medal ceremony

the bullpen baker's end-of-season awards are posted!

ah, baseball season is over, but before you go and cry about it, let's celebrate with the first annual (can they be annual if they're the first?) bullpen baker awards!

best sportage of high socks
1st place: mark ellis
runner-up: danny haren on rootbeer float day (what a tease!)

best rootbeer float creation
1st place: the a's wives, girlfriends, and requisite blondes
runner-up: nick swisher

best bench warmer
1st place: bobby crosby
runner-up: jeremy brown AND antonio perez
2nd runner-up: adam melhuse

best attempt to be on the 25-man roster come April 2007
TIE
1st place: marco scutaro and chad gaudin

worst attempt to be on ANY 25-man roster come April 2007
1st place: d'angelo jimenez


for more, go here.

we don't have an attic, either.

last night we received a frantic call from our landlord, asking us not to use the toilet or shower until further notice due to some "sewage" issue. we went about our evening business, with only a momentary lapse (mine), which caused me to tape the toilet nob and pray for no further instances (really, flushing just comes naturally!). doing dishes two hours later, we get another call from psycho landlord, this time saying to not use anything that produces water (from a pipe- our brita was safe!). so we waited. and waited. and waited. by the time we went to sleep, no call. same thing in the morning. and with no authorization to take a bubble bath or flush the loo, we sparingly brushed our teeth, washed our faces, and spritzed our hair with water before going to work smelling not so refreshingly clean. at 10:53AM, we got a voicemail saying the issue has now been resolved and we're free to use the toilet and our cellar. yippee for the toilet! but what is a cellar?

Batsheva’s “Third” a Stormy Experience on a Cloudless Night

Batsheve Dance Company
Presented by San Francisco Performances
Performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Thursday, October 26, 2006

Batsheva Dance Company, one of Israel’s premier modern dance companies (and originally founded in part by Martha Graham in the late 60s), returned to San Francisco after a 2-year hiatus, and as its last visit had been hyped to oblivion, I was psyched to see the company. Not quite high school, cheerleader “P-S-Y-C-H-E-D” psyched, but still, I felt as though I was walking on clouds prior to the performance. Unfortunately, by the end of the night, these clouds had turned into patches of light fog and drizzle, yet in metaphor only. Outside the weather was warm and the sky star-filled.

For more, go here.

jersey girl

yippee! you and your same-sex bed buddy are now entitled to the same rights as those of married people. it's just too bad these rights are confined within everyone's potentially least favorite state (let's say it ranks somewhere near 46 of 50), new jersey. c'mon, how much fun can you really have in new jersey? sure, there's atlantic city and several massive Ikeas, but that's about it. but at least it's not delaware.

fun facts about new jersey
State Dinosaur= The Hadrosaurus Foulkii
State Folk Dance= The Square Dance
State Shell= The Knobbed Whelk
State Fruit= The Blueberry
State Flower= The Violet
State Ship= The A.J. Meerwald

to find out more about how new jersey kicks delaware's ass, go here.

at least he doesn't eat worms.

being home more than usual lately, i've gotten to view our live neighborhood version of meerkat manor. only with cats, dogs, and birds instead of meerkats and wolves. behold, a furry four-legged feline fantasizing on the futon!

sustainable conservation

working from home has allowed me a little worktime liberty. for example, i can make a real lunch whenever i want. and roll out of bed at 8:15am to be at work by half past. no pets at work? not here! alphie's my personal shedder assistant, howling instructions as i try to multi-task and keeping my toes warm when the temperature tuns south.

one thing i really miss is the interaction with my coworkers on a daily and hourly basis. being home, i don't get to participate in all the fun-loving workplace banter. on the flipside, though, this means i've "conserved" 41 minutes of my day. but what do i do with those minutes? as they're rarely put towards anything useful, must i allocate them towards additional lit review research or report proofing? or can i established 41 minutes of my day towards creating my own home office banter (with alphie, rosie o'donnell, and general hospital) in an effort to feel more included in the workplace? i have a funny feeling this is a question i should never ever pose to human resources.

plane jane

we just got back from a quick weekend in and around la (from newport beach all the way to oxnard), and i have one note for frontier: when welcoming us onto the plane with grizwald, the big grizzly bear, on the tail, don't refer to the plane as "historic." why not put fear into our hearts some other way, like showing one of these movies or tv shows (on your fabulous yet abc-omitting direct tv) that should never, ever be shown on a plane?

1. snakes on a plane. duh.
2. airplane!
3. airforce one
4. repeats of lost
5. red eye
6. flightplan
7. donnie darko
8. any of the 9/11 movies
9. the opening of superman returns
10. final destination

so is his brother a jebi?

this could explain a lot.

tiny bubbles

at the suds n' duds this weekend, some guy overfilled his washer with detergent. and by overfilled, i mean totally disregarded the big signs on each washer with the accompany garden gnome that says "do not use more than 1/4 cup of detergent or this whole place will wash away in one big fell swoop and all that will remain will be your soapy clothes." right, so the guy put in his quarters, soap, and left. 10 minutes later, soap starts busting out of every crevice, down the washer, and onto the floor. i kept waiting for them to all spring together and create some kind of soapy terminator or frothy ectoplasm thing from ghostbusters because of course that always happens at the laundromat when there's an excess of bubbles and imagination.

the whole over-suds event reminded me of a sleepover i had when i was little (6th grade, maybe?), where someone (and it very likely could have been me) had loaded the dishwasher with lots of grubby pots, pans, plates, and most likely regular soap instead of dishwasher soap, and 20 minutes later my slumber party had turned into a slip-n-slide kitchen fiasco. but hey, at least we were 15 clean tweens livin' it up on a saturday night.

so when the guy finally returned, he looked at his washer full of bubbles, shrugged his shoulders, put more quarters into the coin slot, and walked out of the lovely establishment, as if this always happens to him and everyone else all the time. buddy, soapy, sopping, sudsy sweaters are not the norm here. now, personally, i would have taken my foaming garments and put them into a different washer as that seems simple enough. or even asked someone else "hey, what happened?" 'cause then hopefully some nice, kind, attentive neighbor would have said "you over-detergented (new verb here!) your load!" (and totally in reference to the laundry) but the guy just ran the cycle and left. so why would i feel inclined to hobble after him, two crutches, an immobile leg, and one semi-working one, yelling "you really should switch washers, sir! here, let me help you learn how to perform this basic weekly (hopefully) chore." instead, i felt like maybe i deserved a good chuckle. and of course, a few minutes later, the same thing happened. suds suds suds suds suds. out the detergent slot and the door and onto the floor. at least we now know of one corner in the laundromat that's clean enough to eat off of now.

another bonus from this whole event: when we got home from our cleansing afternoon, we saw the detroit tigers eliminate the yankees from the playoffs. which means we're going to the tuesday a's home game! whoopee!

can i have a re-do?

recently, i've noticed more and more people asking me about my name. now, becca is a common name, as is rebecca. but i stopped going by rebecca when i was young. it was long, and combined with my last name, sometimes didn't fit on the 17 little spaces they gave you for exams and such. my dad used to always call me rebecca when i was in trouble, with this deep sounding voice and all- for instance he'd call me on the phone in college, and if he started off with "rebecca aline h...," i knew to say "oops! i'm just on my way to a study group/major exam/work/co-ed naked orgy in the arboretum!" plus, there was another rebecca in my pre-school class, so becca was a way of distinguishing me from her (apart from her strange love of cows and all things chanel). for me, it just worked.

until recently. like when i went for job interviews earlier this year, and my name became a topic of conversation. "is your name really rebecca?" "um. legally, yes. " "so why don't you go by it? are you ashamed of it?" "um. not really. i identify with becca more." "why don't you identify with rebecca?" "gee, sir. i don't know. why don't you identify with mr. shithead more?"

sadly, that response didn't win me any new career opportunities.

last week at the hospital, the nurse asked me why my first name was different on my health card than on the sign-in sheet. "it is?" i said. and he pointed to "rebecca" and said "yes." um. ok, dude. did you say this to mike when his card said michael?

this weekend, after the hawaii fluke that won't be (at least not for awhile), i made plans for our trip to los angeles next weekend. frontier was great and will accomodate my leg of lead. the hotels, though. well, one guy questions where "re" was staying. um, whahaat? yeah, he wanted to know if re h. was staying at a different hotel than becca h. dude, not funny. but i laughed anyway, hoping to not turn up at the hotel at 10pm at night to find out the only room left is a tiny janitor's closet with a cot in the back of the connecting 24-hour diner that only serves meatloaf, bison burgers, and oatmeal.

but the trials and tribulations of a girl called becca doesn't end there. i called the massachusetts dept. of education last week, and of course, with the 3 hour time difference, i got voicemail. i left a message and waited. and waited. and waited. but no return call. with my spill, i sort of forgot about it. until this morning.

someone at work sends out a company-wide email, saying he got a voicemail from the doe in mass, and if anyone at the company is named beckle, to let him know so he could forward the message. well, his number and mine only vary by one digit, and they're right next to each other, so i respond, and low and behold, the message is for me. so now all 500+ employees can refer to me as re-beckle. wonder if it'll fit on my business cards.

brace yourselves

it's wednesday, which means the a's 2nd alds game (go oakland!). to commemorate this fantastic event, my ortho thought it'd be great to give me a new, more fantabulous brace. how sweet of her. note that the angle sucks, as i can't raise or lift my leg on my own. silly atrophied quads. but boy, i'm styling now!