full day's work

today started out like any other...at noon. most of my days start that way, me having to talk myself into getting up at the crack of 12. I told myself I wouldnt sleep in so late when i was in Germany; i'd wake up early, do a crossword puzzle, read the Times to stay current with the national climate, maybe have a coffee (I've never been a fan of coffee, but then again I wasnt a fan of beer at first and look how that turned out). then I got here and realized that no matter what continent I'm on, i'm still a night owl, why read when i can sleep, and i still dont like coffee. and until this week, its been way too cold to get up before noon. I know some of you are reading this and saying that makes no sense, what bearing does the temperature outside have to do with me getting my ass out of bed. Well here's my story and i'm sticking to it: (then i promise I'll get to why this post is called Full Day's Work.)

Here in Germany, they dont have central heating, no furnace. instead they have individual heating units in every room (i'm pissed i can think of the name of the damn thing right now but basically it heats up water and the hot water runs through these things in each room and that heats up the air.) well theres no need to have these heaters on when you're sleeping because youre wrapped up in your blanket and who cares if its 50-60 degrees when youre sleeping, so we turn them off at night. also with this system there is no real air movement, so the only way to get fresh air in the rooms (to get out the stench of dirty baseball clothes) is to open the windows during the day. Until this week it barely got to 5 degrees celcius. so you can imagine the ground is a bit chilly when you first roll out of bed in the morning. and if you know me at all, you know i despise being cold, so that is why it is too cold to get out of bed until noon.

so back to this full day bit. At noon, when it was finally warm enough to let my feet hit the floor, I remembered that I told Henrik that I'd help him with the roof on his house. I made this promise sunday when i was hammered so i cant imagine he had too high of hopes of me actually coming at 5 am. So i got dressed, jumped on the bike, and pedaled over. 3 minutes later, i was across town at Dallmann Farm just in time to see Henrik pulling out of the barn in his tracker. He told me that they had good weather yesterday so they went ahead and tore the roof off when i was at practice yesterday afternoon. but there was still more work to do inside if i so desired to venture in. There was a bit of a smirk on his face as he said this that almost made me turn around and just ride home, but i stuck to my word that i would help despite my fear that there was some nasty stuff to be done. walking up the stairs I could here hammers and drills and scraping. No, he couldnt possibily want me to...no, i dont remember seeing any when i was here a week ago...no surely not. my feet hitting the last step, I was staring my worst fear in the face...well, shit. I thought i left this behind, I thought i was passed this, I thought i had pulled my last piece. Obviously I thought wrong, hanging there in front of me is what i dreaded the most...wallpaper. But this was not any paper i'd seen before, no, this was different and really it should be called ceilingpaper. and its thicker than normal paper, about 4x as think, and 4x as hard to get off. Dad, I know youre cracking up as your reading this, picturing me holding my 2 inch knife (they didnt have a 6 inch) cussing every motherloving piece that wont come off when i think it should. Luckily our starting 3rd baseman and lead-off man, Johannes, or Hinesy as we call him, had already gotten half the ceiling done and had wet the rest of it down pretty well. I'll spare you the boring details but suffice it to say the rest of the room didnt go as well as the first half. (it never does) in all we spent 5 hours in that room and just got half of the ceiling done and half of one wall. I will say that German construction crews know how to work. at 2:00 today we stopped and had a beer. we had another one at 5:00. its surprising how much faster the day goes after you've had a beer.

I had softball practice today at 7 pm, so i went straight from peeling wallpaper to the field. Today was a good practice, since day lights savings hit here on sunday, we've been able to have half our practices in the light of the sun before having to turn on the field lights. By doing all this coaching and hitting ground balls and flyballs I'm learning that there is a real art to hitting Fungos. Its not as easy as it looks to hit a ball right where you want exactly how you want. I'm gaining a new appreciation for coaches that are able to hit fungos without messing up. Although i will say that im pretty damn good at hitting it straight up to the catcher. The girls wanted me to help them with pitching at the end of practice and its a good thing at least one of them know what they are doing, because i have no idea how to throw like that. I tried secretly after they all left in the privacy of our very well-lit field surrounded by open farm lands. I'm sure being the only tall, bright spot lights on for miles wasnt a beacon calling people to look at the moron flinging a ball against (and sometimes over) a fence in the middle of the night. needless to say I'm no Jenny Finch nor will i ever try to throw like that again.

I think from now on i'll rake and drag the field too. Maybe its the coach in me, but having a perfectly manicured yard is my new goal for the season opener. there wont be any more dragging the rake over the grass, no more nasty lips on the infield, no more weeds growing behind where the 3rd baseman plays. (and will someone please explain to me why that is always the spot where the grass grows. Every field ive ever played on has always had grass grow behind 3rd base. Is it because no one really walks there or what? I'm opening the floor for debate.) You have to take pride in the place you call home, and it all starts with the coach. Practice got over at 8:45 today and i didnt leave until almost 11 because i de-weeding the basepath between 1st and 2nd (that is my first order of duty on the field) Im also want to reshape the circle around home, fill the trench infront of shortstop and the hole at 1st base, and continue to pick up rocks around the infield. This place is going to look like Fenway when i'm done with it.

So despite the fact that i didnt start until noon, I still put in an 11 hour day on my feet. You know, if the work day started at noon everyday, I think i could get a lot more done. I'm pretty worthless before lunch and ive never really liked doing work during the day, I feel like im wasting the sunlight....even if i am in bed all morning. I do my best work from 10pm and 4am anyway. Hey it worked out in college didnt it...


A-Ron