Enough said.

I’m taking yet another diversion from writing about my great weekend to write about a bad day I had today – I need to vent.  And yes, it involves Walmart – when don’t my bad days involve Walmart?!?  First, my husband’s business clients blew him off, yet again.  We were on the verge of a big business deal, but now the clients are stalling and  becoming difficult to get ahold of – not a good sign.  So I took the kids to Walmart to get them out of the house so my husband could have some peace when he called the clients – not that it mattered; they “weren’t home”.  Sigh.  So anyway, at Walmart, I discovered that they finally did it – raised the prices on diapers.  I knew it was just a matter of time; the diapers have been the same price since my almost 5-year-old was a baby.  So after absorbing the reality of the price increase on diapers (I have two kids in diapers!  Time to rush the potty training, I guess.), I go to check out, and I’m next in line, ready to put my stuff on the counter, and an employee says “I can help you on lane 6”.  So I went over to lane 6, but it turns out, the employee was wrong.  They wanted her to take over on lane 5 instead of open lane 6.  So I went back to lane 5, right where I had started, and now someone has gotten in the line with a SUPER-full cart in front of me.  Of course.  And I had hungry kids who now had to wait in a line with all that candy at eye level.  Have I mentioned that I hate Walmart?

Then I  get home and starting making dinner, and I have a crying baby underfoot – I don’t know why he always cries at home.  He’s the happiest little guy everywhere else, but when we’re at home, he only wants to be held, and I can’t hold him while I’m cooking, doing laundry, cleaning or blogging, so…  he cries a lot.  I  guess I can get rid of most of the toys that are starting to take over my living room since no one plays with them!  And all day I’ve been looking forward to a nice hot relaxing shower, so after dinner, I went to do just that.  But apparently running the dishwasher, giving the kids a bath and hand-washing a dinner pot drained the (new!) hot water heater, and my shower was lukewarm with a cold rinse at the end.  Of course it was.  I can only hope that my day turns around when the Cubs begin their season-opening game tonight – I’ve been looking forward to this for months,  so hopefully my bad day wasn’t a precursor to the tone of tonight’s game.  To quote Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own: “May our feet be swift, may our bats be mighty, may our balls be plentiful…”  GO CUBS!

Earlier this morning, we ruined our chances of sleeping in (since our oldest daughter is on spring break) by signing up to bring a pet to my second-oldest daughter’s school – we forgot about spring break when we signed up for pet day for first thing in the morning, oops – so adding to everything is the fact that I’m tired today also.  We let our little ones play at my daughter’s preschool; they had a blast, and we had fun watching them.  My husband read a book to the kids, and we brought the rats for pet day – and it was SO fun to see certain teachers pale and shriek with fright – hehe!

So I guess the day wasn’t all bad; it was just Walmart getting under my skin, AGAIN.  Oh, and get this – I saw the store manager (I’ll call him Mr. Palindrome, since his last name reads the same backward and forward) park in one of the handicapped spots right in front of the store.  To be fair, he does have a handicapped tag, but I know from my sources that the handicapped tag is not for him but rather his elderly mother whom he cares for.  But I still think he should only be able to park in the handicapped spots when she is with him, and I definitely don’t think he should take those spots away from his customers when he is perfectly able-bodied.  Well, just my opinion, the guy irritates me because of all his dirty price games he plays at the Walmart and the small businesses the store pushes out of the way.  Not that it’s a small business, but Kmart is the latest victim of Walmart in our town – it’s closing for good in May.  What a shame – and to think the Kmart in our town was opened as the test store to see if Kmart would work in small town America.  The test was successful, but that was decades ago, and times have changed – just like Walmart’s prices!

***UPDATE*** – The Cubs are on, and they’re winning – YAY!  Soriano opened the game with a home run on the first pitch of the game! How cool is that?  But, for some reason, the game is not on ESPN 2 like tvguide.com said.  My husband bought me mlb.com, but that seems to be broken at the moment – they’re showing video during the commercials and nothing during game play.  Not only that, my husband’s clients have called (but I guess that’s a good thing), leaving me with the two little ones at their crabbiest time of day.  So I have 2 screamers and no Cubs game.  At least they are winning (I think).  When I put the little ones to bed here pretty soon, I’m tempted to join them just so I can start over tomorrow – every attempt I make at relaxing tonight has just made things worse!

Shortly after this blog post is published, the countdown timer on my site will change – but that’s a great thing.  It used to count down until the Chicago Cubs‘ first game of 2009 Spring Training, but since that game is TODAY (!) that countdown timer will soon be edited to count down until the first real SEASON Cubs game of 2009 – YIPPEE!  So here’s to hoping the Cubs win today (and every day!), even though it’s just spring training!

Now I have to go see if I can find the first game of spring training on a tv channel in the rural expanse of Northwest Ohio!  GO CUBBIES!!!

I am still a Cubs fan; I will admit it.  Even after the 2003 Steve Bartman episode, after the 100+ (now it’s officially time to add the + to 100) year World Series drought, and the disasterous playoffs of the 2007 and now 2008 seasons.

I just cannot believe the season is over.  The season started off so promising this year, and picked up momentum all summer, only to leave us bewildered and disgusted in October once again.  So what happened that made them look so terrible during all the playoff games?!?

You know what?  I don’t even want to talk about it.  At least I don’t have to worry about missing the World Series while I’m in Florida!  Frickin’ Cubs.  Maybe next year…  UGH!

Normally I just roll my eyes to yet some other scandal happening in sports.  Athletes are given god-like status by many fans, so why shouldn’t they act like egotistical know-it-alls {sarcasm}?  Today, it seems Little League teams are no longer allowed to use the names of actual major league teams due to trademarks.  Not just the logos- the names too.  That is, unless MLB gets its share of the pie by forcing the Little League to use their “approved” uniform manufacturer.  How cold can their greedy hearts get?  Now, to be fair, the trademark office requires companies to actively enforce compliance or risk losing their trademarks; and the MLB could have been threatened with that from said trademark office, but I really doubt it.  I remember when I was in intermediate league one year and was on the Astros.  A friend of mine was on the Phillies.  Today we would probably be on the Oranges and Greens thanks to this ridiculous enforcement.  What happened to just giving a nod and a wink because you support youth sports?  It sounds like they support $$$ more.  Here’s a link to the story:

Major League Baseball Tells Little Leaguers: We Own Uniform Rights

Well, the Cubs lost their second series to the Brewers this season, but equally upsetting is what happened today during the 7th inning stretch.  Taking place at Wrigley Field, today’s game was the “rubber game” of the series.  Someone decided Bob Ueker, aka ‘the voice of the Brewers’ would be a good guest to come and lead the crowd in ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’.  Nevermind for a minute the events that took place during the song today; this decision doesn’t seem very wise to me from the get-go.  Bob Uecker was born and raised in Milwaukee.  He grew up watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers, and the first team he signed with in the major leagues was the Milwaukee Braves.  He’s been doing the play-by-play announcements for the Brewers on the radio since 1971, and still holds the job.  Why then, did someone deem it a good decision to have him come to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, to lead the crowd during the 7th inning stretch?  If we pretend the Chicago White Sox don’t exist 🙂  – the Cubs have their biggest rivalry with their neighbors to the north, the Milwaukee Brewers.  So why invite someone who has obviously been a lifelong Milwaukee fan to do the 7th inning stretch during a Cubs / Brewers game on Cubs turf?  I just don’t get it…

Here is a play by play of today’s incident.  Bob Ueker comes out to sing the 7th inning stretch.  Nothing seemed amiss, until the part in the song that goes, “root, root, root, for the Brewers”.  He actually said ‘root for the Brewers’ at Wrigley Field.  He was immediately BOOED LOUDLY by the crowd, of course, so then he sings, “you do the same for the Cubs” to the tune of the song, but by this point, the organist just gives up because now he’s out of tune and has lost the organist in the song.  In order to get back on track, he then proceeds to skip ahead, or maybe it’s because he realized it would be an even worse decision to say something like “if they don’t win it’s a shame” about the Brewers in Wrigley Field.  Either way, he skips ahead to “for it’s ONE, TWO, THREE (organist comes back into the song, hardly missing a beat except for the made-up lyrics) strikes you’re out at the old ball game!”  I had kids to tend to, so I didn’t see the entire fallout from the fiasco, but I did get back to the tv just in time to hear Ueker say, “I’m rooting for the Brewers, what do they want me to do, root for the Cubs?”  YES!  Of course the Cubs fans want you to root for the Cubs, especially at Wrigley Field!  And if you can’t do that, pretend!  And if you can’t pretend, then stay in Milwaukee!

Well, forget Bob Ueker and whoever invited him to Wrigley today – that person was probably fired before the beginning of the 8th inning anyway.  The Cubs are off to a great start this year, and I can only hope I get less busy so I can see more games because they are playing some great baseball, and it’s fun to watch!  I can only hope they beat the pants off the Cardinals who are in first place in the Cubs division by only a half game…  That series begins tomorrow and I will be watching – in between kid duties, of course!  GO CUBS!

The Cubs don’t just lose.  They lose with style.  They find new ways to make people say to themselves “I can’t believe the Cubs found a way to choke again!”  But why do they keep losing?  Is it a CURSE?  Yes it is…  But it has nothing to do with goats and everything to do with dollars.

You see, a franchise that has build a cult-like following on the platform of being “Lovable Losers” needs to maintain their status to keep their following.  And the following is where the money is…

Take the Chicago White Sox for example.  They won a World Series not too long ago.  But now, that is history and they are no longer selling out every game and in the national spotlight.  They have no story.  They are just another team that wins some and loses some.

But, to be a money machine you MUST have a story.  You must either be a big winner (like the Yankees) or a big loser (like the Cubs).  If you’re just floating around in the middle, you are not a story.  You are no longer the eternal undergdogs everyone roots for on the side.  You are…  Just another baseball team.

If the Cubs were to win a World Series, Lovable Loser would no longer fit.  And unless they could consistantly win, neither would the title of Elite Team.  So, I wouldn’t expect to see the Cubs winning a World Series any time soon.  They will always be a devistating injury, botched play, or Steve Bartman away.

Because baseball is a business and a good story is good for business.