If it's yellow, let it mellow

I spend most of my days rushing from one thing to the next. I rush to work (because I hate to get up in the morning and I'm always running late). I rush to run errands over lunch. I rush around at work because I have too much to do. I rush home from work so that I don't make my husband wait too long to either work out (we did P90X together before my knee surgery) or cook dinner. (Yes, my husband does all the cooking--he's sort of a foodie and he doesn't like my cooking. And, yes, this is awesome.) When I'm not rushing home, I usually have some volunteer activity or happy hour marketing deal. In addition to all this, I watch the Brewers and try to write something interesting and witty every day. I love my life.

On Thursday night, Seth and I rushed home from work, packed up most of our belongings and headed "up North" for a vacation with my family (all 22 of them). Destination: Madeline Island (LaPointe, Wisconsin). Pit stop: Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

I did not anticipate that it would be a problem to either watch or listen to the Brewers game (we were going to be in Wisconsin!) and then find a place with free Wi-Fi to blog over the weekend. Wrong. There is no rushing on Madeline Island.

Madeline Island really is ... wait for it ... an island. You have to take a ferry across Lake Superior just to get there. There is very spotty cell phone service and no one seems to have a TV or a radio. If you pee, you are asked to let it mellow. It's that kind of place. When my Uncle Bill took us sailing around Lake Superior we hit a place with cell phone service and my phone started to go nuts with text messages. It's strange to be talking on a cell phone in the middle of a lake.

I asked my uncle, who has a house on the Island, whether there was a place where we could watch or listen to the Brewers game. He looked at me with a puzzled expression, "Are you really that big of a fan?" he asked. The best we could do was to get the spotty cell phone service at a restaurant, where my brother and brother-in-law could get periodic updates. The last update of the night was that the Brewers were down 4-2. We had no connection with the outside world once we got back to our rental house. I felt weird. I never go to bed not knowing...

In the morning, I wanted to find a newspaper. What I got was a recount from my Mom. (She and my Dad had come over on the ferry on Saturday morning.) "So, did the Brewers end up losing?" I asked my Mom as soon as I saw her.

"Nooooooo, they won," she said dancing around with jazz hands. My Mom and I have similar mannerisms. We act sort of like kids on Christmas morning when we talk about our sports teams winning. "OK, OK, let me tell you what happened," she continued. "Ummm, Hoffman pitched the eighth and didn't give up any runs, so it was still 4-2. And then someone else pitched the ninth."

"Ax? No, that doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't have pitched if it was 4-2...." I said.

"Someone, maybe Loe, pitched the ninth and gave up a run," Mom said.

"And they won?" I ask.

"Right, well, OK, so Escobar got out. No, maybe he got on. No, he got out. He made the first out. So there was one out. And then there was a walk to Kottaras. And then Inglett pinch hit and he hit a homerun," Mom continued.

I interrupted, "Inglett?"

"Yes, Inglett. So then Weeks and Hart got on. I don't remember how. And then Prince lined one down the first base line but it hit that thing so it didn't go to the corner, it caromed off funny so Weeks scored easily but then Hart slid in just under the tag. He would have gotten in easily if it hadn't hit that thing but it was close because it didn't go to the corner," Mom said with lots of excited hand gestures.

With no Internet, I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to blog or get any more details on the game for a few days. I sat down on the couch and took a deep breath. I guess if I can learn to not flush the toilet, I can learn to live without the Brewers for a few days.

Brewers 6, Astros 5
Game played 8-6-10