Real Kato Blog: Catching Up

Well, hello, blog! So nice to see you again.

This weekend I fretted about termites/ants some more, and then I proved definitively that they were ants. Ordinary ants. There were just a lot of them, and they were living happily under my front porch... happily, that is, until I emptied the can of Raid on them. Then I surrounded the area with poison bait traps. If there's an ant equivalent of the U.N. Human Rights Council, I'm sure they'll be knocking on my door soon.

I also spent a bunch of time with Amy this weekend. I guess now would be a good time to mention something that I've been avoiding discussing: The Boy. Yes, Amy has a son from a previous marriage. (That's the reason, early in our dating relationship, that there were on-weeks and off-weeks for us. She has joint custody with her ex-husband, and they alternate weeks.)

I've been avoiding mentioning him because I imagine some parents would be spooked about having their kids discussed on someone else's blog. But now that Amy and I are engaged, I figure I have a little more leeway. I don't think this is going to turn into a Daddy Blog any time soon... especially because I'm more of a play buddy to The Boy, and not so much a Dad. But I might start mentioning stuff about him from time to time.

Friday, Amy, The Boy, and I went to the Durham Bulls home opener with my friends Ann and Dan and their kids. For those of you who may not know who the Durham Bulls are, they're the minor league baseball team that was made famous by the movie "Bull Durham" (starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins). But surely you knew that.

Actually, there's little left of the folksy class A ballclub that existed back in the late 1980s. Back then, the Bulls played in the old Durham Athletic Park, a rinky-dink facility with bleacher seats. The playing field had undulations and weedy patches. The game music was played by an organ player with no rhythm. The restrooms were dirty and inadequate. But boy, that place had character. I remember going there often with friends from work, drinking ridiculous amounts of Killian's, and sitting near third base so we could taunt the opposing third baseman mercilessly throughout the game. When opposing pitchers would take the mound to warm up, the whole crowd would say "WHOOOOOP!" as they threw a pitch, and then "whooooo" when the catcher threw the ball back.

These days, the Bulls are a AAA franchise, and the new Durham Bulls Athletic Park would rival many major league parks. You can get fajitas and sushi from the concession stands. There's a rock climbing wall. Seats are numbered and they have cup-holders. The grass on the field is immaculate. All the music is pre-recorded. And nobody seems to do the "WHOOOOOP whoooo" thing any more... except for a handful of us weirdos sitting in the upper level, behind third base.

Still, it's a pretty good time for $8.50 a person... well, $8.50 plus the $50 you'll spend on food and drink.

Saturday we saw the movie "Walk the Line" on pay-per-view. It might have been a little bit mature-themed for the Boy; he didn't really get it. But Amy and I thought it was good. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as Johnny Cash. We couldn't believe how well he sang. Reese Witherspoon was solid in her role as June Carter, though her accent wavered a couple of times.

Sunday we went to my friend Samantha and Bob's house for their traditional Easter party. Egg-hunt for the kids, a pot luck dinner, and a little bit of volleyball. Having more than a dozen little kids running around makes for barely-contained chaos, and a lot of parental admonitions like "STOP THROWING THAT" and "DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH". But it was a fun time anyway. I don't often get to spend time with this group of friends, and these are the people who have been among my best friends since the 1990s. Yeah, there's a little less drinking and little more diaper-changing now, but I think it's remarkable that we've all managed to stay close for this long.

So how was your weekend?

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