Scratching, scratching, scratching

There is no salve that will cure someone of trying to do ink scratchboard technique pictures. I've stopped screaming for a moment and will be starting up again as soon as I put knife to scratchboard and realise that once more, my brain has forgotten to think in reverse. Or maybe is incapable of thinking in reverse, or is it inverse....or is it negative space I have to remember. Lets see, do I cut away everything that isn't in the picture? Scratch away the lines that form the picture? Scratch away the picture? How do I scratch in circles? Shouldn't it be called an " In-X-Acto Knife" when it's in my hands? How can I stop myself from reaching for the eraser when I screw up? Which is often. Oh wait...that doesn't look half-bad....oh no, now I've cut the dickens out of myself. At least I've stopped screaming, now if I could just stop bleeding....

Chewing, spitting and scratching.

OK I'll admit it, I'm only a part-time grandmother. The rest of the time I'm still 25. Still, I have to return to the current time period because I love baseball and I love my shining-dime-perfect grandson's Little League baseball games. Despite almost freezing to death, sitting very, very still in frog-strangling rain and sucking the life from four perfectly good, newly-charged camera batteries at least once (and sometimes twice) a week, I have to say the games have been eye-openers right from the season opener. You probably think, as I did, that the baseball pros have worked hard and learned all those really interesting moves; the stretches, the wearing of tight pants, the lumps in between the cheek and gum, the tugging at tight pants, the bottom slapping, the scratching in obscene places etc., but it turns out baseball players are born knowing these things. As soon as they get the uniform, even at age 5 or 7, they turn into tiny little A-Rods & Jeters. Of course there's a big gap between looking professional and being professional. About a 20 year gap as far as I can tell. Usually there's more interesting action in the folding chair sections among the parents than on the field...and in neither area is much professionalism shown. Gotta bring the family (barking, defecating) dog despite all pleas by the team coaches and managers. Gotta yell (belated, totally useless) instructions ("Keep your eye on the ball" "Throw it to first!" "Tie your shoes!" "Do you have to go to the bathroom?") to their kids. Then there's the freely offered "constructive" criticism ("If that first base coach can't get it right I'll have to go out there and give him a lesson." "If that moron could field, my kid would've gotten up to bat again.") for the other people on the field. I try to keep my comments short: "Nice hit" "Good eye" "Good swing" and only occasionally enlighten them with succinct phrases to brighten the coaches and managers day ( "What a Maroon!" "Since when is in-the-dirt a call strike?" "He had his foot on the bag, four-eyes!") etc. They are lucky to have me, the only sane grandparent there.