Cup of Coffee

January 23, 2014: Delicate

84 Comments

Someone I rely on is suffering an emotional breakdown. I have to try to help this person while also reminding him or her of the responsibilities at hand. I've been in this situation before and there's no easy answer.

84 thoughts on “January 23, 2014: Delicate”

  1. This is my third day off in the last month due to cold. In my district, I have to use sick time or go in to work. I was going to use sick time today anyways because my oldest has a stomach bug.

    I may introduce the sick kid to the 1991 World Series.

  2. spooky, you and the other person are in our prayers. You're right, there are no easy answers. Good luck to you.

    1. I just got the dictionary entry. Now people in the VA are wondering why a guy is laughing in the waiting room.

  4. Express-Scripts are the worst bunch of pieces of crap I have ever had to deal with. Saving me money my ass.

    1. I thot they had customer service agents monitoring blogs (like ours) for comments like yours, and would reply with conciliatory remarks. Maybe they haven't clicked 'Send' yet.

  5. There was ice, ICE(!!!!) forming on the pond outside our office building in GA this AM. I know it's bad at home and I'll be back to enjoy the weekend. But, ice on a body of water in GA? Come. On.

    1. It was nearly 80 here yesterday and the day before. I went on a short walk with the Milkmaid and ended up pitted out. We're in for another historically brutal summer here, if my ol' trick knee is any indication.

      It's definitely strange, given the cold everywhere else.

  6. Poz on extra points. I agree that this is an intentional distraction from that which ails football, but rule changes are classic hot stove fodder. With regards to Posnanski's take, I really agree with the point that not everything has to be exciting. I like that the pitcher has to actually throw four balls to issue an intentional walk, and a hundred other things about sports which aren't terribly thrilling but somehow add to the overall experience.

    But I think my preference would still be to spot the ball at the 20 (instead of the 2) for NFL extra points. It's not because having a lower percentage of kicks converted makes things more exciting, it's because NFL kickers deserve more of a challenge. Making the extra point automatic just seems so unambitious. Athletes are often criticized for not acting as good role models for children--what kind of role models would the NFL be if they just give up extra points rather than challenging themselves by making it harder?

    1. My theory is that the NFL has fully entered and embraced its Baroque period. I look forward to seeing how that works out for the league.

      1. If you're going to eliminate the kick, that seems a lot better than taking points off the board for trying to "go for two".

    3. I cringe whenever someone says baseball is boring because "it's sooo slow" and "nothing's going on most of the time." First of all, that's only true if you don't know what to look for. Two, these people often love football, which has even less going on than baseball. And three, yeah, sometimes it's okay to take a minute to breathe and ponder.

      If they really want to make football less boring, put the clock at 7 seconds after the referee sets the ball down.

      3. Football isn't boring because bloodsport. I firmly believe that a large portion of viewers are in it to see the devastating hit. When MLB implements rules to eliminate collisions at the plate we'll hear a lot of crowing about the sissies who play stick ball from the nfl set.

        1. Unfortunately, it won't just be the nfl set. It'll also be the old guys who'll complain about how modern players aren't tough like they were. Not that they don't already do that, but they'll do it even more.

                1. I always imagined seminary graduation to be like Kwai Chang Caine's graduation to Shaolin master.

                  1. Back in Winona, boys from the seminary nearby would frequent the restaurant/bar I worked at. They'd sit in a booth and drink Jameson and smoke cigarettes for hours.

                    1. I knew a couple of seminary guys, myself. More beer and brandy fellas, but heaters were definitely in play. More often than not bummed from me.

      4. I like football and all, but agree its a lot of nothing before the big plays happen. College football feels slower too because of longer halftimes and more clock stoppages.

      5. Sitting through television timeouts at the few live NFL games I attended as a kid was the beginning of the end of my passion for football.

        1. College Football is even worse. In fact I read something in the last two weeks that in a 3-3.5 hour broadcast of a college football game, there is actually more time spent on commercials than the 60 minutes of playing time.

      6. I would love to see a speed up like this. I love watching rugby because the action never stops. You have to be in good shape to play. In the NFL, you have linemen that weight >> 300 pounds. People are complaining about the size of linemen now, but a 7 second rule (and forbidding substitutions except on timeouts) would naturally reduce the size of the linemen. In turn, this would make the game faster, more interesting, and eliminate a lot of injuries.

  8. The first super cold wave was cool, the second was cute, now this is getting stupid.
    Im ready for spring. Or at least a couple of warmish days strung together without the wind howling.

        1. I want to see the data for the Midwest. The cities below the historical high: Chicago (-5 degrees) and Philadelphia (-1 degree).

          1. Hilarious math on Kare11 news last night. They said they did some "looking into" how extremely cold it's been and found that 10 out of 22 days so far have been colder than average, and they said it like that was a lot.

            1. It depends on whether you have a range for average or a specific temp. If it is a range, then you would have a number of days that were average and you would expect less than 10 to be below average and you would probably expect around 11 days to be average. If you have a specific temp, then you would expect around 11 to be below and 11 to be above.

              1. I agree with you in theory, but how likely is it that a local news station would provide error bars for average temps?

          2. while it truly has been historically cold on average for much of the Midwest, for most of the rest of the country the average temperatures have been around normal

            1. What does 'historically cold' mean? -1 lower than the norm? -10? I don't want a qualitative assessment, I want to quantify it.

              2. Not the same thing.

                1. Chinook -- chilly winds from Montana
                2. Alberta Clipper -- bitter cold from Canada
                3. Siberian Express -- IMMINENT DEATH DIRECT FROM THE POLE!!1!1

    2. Our expected high today is 16 and the forecasted low for tomorrow is 33. How the heck is that possible.

    1. Interesting comparison with both signing 4-year free agent deals at age 30, is Garza worth $1 million more per year than Nolasco? I thought so. I had been thinking that Garza was significantly better than Nolasco. After a quick look, I feel a bit better.

      Garza with 155 innings last year (but only 103 in 2012) - good for a combined* 1.4 WAR and 1.236 WHIP with 7.9 SO/9 and 20 HR allowed
      Nolasco with 199 innings last year (191 in '12) - good for a combined** 1.8 WAR and 1.209 WHIP with 7.4 SO/9 and 17 HR allowed

      *CHC and TEX
      **MIA and LA

      2. Interesting numbers. I thought Garza was better than that, honestly. I still would have liked to have him come back to the Twins, especially for a contract like that.

          1. Well, it's better that he keeps at least one state away from the Twins training staff, then.

  14. spooky, about this time last year I was well on my way to a full-blown anxiety attack because I was so worried about stuff at work. One of the things that got me through it was knowing that I have people who rely on me. It was actually my doctor (the one who figured out I had a vitamin D deficiency) who told me that you have to let go of what you can't control and focus on what you can. Having this place and other good support networks helped, too. I hope things work out for you both.

  15. Found out today that a good friend of my wife and me, a 39 year old mother of three kids under seven, has breast cancer. Man. Found a lump two days ago, went in, rapid barrage of tests, worst was confirmed today. I knew all the tests in quick succession was bad.

    1. Oh, man. They can't even comprehend the love and support they're going to need when she starts treatment. I hope they've got a tight circle of family and friends nearby.

      I'm not going to apologize for the language – it's a real fucking shame that shit like this happens to good, regular folks. I've given up trying to make sense of why this shit gets hung on people who are just trying to raise a family and live a decent life, but that doesn't make me any less exasperated with any of it. SBG, for whatever they're worth, I'll be saying some prayers for your friend's wife, her husband, and their children.

    2. That's very sad. Hopefully, it's not along too far. Both of my boys' grandmothers are in remission. My mom had a mastectomy and went through chemo, but she did pretty well on it. The anti-nausea pills they gave her worked pretty well and she ended just being tired for the most part along with losing her hair and I think her teeth became more susceptible to cavities. She was semi-retired at the time, which made it easier for her to take time off to deal with it. The worst was finding out. She stressed so bad that day that the doctors believe she had a small stroke. Either way, she had some sort of episode and started making no sense. My MiL was even more fortunate. Only had lumpectomy and radiation. Both have been in remission for several years.

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