HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAL!

Take a look at my old, old, old buddy.  This is Steve Torbeck.

Steve has a birthday tomorrow, June 14th, 2011.   He will become 62!  It's his first Social Security birthday and he deserves it.

I got to know Steve back in 1972 (he claims) when he came up from the "minors" in Tucson to join we "professionals" at what was then KTAR-TV in Phoenix.  If Steve is correct, I beat him there only by months.  I was a reporter/producer, Steve was a photographer.  We hooked up and became great friends, probably due to the fact that we both liked to drink and be silly.  Lots of adventures ensued. 

Steve quit drinking more than a couple of decades ago and it probably saved his life.  I haven't and it probably hasn't.  But, amazingly, nearly 40 years later, we're both still alive.

Steve went on to become a "one man band" at Channel 12, originating "12 Country", where he not only photographed but reported stories from around Arizona.  I can remember arguing with him about doing a "stand-up" in his pieces.  He didn't want to, thinking (as many, many other reporters did in those naive days) that it just distracted from his story.  I told him those days were gone, he was now a "star" and it was necessary to do it and keep his job.  So, he finally agreed.

He left the t.v. station before I did and started his own company, which was known then and today as First Take Video.  The name was a kind of in-joke dating back to his days in Tucson, where he earned the nickname Five Take Torbeck.

During my days as a reporter, Steve did me well.  Later, during my days as a producer, he did me well with his reports from the backroads of Arizona.

And during the past few years, after Steve became a hardcore baseball fan, he's done me well by inviting me to join him at games in Phoenix.

Steve is one of my true, good friends.

Happy birthday, pal.  I love you.  (But for god's sake, don't ever tell anyone I said that!)

OHHHH, SHE'S HOME!

SWMBO has been away for a few days.  The BRD has been gone for a few days so SWMBO has been house- and cat-sitting for her.  Which left me at home with our three cats.  We got along all right but Muggles is definitely SWMBO's cat and she let me know it the last two days.  She would come into my den and cry and cry.  I would tell her that her mistress would be home in a day, and then I'd tell her she'd be home tonight.

So tonight when she came home, she was suddenly surrounded by all three cats . . . all of whom seemed to be saying "YOU CAME BACK . . . YOU REALLY CAME BACK!"

But Muggles was the most happy and she lay as close as possible, draped over the end of the couch, happy again.

Meantime, the big black boy cat, Blackwell, has finally discovered a way to get out of the back yard.  He found he can leap up to the top of the wall up by the gate and mince along the top of the fence and achieve freedom.

So after two evenings of that, I refused to let him out of the house.  Does this picture (through a screen door) appear to show a cat trying to shame me into letting him out?

Well, he can just wait.  SWMBO says I have to get him a harness and one of those 20 foot leashes with a button that pulls him back.

He'll just LOVE that.

WARMIN' UP

It's 85 degrees at 3:30 in the afternoon.  June 10th.  Less than a month until the monsoon is scheduled to start.

Oh yes we do!  (I heard those dubious snickers about a monsoon in Arizona.)

It's a regular season here, usually starting around the 4th of July and running until September.  If you were to check the description of a monsoon, you'd learn that it is a change in the direction of the wind.  Where normally our "breezes" (heh-heh) come in from the West Coast, during the monsoon season they blow up from the southeast.  Dust storms down in Southern Arizona first, sometimes bringing rain.  Up here the mountain tops apparently dig into those clouds, releasing more rain.  Not a lot, mind you, but enough to cool down the late afternoons and evenings.  After a few weeks of dry, sunny heat-filled days, the cooling monsoon rain is a relief.

I remember my first day in Phoenix, back in July of 1972.  I was in a little store when raindrops began coming down outside and everyone rushed outside to get wet.  I thought they were crazy but then I learned that it hadn't rained for something over 100 days.  I got used to it and became a little crazy myself, in time.

YOU DIRTY DOG . . ER, CAT

We've taken to letting Blackwell join us for cocktails on the back patio.  It took awhile.  He was taken, initially, with jumping over into the neighbor's back yard and then, who knows where, until he got tired, or hungry, and came home.  Well.  I didn't like that, even though he wears a collar with a badge with his name and our telephone number.  I would get very nervous about where he had gone and I'd search and call his name and worry, worry, worry.

Ridiculous, eh?

But that's the life of a pet owner.

So I finally put up enough fencing and chicken wire and glass chunks that he was defeated in his escape plan.  So, now he is confined to our fenced-in backyard and he has only us to commune with.

Now if I could only break him of his habit of rolling in a patch of dirt immediately upon his escape from the house.

A DAY IN THE (BALL)PARK

I accepted my friend Steve's invitation to go to Phoenix yesterday and attend the final game in the series between OUR Arizona Diamondbacks and the Washington Nationals at Chase Field.

The next photo shows an angry Justin Upton, just after being hit by a pitched ball for the fourth time in this series.  An umpire is trying to calm him down as Matt Williams moves into the center of the action.  The Washington pitcher has been tossed out of the game and their manager is about to be evicted.

Both managers and two pitchers were ejected and four players were hit by pitches.  Espinosa of Washington was hit twice by two different pitchers.  We kept waiting for a "donnybrook" to break out but it never did.

This young fellow was a hero in our section as he made a great one-handed grab of a high foul ball.  He got a standing ovation from the crowd.

Finally, here are the two old codgers - Steve on the left, me on the right - getting ready for a Diamondbacks victory.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  Our team made a gallant run in the 8th and 9th innings when they scored their only runs to tie the game at 4 apiece.  But they couldn't bring the winning run across and a grand slam home run in the 11th inning brought victory and a series split with the lowly Nationals.  Still, a great day in the park.

CRAFTY

Prescott Valley advertised an arts and crafts fair for this weekend.  I stopped by briefly this morning.

Unfortunately what I saw was more crafts than arts.

Woof!

STUFF I LEARNED ON FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK, as some of you know, is one of those "social networking" sites.  I joined it awhile back, then got off it when a former colleague of many years ago got "pissy" with me, then got back on it with limited "friend"-ships.  Sometimes I post, sometimes I comment, but mostly I just read stuff that others have brought to the site.  One of my longtime bookseller pals, J. Godsey, seems to spend an unconsciounable amount of time turning up interesting items.  For example . . this bit of information.

Later, she turned up a great list of non-fiction articles which I suppose I could have found on my own if I read the Atlantic.  But I'm having enough trouble trying to keep up with my New Yorker subscription.  But there's some interesting reading on that list, like the article about Trader Joe's.

Then there's Turner Classic Movies, one of the few commercial sites to which I subscribe.  They send out tips on upcoming films they'll be showing on television.


Of course, I had to subscribe to my Arizona Diamondbacks site, which tells me lots about my favorite team.

Then there's my blogger pal, Joan Perry who keeps me up to date on restaurant news from Charleston, as well as a ton of other items about the city.

I could go on and on but I think I've given you enough information on what keeps me turning to FACEBOOK.  With all of that and blogging and e-mail and much more on the Internet, I'm having trouble getting through two books I recently brought home from the library.

Good thing I'm retired so I have all this spare time!