Baseball, World of War Craft, and being a pseudo-Mom

My traumatized brain is slowing coming to peace with my bad experience explained in my last post. I just re-read it, and it doesn't even convey the horror and fear that is in my memory. I was eventually able to fall asleep that night at around 2 AM, but thinking about it now just makes me nauseous.

ANYWAY, on to bigger and better things. The next day, Fourth of July, I went to a Giants game with my brother, Jeff and his girlfriend Jess. (in editing before posting, I noticed I wrote 'his girlfriend Jeff' which just goes to show how close their names are...freaky.) I've never been to a Giants game/AT&T Park and I was pleasantly surprised at how fun it was to watch BASEBALL. I played T-ball as a kid so I'm not new to the sport of course, but it's always seemed like a sport where not a lot happens. Too many pauses. But it was very exciting, especially since we killed Houston, and I was happy to learn a lot of interesting facts from Jeff.




I also got thrown a free T-shirt (as shown below) which says "Orange & Black Attack". We got some Gilroy Garlic Fries at the game which were delish. I had no idea Gilroy was famous for garlic, but now I know they have a Garlic Festival?? Crazy.






The rest of the Fourth was spent with Jeff and Jess lazily watching fireworks in DC and NYC and dove into hot dogs and some sort of special, delicious avocado/cucumber/bread salad. As far as fireworks go, NYC wins hands down. Imma be at the show next year I hope! I'm sure you are thinking that it's kind of sad I didn't see a live firework show, but I had gotten 14 mosquito bites at a BBQ a few days earlier, and none of us really felt like waiting through a couple hours in traffic to see a sub-par display.

It's been over a week now since my parents left for Europe. When I told friends I had to go home this summer to 'babysit' my brother while my parents were in Europe, many questioned why I would need to babysit him if he's old enough to take care of himself. Well here is why: He would be in the SF Chronicle with the headline "Pleasanton Teen is hospitalized for starvation due to World of War Craft addiction." Maybe that's a stretch, because he IS a smart kid, but seriously, every evening I have to ask him what he's eaten today. "Umm, two bowls of Special K." Seriously?? It's 7 PM!! You swam for an hour and you are a big teenage boy who needs like 3,000 calories a day. And it is hard to make food for this kid because he's a picky eater, but the other day I was very proud of the meal I made for him. I made Chinese Chicken Salad, put a side of cut of apples and cinnamon, 2 string cheeses, and I made him eat wheat toast with honey. And I sprinkled organic flax seed powder on top of the honey. I thought I was pretty tricky, thinking it would dissolve into the honey and he would never know how many nutrients he was getting!! But it doesn't dissolve FYI. I tried smearing it around to help the dissolving process. Didn't help. So I fessed up and told him he had to eat it as punishment for breaking curfew a couple nights ago. Well...he liked it! So parents, get your flax seed powder because you can't taste it and it's soooo good for you.

Playing 'Mom' is kind of fun in a way. I get excited when I make these balanced and nutritious meals, but not so excited when you have to nag. I am such a dork...because Dave had broken curfew (by 45 minutes and arriving 2 hours after he said he'd be home), I told him that I would have to tell our parents since this was the second time he was late. If you know Dave, you know that he is very calm and he quietly acknowledged why I needed to tell them and that was that. But no, when I left the room I started crying. Why?? Well I know I am a baby and cry pretty easily over anything that frusterates me or if someone else is feeling bad, but I couldn't help it! I hated playing that role of the punisher, especially since I am used to the role as the punishee, and I don't want to be the 'bad guy.' When Dave was late coming home on those two nights, I was so angry and upset that he would want to disrespect me and not think about my feelings! Of course that made me feel worse because...holy crap...I did this kind of thing to the power of 10 when I was his age. So I have come to the conclusion that life experiences need to be reversed because it seems you only learn how important things are (playing by the rules, coming home on time, helping out with things, etc) after the fact. I don't think I am looking forward to being a Mom someday and having to play the 'bad guy' on a regular basis!