on birthing days

(bee cake here. made for a girl named JEN.)

i solemnly swear to not talk about placenta or post a picture of it. otherwise, enjoy the story of my birth:

26 years ago, my momma was just hanging out a day before my due date when she started to have back pains. just kidding, momma - you're in labor! she didn't even REALIZE it until our neighbor said, "peggy ann, for real, woman, you're having a baby." ahhh, so to the hospital they go.

mom wasn't totally dilated yet, so dad hung out in the hallway with the doc and the nurse. the doctor mentioned an article he had just read in a medical journal that stated that normal/average/regular dudes have seven to ten erections a night. he was in the process of trying to convince his wife to stay up all night one day to run a tally. he wanted to see if he was average.

so then, the nurse mentioned that she was hungry or thirsty or wanted to get away from erection talk or something, so the doc told her to go grab something to eat while they waited for me.

half an hour later, a really tall nurse comes back and says, "ZOMG you'll NEVER GUESS what just happened! Nurse 1 was just in the cafeteria getting tea and the water from the machine splashed out and HIT HER IN THE EYE, burning it! she just went to the ER." no big. sorry, Nurse 1. welcome to my delivery, Nurse 2.

so Nurse 2 joins my dad and the doc and they head into the delivery room. the doc is moving things around and there is this huge, giant metal lamp that he readjusts to see better. as he's moving it, the big tall nurse walks right into it, slicing a GIANT BLEEDING GASH across her forehead. Nurse 2 down for the count and out to the ER herself. oy vey. peace out Nurse 2, please come in Nurse 3. we're having a party here! Nurse 3 enters and apparently manages to make it through my delivery without sustaining any type of emergency medical care. unclear how she managed that, but good on her.

drama drama drama and i wasn't even breathing air yet. whatevs. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

oh, and happy independence day to you!

this is what watching the phils at my house is like:


"cole hamels, that's my boyfriennnnnd. shane victorino, that's my boyfriend. jayson werth, boyfriend." ticking off phillies boyfriends on her fingers, this bit comes from my mother, not my 20-something sister. her boyfriends are all hockey players.


seany bee: "wait... who's our shortstop?"
momma, poppa and me bee (in unison, because we do that): "jimmy rollins"
seany bee: "oh, i thought jroll was second base. who plays second base? OH! pat burrell!"
all other bees: "WHAT?! SEAN! BURRELL PLAYS IN LEFT FIELD! YOU'RE IN LEFT FIELD!"
immediate phone call to other brother bee: "yo, guess what sean just said..."
poppa bee: "i hate casual fans"


i should also note that for some reason, the phillies game was on the living room tv, the den tv, and the master bedroom tv. i should also note that none of the tvs are sync'ed together. there is roughly a 2-3 second delay from the living room tv to the den tv and another 2-3 seconds from the den to the bedroom. so while chase utley was hitting a homerun in one room, he hadn't yet been thrown a pitch in the other. so it started with a "GO GO GO GO GO BABY GO" in one room to "SHUT UP, SHUT UP! WE HAVEN'T SEEN ANYTHING YE---GOOO GOOO! THAT'S my boyfriend!" in the next. "see!? THIS is why baseball should be a family venture, Bee Family!" shouts little sean bee


"WHY ARE YOU SO HAPPY, OLD MAN!?! IT'S JUST A WALK!" - my mother yelling at an 80 year old man waving his rally towel and saggy arm on national television.


"elmo's got new shooooooooes! elmo's got new shoooooooooo-ooooooooooes" this has nothing to do with the phils, with the exception that both are red.


"yeah, you steal that ball from them bitchessss, ryan" - again, the queen bee

"asshole! learn to spell! did you see that sign? he had a sign, on tv, it said 'puck philly.' PUCK! it's a 'PH,' YOU MORON!" - queenie
[from the next room] "some PEople are TRYing to SLEEP here, MOM!" -sean

i don't write about sports. for many reasons. mainly because i am a girl. and girls are not allowed to write about sports. or, if you DO write about sports, you have to be REALLY REALLY well-versed in sports. i am not well-versed in sports. i just love philly. and their sports teams. sans the sixers, but that's mostly just because i am too short to play bball and there was a scarring event in the first grade that i'd rather not get into involving that bright orange bouncing ball.

but ANYWAY. when i was in DC, i never wrote about sports. maybe that is because DC sports are sucky, i don't know. but now that i am in philadelphia, i simply can not not comment on the action that is going on right now.



the phils! are going! to the world series! duh, you knew that. what you don't know is that the last time this happened, i was in FOURTH grade. everything is glorious when you are in fourth grade. the city was excited and they threw a cap on Billy and everybody got even more excited, but you know how the story ends. then later, in seventh grade, the flyers went to the stanley cup. my dad took the whole beehive downtown and we all signed the flyers jersey that they dressed Billy up in. and you know how that story ends too.



so this year, philly says NO.
no more gimmicks.
no more crazy, stupid, shenanigans.
no more dressing billy up for halloween.



we're going to try something different this time. THIS YEAR, we're going to build a building bigger than any other building, including the building that started this whole curse shebang in the first place. AND, at our Topping Off Party, we're going to put a NEW Billy Penn up there, so that Bill is rightfully back on top. TAKE THAT, One Liberty Plaza. TAKE THAT, Dodgers. TAKE THAT, World!



so, the story remains untold, as of yet. but maybe, just maybe, Philly has found itself a new two foot tall good luck charm.