Category: A Day in the Life (Page 4 of 10)

“There’s always next year” feels hollow and empty

October 29, 2014 / Jared Cash

I don’t know if I can find words to describe this feeling tonight. I know there’s a part of me that should be happy that the Royals made the playoffs for the first time in 29 years. I know that I should take solace in the fact that next year could be “the year”. But I can’t. There’s no way of knowing what the landscape of the team will look like next year. A number of contracts are up and the owner is not known for spending money to build a franchise when he can flip hot players for a quick buck.

A friend of mine made this photo today and told me I could share it. I had hoped to do so in celebration, but it’s too great a photo not to share. I would have loved to put one from tonight up beside this one but alas, it was not meant to be. There’s always next yearâ€¦

Royals Timehop

I’m dreaming of a Blue October

October 1, 2014 / Jared Cash

I’m exhausted. I stayed up far later than I had planned watching the Royals do something they haven’t done since I was 5 years old. I’m not a die-hard baseball fan. I don’t generally watch games on TV, and myÂ familyÂ usually only makes it to a couple games a year. But I’ve always rooted for the Royals in my own way. By watching the score update on my phone and following along with the season, at least for a little while. But life always gets in the way and I usually lose track.

So when I found out that we were playing the Wild Card matchup this year, I was pleasantly surprised. I was even more surprised when I realized that I’d actually have the free time to catch the game, rather than having to be out running around doing something fatherhood-adjacent. So I stayed up and watched the game and got excited about aÂ sport that has done very little to excite me for almost 30 years (barring a veryÂ sweet victory over the Red Sox that I got to witness live while rubbing it in the face of my brother-in-law and a few other games at Kaufmann I’ve caught through the years). And while I probably still won’t be buying season tickets or watching every game on TV, I am still pretty happy to have found joy in a Kansas City team that doesn’t kick a ball around a field or pitch.

I don’t really have the words (or energy) to write a lot about this. Besides, this fan already said everything I could say. I may not have been as dedicated a fan as he during my childhood, but my apathy toward baseball mirrored his own for many years. And while I’ve grown excited a time or two when catching a game at the stadium or just talking about the team with my friends and family that are still baseball fanatics, last night’s game was different.

So go and read that article. And if you, like me and like him, found a little bit of magic in last night’s game, then I hope you tune in for the next one, too. Because, this year, far more than a White Christmas, I want a Blue October.

There’s a Grandma-shaped whole in the world

August 25, 2014 / Jared Cash

My grandmother died today.

I don’t really know how to express how it makes me feel. We knew it was coming. I got to say goodbye. There was no chance that she would recover. But yesterday there was a woman occupying space in the world and today there is not.

My mom’s mom passed this spring, which was different. But the same. I couldn’t find the words I needed then, either. I’d like to believe that writing this will be the first step toward moving forward.

My grandmother was not a frail woman. She was a survivor. A fighter. She already beat cancer, but in the end it doesn’t matter. You can be the greatest fighter in the world, but you always lose the last fight.

I remember seeing her in the hospital when it startedâ€¦
Â Â Â Â Â Â the dying
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â â€¦and I couldn’t believe how much smaller she looked. It wasn’t right. Lying there in that tiny bed struggling to breathe, fighting to stay awake, wishing for an end to the pain, the fight, the weight of it all. And when they moved her to hospice care, I couldn’t believe it. Not my grandma. She doesn’t give up.

Even when she had the procedure to remove fluid from her lungs and she bounced back, we were all told repeatedly that it was only a matter of time. Her strength returned, and with it came her personality and a small portion of her appetite. She was still tired, though. Oh soÂ tired. But each visit made her face brighterâ€¦
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â but tired
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â â€¦and her mood lighter. We could almost forget the dark cloud hanging over us all. Almost.

Saturday, it started to rain.

There was a complication. She had options, but none good. The family had a day to say goodbye while she was still lucid and then her medication would be changed to take away the pain. She held on long enough to give us a sense of closure. Selfless to the last.

This morning I was thinking about work. I was thinking about breakfast. I was thinking about my stuff and my problems and my day. I wasn’t thinking about the woman who took me to church camp and let me run wild; who always wanted to hear what I had to say and always made me feel loved and valuable and smart and important; who went out of her way to tell me how much she loved my wife and what an amazing family I have; who reminded me every time I saw her how lucky I was.

And now she’s gone.

It’s not fair and it’s not right and it’s how the world works.

But there’s a hole in it now that will never be filled.

At 8:26 am Central time, the world lost an irreplaceable piece of my heart, and the only way I know how to mark the occasion is to write this stupid little blog post. Because as insignificant as it is, everything else seems less.

Clark Fork: The Endless River That Waters The Mouth of Hell

June 24, 2014 / Jared Cash

This weekend, we visited family up at Priest Lake (it was awesome, and if I make time, I’ll write more on it later).

Heading home on I-90, we kept driving over Clark Fork in the middle of the night. So often, in fact, that my wife started cursing the signs as an indicator that we were trapped in an endless loop of horror.

Our fears were confirmed this morning when we passed another Clark Fork sign and then, immediately after, a building that said Hellgate Fire Dept. Montana No. 502.

If anyone sees this message, please send help.

#BattleshipLoveBlog

October 11, 2013 / Jared Cash

Last night I decided to watch BATTLESHIP, which is a mostly terrible movie that is full of big, stupid fun. I knew almost immediately that I was going to love hating this movie so I decided to do an impromptu live blog on App.net of my thoughts as I watched it. I’ve reposted the results here:

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12557599

Awe-ful, by the way, is aÂ veryÂ clever portmanteau of awesome and awful, which is absolutely 100% how I would describe this movie.

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12557663

Fun fact: Producers originally cast Ben Affleck in the lead role before they realized that Taylor Kitsch is, quote: “prettier and younger and at least 2% better at acting”. Yes, I know that it’s redundant to type ‘quote’ when I am using quotation marks, but I liked the way it sounded in my head and it’s my blog so nyaahhhh!

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12557801

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12557962

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12558444

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12559295

Seriously, though, these guys earn the award for worst park rangers ever. Their deaths were in no way unfortunate because they deserved to get grind-murdered by space-blender-death-balls. Also, how fortunate was it that the guard with the keys to the abandoned jeep wasn’t completely ground into mushy-man-pulp so that they could recover said keys?

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12560442

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12560676

No, I didn’t misspell ‘know’. I actually meant ‘now’. Stop judging me. It sounds totally awesome when you say it wrong like that.

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12560704

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12560855

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12560916

I really, really,Â really want to know if it’s possible to do to the USS Missouri what these guys did. Because, if so, howÂ awesome would Naval X-Games be?!

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12561092

I had an issue with this at the beginning of the movie but I let it go because there were so many other awe-ful things to see. But when it became a critical plot point, I could no longer hold my tongue.

https://alpha.app.net/zepfhyr/post/12561198

At one point during my rantings, fellow appnetizen Greg Mooney caught my typo and pointed it out:

https://alpha.app.net/gm/post/12561281

As it turns out, the typo was on my “buddy cop” comment, so it fit perfectly. All-in-all, I enjoyed myself. And really, isn’t that what life is all about?

P.S. I kept hoping that the Japanese captain would order the attack on Oahu so I could point out the irony of a Japanese naval officer firing on Hawaii in an attempt to save it, rather than destroy it. Sadly, I was disappointed.

Science is frakking AWESOME.

October 1, 2013 / Jared Cash

My world in slow motion

September 25, 2013 / Jared Cash

I picked up the iPhone 5S the other day and I took the time to play with the slow-mo features today. This is the result.

One frustrating issue I’ve had is that it seems impossible to actually export the slow motion clips unless you either email them or upload them to one of the sharing services. Even sending as an iMessage only sends the full-speed clip. I had to import these videos to iMovie and then re-adjust the speed there, even though I’d already trimmed them to a shorter clip entirely in slow motion on my iPhone. iMovie on the iPhone also doesn’t seem to recognize the slow motion settings, though it also has not been updated since the iPhone 5S was released.

All that said, it’s still pretty awesome and I hope to get some cooler clips over time. I’ll post the best ones here.

To watch the above video in 720p, either click the HD button on the video or just go here.

Reflections from a booth in a diner on the first day of September

September 1, 2013 / Jared Cash

I sit at a table in the diner and watch my family eat.

A booth, actually.

I sit in a booth at the diner and watch my family eat.

My daughter asks for more fries. She uses her hands, signing “more” and then “fries”. She’s very precise when she does it, which I always find funny. I find it funny because she’s only precise when she thinks she’ll be told no. Her movements to sign “fries” makes me smile.

My youngest son very carefully dips his fries into a packet of Welch’s Concord grape jelly. The barest amount of jelly comes off onto the fry and he takes a very small bite before dipping it again.

I think back to a moment minutes before when the food had not yet arrived and my daughter dumped the sweetener packets all over the table. Squealing in delight, she snatched them off the table on large fistfulsâ€¦ at least, as large as her tiny hands would allow. Each fistful is crammed back into the container until it is full and the process begins anew.

My son stacks the jelly, jam, and marmalade packets until they tip and fall. Across the table, the sweetener packets spill across the table once again. But then the food arrives.

I’m back in the moment again. My daughter has crawled to my side of the booth and into my lap. She immediately wants to move away. She doesn’t want me. She just wants to be close to her brother’s fries. She steals them, no longer signing “more” and “fries”, but just taking that which she wants.

Eventually, they calm. I sit, drink my coffee, and smile at my wife. Out the window I see a hot, summer day and cars rushing to destinations unknown. I wonder if they wish they could sit with their family and enjoy a late breakfast.

I take a sip, and the warmth fills me. But it’s not the coffee that I feel.

Delayed Sadness

August 14, 2013 / Jared Cash

I wrote this over two weeks ago, the day after my show for the Fringe Festival closed. I was in the middle of something and didn’t have time to finish my thoughts. However, I felt it was important to mark the feelings I had after the show was over, if not for my own memories than to share it with the friends I made during the show and all those that showed up to support us.

â€”â€”â€”â€”â€”

(July 27, 2013)

Last nightâ€™s show was like going to a party and then just putting on a play in the middle of it. The cast had so much energy and everybody was on fire. It was easily our best show, and itâ€™s a shame that we chose to record a different night.

I realized this morning that I would not be having any more rehearsals for anymore shows: thatÂ thisÂ group of people would not be gathering as a troupe to perform again. And for a brief moment, I felt physical loss. A phantom pain.

“Multitudes” opens in less than a week!

July 15, 2013 / Jared Cash

So the show that my wife and I are in opens in less than a week. I’m excited, though I’m a little terrified, as well. Anyway, I’m really hoping that some of you can come and see the show.

Here’s a flyer that our producer put together to promote the show.

You can also get tickets, check showtimes, and get directions here. Tickets are $5 and Fringe Festival buttons (to give you access to all the Fringe shows, both free and paid) are also $5 and can be purchased at the same place as the tickets. Please come see us and tell all your friends!