet.  "Or this?"  He goes SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!)  comes around well I have my helmet only half way off, and asserts his extreme delight with one of his biggest slams.  It was totally awesome.      

Afterwards we went out for ice cream.  (This was due to persistent convincing on my part.)  This was the first time we had gone out to ice cream after a home game, and my mom was not very impressed when my assurances of the company of the rest of my team came to us and two other people buying something at the store.  The whole rest of the team came, as a matter of fact, except for one.  I had fun with Ethan and Ellis and Elias and everyone else there who wasn't sitting seriously and eating their ice cream.  (Elias is our most consistent pitcher, I do better than him when I'm having a good night pitching, but most of the time he does a little or a lot better than me, depending on how I'm pitching, not how he is.  The only reason we didn't use him that game was that he had pitched a bunch during our game with Rivendell, and the league rules said he had to rest.)  

Like I said, it was totally awesome.                                                                                                                                                   

Medieval Lego River Fort

I just recently took apart my Lego British Royal Navy fort, since I had had it out for a while, and I wanted to use the gray blocks for something else.  I turned it into a fort that guarded a river from Scandinavian (Viking) raids.

I built two towers, one for each side, and on the lowest platform in the middle I put four entirely wooden spears at even intervals that pointed down.  In between the spears I put three shields that had lion faces on them, the one in the middle bigger than the other two on each side.  Then behind them I put the defenders, two out of the three in the front with additional shields.  I put two defenders in the second row, where I could have squeezed in three defenders; but that way I have enough armor and weapons left so that if any of the defenders were injured or killed, I could replace them with another fully armed soldier and not have to take weapons and armor from another soldier.       

On the right tower I had one rank of one archer and one crossbowmen.  (I couldn't fit any more archers on the same tower without the second rank having to shoot straight through the first, and I was also clean out of bows and crossbows.)                                                         

On the other tower (which I'm pretty proud of) I built I giant crossbow somewhat like the Mangler all on my own.  (The Mangler is the giant crossbow fixed on the prow of the Heron, which is Hal's ship in The Brotherband Chronicles.)  I made it out of three sticks with clips on the end that stuck up in a triangle.  The back two sticks in the triangle held up two horizontal sticks attached to make one stick, a chain attached to each end of the extra long stick.  The two chains connected on the other end, and you could stick a spear made out of all wood into the two chain ends, rest the middle of the spear on the connecter for the two sticks, clipping the end of the spear onto the stick at the point of the triangle.  I put two 2x2 brown bricks in the middle of the triangle so that the Mangler 2.0 didn't look as flimsy as it was.  I also had a barrel behind it with three of the spear-projectiles sticking out of it, and a guy in a plain gray cuirass manning it.                                                                                                                      

I also made banks along the river out of silt and dirt, in other words tan, dark tan, and brown bricks, with the classic green oval with three leaves coming out of it all over the sides of the bank.  I attached a green platform to each bank which I put trees on so that it looked like the river was below the normal level of the ground, which was actually there, not just like, "Yup, this is the edge of the river, the bank goes up... and then the bank stops and there isn't much beyond that." 

For the Scandinavian longship, I took the seats and flag out of a pirate rowboat, keeping the cutlass that had been thrust upside down through the part in front of the boat where a round block size opening was, so that they could cut other ships in half.  Now I had a Scandinavian shortship, and all I had to do was man it with four berserkers, three of which with Lego Ron hair, which by the way works really well for Scandinavians, or anyone with red beards for that matter.  The other one had a Scandinavian helmet, with the horns taken out.  Whoever made those Scandinavians must not have done their research, since Scandinavians never had horned helmets.  Some Russian opera writer had written a play that depicted female Scandinavians with helmet that had feathers sticking out, so for the male Scandinavians to match he gave them horns on their helmets, and it stuck, resulting in the Lego Scandinavians with the un-historically accurate horns that we have today.  

Overall I think I did a pretty good job arming and armoring both sides, and the fort is now officially ready for battle.

  

Greek Food Day

Since I've been learning Greek, my mom thought it would be a fun springtime end of the year project to have a day when we had Greek food.  I could choose what Greek food we had.  I tried searching for Greek food, but when I clicked on something that looked like it would be a good eggroll-ish dinner, it turned out to be fried dough balls that were a common dessert.  I wasn't finding any good ideas until I saw some article about Greek seafood.  

My three ideas for dinners ended up being Sea Bass, which I thought was a good idea, Brown Trout, which I didn't know about, since even though they looked really good, they live all through New Hampshire and Vermont, and we were looking for Greek foods.  My last idea for dinner was Octopus, which I'm pretty excited about, but I don't know if the store, or anywhere around here, has a whole Octopus, head and all, which is what the recipe calls for.  

For breakfast I had written down this custard called rizogalo, which looked pretty good.  (It said it could be a breakfast or a dessert, which sounded promising.)  I also had bougatsa, which was a sweet or savory filling wrapped in phyllo dough, which is a combination of flour, water, vinegar, and a little oil.  The last one was called staka me ayga, which looked like scrambled eggs, but it said you put in staka, which is some sort of buttery creamy and floury mixture, which sounded good.  

For dessert I had written down lokma, the fried dough balls I had clicked on first.  I had also written down karythopita, which was a spiced cake with walnuts on top that sounded pretty good.  That was as far as I had gotten on dessert, because the recipes for dessert were all a few paragraphs long, not like the nice quick overviews on how to make the different breakfasts and dinners.  I tried writing down the ingredients, but that was also a really long list.  The others I would have written down were filo and butter pull-apart, which was this circular dessert with multiple thin layers, and the whole thing looked like it was encrusted in honey.  There was also lemon bougatsa, which looked super good, and was a thick lemony paste that looked kind of like a lemon pie.  Also there was honey and rosewater baklava, which was a nut-filled filo pastry with cinnamon syrup.  There was white chocolate baklava cigars, that, sure enough, resembled cigars.  And kataifi, which looked like a clump of spaghetti does when you twirl it on the end of your fork, but apparently it was supposed to be an almond pastry covered in syrup.     

I've been writing back and forth with a kid from Greece lately, which has been fun.  I asked him if he had any suggestions for foods, and he sent me four different links to food he liked.  For seafood, he said octopus with chopped pasta, and he also sent me links to bean soup, which sounded good.  (He said it was the national Greek food, and it must be pretty good if it's the national food.)  The other two were called Greek village salad, and the stuffed.  The stuffed was peppers and tomatoes that you stuffed with rice.

For breakfast I decided to have staka me ayga, 1, because I had ruled out rizogalo since, even though it looked so good, it was just rice pudding, and it wasn't only in Greece that people had rice pudding.  2,  because staka me ayga sounded way more Greek, since it said staka was local cow milk, and we looked it up and found bottles of staka for sale, with all the labels in Greek.  3, because I was curious about staka me ayga, since it looked like normal scrambled eggs, but there were different ingredients.  

For lunch I decided to have Greek village salad, since I thought it looked okay, and because every other lunch didn't look that good, and I'm not really a vegetable casserole fan.  

For dinner I decided to have brown trout, because I didn't know if we could get good octopus, and that looked pretty complicated, so I decided to stick with something that lived right around here and didn't have to be shipped in from Timbuctoo.  I don't know what kind of sea bass the recipe wants, and it turns out there are a million different species of sea bass, so I ruled that one out too. 

Lastly for dessert I decided to have lemon bougatsa, which I decided by ruling out desserts like lokma (those dough balls) so that I had the most dessert looking ones, then I ruled out watermelon in cinnamon sauce and ones that I was a little unsure about, since I didn't think the cinnamon sauce would pair well with the watermelon.  Finally I was left with just these almond shortbread balls and lemon bougatsa.  The shortbread balls were so covered with confectioner-sugar-looking icing, that I didn't know if I would be able to taste the shortbread.  Thus is how I decided upon lemon bougatsa.  

I'm excited for everything, especially dinner, and we've ordered all the ingredients so that I can make it this weekend.      

Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day a few days ago, so in the morning we made a fun breakfast.  We left bread out the night before so that it would be stale in the morning, since we were going to dip the bread in a sauce, and that way it wouldn't get soggy.  The sauce was milk that simmered with lemon skin, a cinnamon stick, and two tablespoons of honey.  We dipped the bread in the milk, then in some eggs I whisked up, and then we put the pieces of bread in a frying pan with oil.  After we let them cool off for a minute, I dipped the pieces of bread in a big bowl of cinnamon sugar, and then piled them all up in a bowl to go over to the table.  

There was a bit too much cinnamon sugar on them, and I had to scrape some off so that it wouldn't be too sweet.  Margaret loved how sweet they were, and she added extra honey on top, which she actually got away with since the recipe said that adding honey was "optional".  She also wanted to have all the cinnamon sugar we had scraped off of ours, but I'm guessing that one of the reasons that didn't work out was because the recipe didn't say that it was traditional for all the six-year-olds present to get an extra half a cup of cinnamon sugar. 

                                                                       

Then we went on a walk at a place called Quincy Bog, which was fun.  We saw three or four snakes, about seventeen turtles, three or four Canada geese, one salamander, and seven or eight chipmunks.  I took advantage of the chipmunks, and took the shells off a bunch of acorns, then followed the chipmunks until they ran down into one of their tunnels, so that I could give them a few acorns by rolling the acorns down their tunnels.  

Me and Margaret were also measuring how deep the water was on the boardwalks by dipping a stick into the water, and seeing how far it was down by lifting the stick out of the water after it touched the bottom to see how much of the stick was wet.  (Sometimes our sticks were too short and wouldn't touch the bottom.)  One of my favorite places to measure, was a narrow canal that was two feet wide, but three and a half feet deep, and surrounded by solid (if a bit mushy) ground.  The guide to the bog, one of which we had brought along with us, that explained certain areas that were marked with a  yellow tag, and this canal was one of those areas.  The guide said that the beavers at Quincy Bog had dug the canal so that they could float logs down to their lodges and dams.  We had seen a beaver the first time we went to the bog, but we didn't see any this time.  We spent most of the afternoon at Quincy Bog; even though we could have done it in half an hour, we were having fun slowly check out every little corner.  

Dinner was good, it was sheet pan chicken, with a bunch of leeks and other onion-ish things.  For dessert we had this super good custard and whipped cream dessert, with a layer of raspberries encased in red Jell-O on the bottom.    

Margaret gave my mom a card.  I gave her a card too, along with a stop-motion.