Monday, September 19, 2005

A Whole New You

The Waverly Waves kicked off their 107th season on Sunday, playing the dreaded Cronulla Sharks down in the Southern Districts. Cronulla was a well-stacked team, having several divisons present to draw players from. They even had full-on coaches and signals, whereas we pretty were hodge-podge in both our appearance and approach, having none of the above luxuries. To my surprise, we did manage to field exactly nine players. It was a hard fought game, but the Waves rolled their way to a draw of 7-7. Being down six runs at one point, we rallied back to score the equalizer at the end. I managed to play a decent game at first base, going 1-3 with an RBI and stolen base. Hit the ball solidly every time and made no errors in the field.

The field itself was at Sylvania Waters, literally a swamp sitting below sea level, but an overall improvement compared to our home grounds. There were a set of power lines running across center field, with the tower marking as the foul pole in left. If one wanted to do a Robert Redford-esque 'Natural' moment and cause sparks to come erupting off a deep home run ball, it was certainly possible. Striking the right bolt might cause a line to drop and kill half the infield, including anyone that might be standing next to the metal fences surrounding the field. There's a good line in The Castle about the father of the family always doing his best thinking while looking up at those poles, marvelling at all mankind has accomplished.




















The photos above are from a road trip to the Northern beaches and national park we took a few weeks ago. We went up to Kur-in-gah (actually spelled like that, not just hyphenated for pronunciation) which lies an hour North of the city. The park itself is a network of hikes and trails, sitting at the mouth of the Pittswater, a popular boating and fishing spot. There's an interesting bulb-like peninusula called 'the Barrenjoey' that jets out between the river and the sea, full of luxury homes and surfing beaches. After poking around the park, as well as seeing a cool little boat locker which forklifted boats away for safe keeping, we headed out to the end of this strip for a look around and scavenging, since it happened to be large-waste recycle day. The Northern beaches feel much less populated, more like country living than the same distance to the south. It's a good place to come spend a day, going from surf break to surf break and maybe having a picnic on the way.

All is quiet on the cockroach front, Peggy has fortified our apartment and it is easily the most hygenically-secure in Sydney. On the rarest of occasion that a cokkah does poke its' attenae out at us, I greet it with a bum-pa-dumming of either ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ or ‘Rise of the Valkries’, depending on if it is an American or German variety. That’s the last thing the cokkah usually hears before being flushed.

Peggy has posted some pictures from a kite festival last weekend at Bondi, the nearest beach to our own Bronte. There were aliens and fabric fish-a-flyin’ with horse rides for the kids. We had some friends from school over that day for some Cricket practice and electric BBQ. We’re looking forward to havings y'alls down fer sum good country cookin'.

For the record, I've never 'Loved Raymond'.

posted by ncawthon at 7:03 PM