More Covid sports to play with Family

 

In most parts of the U.S. the virus is subsiding in relation to more people getting the vaccination. Where I am though, it is terrible. There are no hotels open or places to stay overnight. Ski areas for downhill are closed. 

My wife took our girls to the weekend cottage so they could take day trips to cross country skiing paths in the bigger hills. We were going to stay two weeks.  I came up on Thursday of the first week, but by then all the snow had melted and there weren't even any cross country trails available for skiing.  There was no more snow anywhere close enough. 

That is where I came in. Mission: to get the kids outside and exercising.  Getting them outside off their electronics and away from the TV.   Last year or maybe even  two years ago I taught them 2 square ball game. Good for two or more people. Me and Paul Kight in 4th grade were the school 4 square non registered champions. That was great fun. 

Now my youngest daughter is in 4th grade and she just beat me for the first time last week in 2 square. I  dont play my hardest, but, by the end of a 15 point game I am TIRED.  My older daughter is pretty good too, but their old man can still beat them most of the time.  hahaha

We also play some badminton and my younger daughter loves ping pong.  But those are for 2 people. 

But last week I introduced to them another sports game that needs at least three people to play and more if possible,  but minimum 3.  When I was looking up the sport so I could paste some pictures in this post, they only gave me pictures of baseball. But the game I taught them was BASERUNNER.

Baserunner was another great game I used to play with my friends in grade school. We lived on a street with a green parkway in the middle so we had a perfect area to play. The picture at the beginning of this post is the entrance to my street, down a block. That is the grassy parkway between the two sides of the street. The entrance from Main street pictured here is now on the National heritage land marks locations.  Interesting, because of the original wall made to signal you were entering a new village subdivision, the subdivision of Snyder. 

Anyway. We played baserunner sort of like baseball, but just running between two bases. Two catchers and the rest runners. Three outs or lives.  You had to be tagged to lose a life.  A run was running from one base to the other which the catchers protected and tried to tag you if you ran. The person with the most runs or last left in the game was the winner. 

We don't have baseball gloves here so we played with a big rubber ball not standing so far apart because we couldn't throw the ball so far. But we could throw the ball at the runner to tag them. There is just three of us but it worked. We would take turns being the runner, ten runs or three lives and then we would change runners.  Only once or twice did someone get to ten runs. Harder than you think.  

It was such a success, I am so happy.  Every day the girls would want to get out in the afternoon to play. We had to wait till my older daughter was finished with school and then we would get out around 4 pm to get in a full game, in which everyone had the chance to be a runner, before it got too dark or too cold.  I think that took about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Perfect for a good exercise session.  The weather is still cold but no snow anymore so we could get a game in before it got too cold in the late afternoon close to supper.  

But if you haven't played a baserunner game you would be surprised how much fun it is, also because it is funny.  Funny things happen that you can laugh at like getting the runner in a pickle in the middle.  Or trying to keep the runner from getting the second run when you miss the ball, "here here throw it".  It was just good fun and funny adrenaline.  

Sadly we had to go home in the middle of the second week because of the worsening virus, we had to stay in our own region for three weeks.  So if we had stayed longer they may not have let us back into our city home and I had to go to the store. I couldn't be away for three weeks. My wife had left on Monday so I was with my daughters by myself for two days.  That worked out fine and my personal "dad ratings" climbed a bit. The problem was it was still cold and they watched TV for over three hours in the evening.  I have trouble stopping them because we watch the Simpsons for two hours and I love the Simpsons too, so I watched also. But that is too much TV. Its really difficult to limit their TV with their gadgets. So I was real happy that they wanted to get out and play baserunner. 

At least some small success against the demon TV and video games. Score two for stay at home dad!

Listening to more jazz these days.  During this writing I listened to my vinyl of the two albums pictured below. 

Pat Metheny's "from this place" released Feb 21 2020, a year ago. He always rides on the edge of classic jazz, easy listening, fusion, so that it all snowballs together and you dont know what to call it, if it matters. 

Paul Desmond classic alto saxist from Dave Brubeck band who did a lot of albums on his own or with other big names, like this one with Gerry Mulligan. They dont break each other, they compliment.  Only complaint is the album is too short even with two more tracks on the reissue. I still need more when each side finishes.  

Increasing my repertoire

I think one of the most important things you can do as a parent is to provide good and nutritious meals for your kids.  Sadly many people don't do this in this day and age of lazy cooking, call for home delivery.  Home cooking is so much better for so many reasons only one being that it is probably healthier.  I think it is so important that your kids see you COOKING and MAKING the food instead of just buying things made.  What kind of message does that give them?  That cooking isnt for everybody. Not everybody can do it, like farming, and it isn't bad if I dont do it.  Wrong.  Cooking is for everybody and everyone should try to provide home meals.  The caliber of cooking doesnt matter.  Meaning, you dont have to be a gourmet cook or a Jamie Oliver, just cook. Make anything.  The kids seeing you make a creation, that is just about worth the whole value no matter what you make. 

Thinking about it from when I was a kid,  I really admire my mother all the more that she put so many meals on our table when I was growing up.  And even my father had some meals he cooked. His spaghetti is still ingrained in my memory as one of the most wonderful dishes.   Unfortunately whenever we asked him for the recipe he would just say, "oh, I put in a pinch of some thyme (he said it thyme pronouncing the th) some oregano, some pepper, salt and some other spices I forget.  Beef, tomatoes and paste etc etc..." and he never told us, he never could tell us, the exact recipe.  

But the point is, is that I remember him making the spaghetti, not just dumping cans or jars of stuff together, but making it from scratch.  Even if it hadn't been good, seeing him make the spaghetti would have been worth the whole meal.  But it WAS delicious.  He didnt order out. He never did.  

I watch the Big Bang theory TV series and I find it rather disgusting that they only eat order out pretty much.  I think they send a terrible message to viewers. It is a turn for the worse we have made.  That a company like Blue Apron could even be a big thing to exist.  Roll your own, as the saying goes.   

But back to my father and his cooking.  The funny thing is, my father was our caretaker for over half a year when our family followed him on sabbatical to Europe but my Mother couldnt go.  For the life of me I am trying to remember what he cooked every day.  All I remember is his fantastic spaghetti sauce completely home made.  He wasnt a griller and one can not survive on spaghetti alone.  What else did he cook in that year?  I have a journal somewhere so I have to go back and look it up.  But I wish I could remember off the top of my head.  I would ask him today (RIP dad), "Dad?  How did you survive that year without Mom? What did you cook and how did you stay sane with us three kids at home being obnoxious kids?"  Well in fact he developed a severe back problem and had to stay in bed for over two months.  And then the question is, what did WE KIDS cook and how did we survive?  

I have added three more meals to my repertoire in the past couple weeks.  I am rather proud of myself.

First of all, i tried the stuffed potatoe skins, but we dont get the same potatoes here that you can get all over the U.S. I guess the Idaho potatoes are the ones for baking because they have the real thick skin and you can get a good meal from the skin.   Here we just have the thin skin potatoes.  Still there is a recipe for making cuts in the potato and sticking stuff inside the cuts.  I tried that and it worked so so.  It needs more work.  

I have to say it was good with the stuffing. You can put anything you want in the cuts.  Like myself I like spaghetti sauce or sauerkraut.  But I think this recipe needs a couple more tries to be perfected.  

I dont like to copy what my wife does, I like to strike out on my own and make the kids meals from my own background but my wife taught me to make chicken kebabs which are pretty easy and tasty.  Just grind up the chicken breast with some garlic cloves and 120ml of cream.  I need more practice on them though because I thought you only had to bake them 20 minutes but it seemed that that was half time and they need at least 40 minutes like most of my meals do.  And furthermore I messed up the baked potatoes.  I still need more practice on them.  Mine were a bit soft on the outside and still needed cooking on the inside.  I didnt get a picture of them though.

What made me happiest was making the pork fried rice.  Pictured here.  I had been yelled at the night before because it had been my responsibility to make supper, but when it came to it, I hadnt planned ahead and messed up and my wife had to do it.  So the next night I planned in advance.  I got all the ingredients before and thought about how long it would take me and when I should start. The thing is, when I cooked it, nobody came to dinner except my youngest daughter. She didnt want to eat it because she had thought I was going to make bbq pork and didnt like the carrots in the mix.  I was really saddened by this.  Nobody came to my dinner.  I used the recipe from the delish.com website. So thanks to them. Here is their recipe

Pork fried rice is great because you can use anything and make lots of substitutes of nearly anything. Any meats or any vegetables. And this is a better meal than pizza who most people think is healthy but when it comes down to it, it isnt and shouldnt be for young kids except once in a while.  The pork fried rice has rice and vegetables and eggs.  Even meat is optional.  Some people might not like the frying bit, but I suppose you could try baking it too.  Needless to say, it is good.  I just hope my whole family comes to dinner the next time I make it.  It really bummed me out that they didnt come.  The above picture taken by my daughter is my own creation.   

Oh well, I ll make it for myself some evening I am home alone.  The point is to be able to cook good stuff for the family or just yourself.  Whether they come or not is their fault.  I will continue to work on expanding my repertoire.  

Al Dimeola has been a jazz guitarist for nearly 50 years. Most notably playing with Return to Forever in the 70s with Chick Corea.  Fusion jazz.  Then he has a fantastic live album with John McLaughlin and Paco on "one night live in San Francisco" which was pretty hot.  I have his cd and lp of his 2020 disk "Across the Universe" (pictured below) covers of 14 Beatles tunes.  I will buy the LP soon myself.  I have it available at Maximum Underground for a good price 2 lp. And CD.   My favorite tunes on it by the Beatles are Dear Prudence and Golden Slumber medley.  Both well done.  Give it a listen.  You can order it from Maximum Underground too if you like.  Write to me or my facebook site Maximum.underground