Spring has hit fully here in lovely California! Baseball is in the final tuning before the season starts, March Madness has hit the populace (and, yes, I got my brackets in...my normal one on Yahoo and another that I got dragged into). Hockey and basketball have hit their home stretches...and the playoff-bound teams are trying to jockey for position while the others are just trying to finish the season on a non-negative note. For a sports nut like me, this is one of the best times ever.

And to boot, the weather is cooperative; it makes me want to go outside more and more. Even Bella has gotten into the spirit of things...about this time, when the birds start to twitter outside incessantly, she starts pacing the apartment, wanting to go outside and 'play' with them...of course, her idea of playing is to stalk, catch, toss and gnaw. Somehow I don't think the birds will like that much.

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While I was wasting time before my hair appointment last week, I perused the used book store nearby. Among my mini-nuggets of gold I found a well-loved copy of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, his memoirs of being, as he puts it, a football obsessive. I was extremely relieved to start reading it, and to find out it has nothing in common at all with the atrocious movie of the same name. Instead, Hornby really does chronicle how it came to be that he has memorized so many details of his beloved Arsenal, and attempts to understand why it is that footie (and the Gunners in particular) makes him so miserable...yet he can't tear himself away from it. I've just read the first part of the book, which more-or-less goes over his childhood until he hits 18.

Ok, so I'm not a huge footie fan, but I am a big time sports fan...but not quite an 'obsessive'. I don't recall my first baseball game--I probably was 4 or so, and have been to literally so many since that, well, they're all a blur. In fact, there's really only a handful of games of any sport--in my life--that I recall with great clarity. On the other hand, I do love to have sports on at all times; often it's the 'background noise' when I'm grading or farting around the place. Why put on a crappy tv show when you could have a game on? But I do understand the draw to the sport. It's a true reality show...this is really happening...there is no set of producers and writers who are pulling the strings behind the curtain. It's drama. And yet...I can find myself dispassionate overall. I used to watch basketball all the time...now I can barely stand to have it on. Much of this has to do with the fact that my Kings suck...um...well, the phrase I would like to use here isn't exactly polite, so I'll refrain, but to put it mildly, they are bottom-feeders. But it's more than that...I've seen many games live, and I guess I just don't get the same thrill on tv. This is totally different with football and hockey...ok, you don't get the same thrill at home over the tube, granted, but since I can't really afford the tickets, well, that's all I'm left to. Baseball, however, has bleacher seats...and often has specials on those seats. I can afford a couple of games per season, maybe as many as 5, and still have change left over. Ok, I admit it, I'm a bleacher bum.

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In the TMI department...we started a new chapter today in one of my classes, one where the vocabulary had a lot of names of animals. I asked my students to work in pairs on a few questions which utilize the new words, one of which being to name the animal that best represents them, and why. Two students, both being Middle College students* and good friends, snickered. KB said he'd be a falcon, as it represents a liberty that he feels he possesses. JJ said he would be a monkey...and giggled. Uh, ok, why the giggling. "Because I'd throw poop at my brother," was the response. Yes, it was a fecicious answer, but still...dude...