Catching up

Some updates on the people you read about this past summer here at the Safe & Sound blog:

• Let’s start with my husband Mike’s guest post about White Sox pitcher Chris Sale. Last night Mike and I took the El down and got cheap tickets at the last minute to see Sale face Detroit’s Cy Young winning Justin Verlander. Alas. A rain delay. We were left to enjoy our beers and polish sausage while watching the Bears game on the JumboTron at White Sox Park instead. In the end, the game was postponed altogether. We still have Love for Sale, though.
• A cousin in Ohio read the post I wrote about my brother Doug bringing his trombone along on a visit to Chicago and sitting in with some jazz bands here. He forwarded the post to his son and daughter-in-law in Chicago, and Jason and Keely surprised us at one of Doug’s gigs. Friends from the neighborhood came, too, and I had great fun showing off my big brother.
• When Chicago trombonist Tim Coffman taught at that Jazz Camp for adults that I attended in July, I had no idea he knew my brother Doug. The post I wrote about jazz camp described the difficult time I had keeping up with the other jazz campers, and Tim’s reaction when he ran into me at one of Doug’s gigs confirms I was not exaggerating. “You’re Doug Finke’s sister?”
• If you read Sandra Murillo’s guest post about her friend who competed in the 2012 London Paralympics, well, Anjali Forber-Pratt’s races did not go as well as she’d hoped. “I proudly wore my Team USA jerseys,” she said when asked about returning home without a medal. “And I had the experience of a lifetime racing in front of sold out crowds of 80,000 in the stadium.”
• After I mentioned in a post here that Molly Ringwald’s father is blind, her proud dad (and fantastic jazz pianist) Bob Ringwald sent me a link to another Interview she had regarding her new book. Molly is currently on a 15-day book tour, and my brother Doug may be playing with her dad in San Francisco later this month.
• After a guest post by Sue Martin was published here, another guest post she wrote was published on the blog of the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Health Information during National Suicide Prevention Week.
• If you were intrigued by my post about the essay I recorded for Race: Out Loud, they’ve archived the content created for the series. You can hear all of it now by linking to the WBEZ web site.
• I had such fun with the six-year-old great niece I blogged about in July that we invited her back. On her second visit, “Baby Flo” went on a field trip to the Old Town Aquarium store with her Great Uncle Mike. And I mean that word “Great” in every sense of the word.
• And lastly, speaking of great, a blog reader forwarded my post about chef Laura Martinez to an executive chef at a downtown Chicago restaurant. The chef had Laura in for an interview right away. From all accounts, her interview went well — she especially nailed it when asked how she handles challenges in the kitchen. The executive chef is looking to find a spot for Laura on his staff, and in the meantime, she is teaching a cooking class!

I’ll leave you here with the information about Chef Laura Martinez’s class. Sure wish I were 21 again so I could sign up. I could stand to learn from her knife skills!

Chef Laura Martinez is still hoping for a full-time gig. In the meantime, she’ll teach a cooking class for young adults.

The Chicago Lighthouse Vision Rehabilitation Center proudly presents cooking classes with
Chef Laura Martinez
Mondays, 5:00pm-7:00pm, September 24 – December 12
222 Waukegan Road, Glenview, IL 60025
Ages 13-21

Learn to cook: Chinese fried rice; pizza; brioche; couscous; “not your boxed” macaroni and cheese; Grandma’s recipes, and student requests.
Explore: the history and culture of the food of the week; menu planning; seasonal fruits and vegetables and budgetary factors.
Laura Martinez is a graduate of the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary program at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago. She is totally blind, and excels in knife skills and in her use of herbs and spices, through her senses of touch and smell. Her finished product is as accomplished as any young chef, although Laura had the prestigious honor of being a chef at one of Chicago’s highest rated restaurants, Charlie Trotters.
To register contact:
Pam Stern, Manager of Youth/Senior Programs
847.510.2054 or pam.stern@chicagolighthouse.org

Love for Sale

Here’s my husband Mike Knezovich back with another guest post.

Chris Sale stands 6’7” tall, weighs less than I do (I’m 5’ 10”) and when he’s on the mound pitching for the Chicago White Sox on a windy day, his uniform flaps around him like a loose nylon jacket on a

Mr. Bones, comin’ at ya.

speeding motorcyclist. Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers baseball announcer Vin Scully refers to him as “Mr. Bones.”

And I love him. Chris Sale that is. He’s won 15 games and lost five. He makes great hitters look like me when I was a little leaguer. And he is the quintessential White Sox story—that is, a great story, but still somehow not the story.

This Sunday night on ESPN, Sale will be on the mound against the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander—last year’s American League Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player. For true blue baseball fans, it’s a match made in heaven. For lots of casual fans, it will be the first they’ve heard or seen about Mr. Bones. That’s just the way it is with the Chicago White Sox. They’re like the solid big brother to their shrill drama queen little sister on the North Side.

I grew up in a household where both Chicago teams were always on the radio and TV. My mom and dad were both baseball fans, but my mom was the greater influence – Esther was the type who talked and yelled at the radio or TV during games. She grew up near Pittsburgh and worked summers as a waitress in Cleveland. An independent-minded woman who embodied feminism before that word existed, she was a fan of the great Bill Veeck, who owned the Cleveland Indians and eventually, the White Sox (in fact, he owned the White Sox two different times). Veeck put up the exploding scoreboard and (gasp) added players’ names to the back of their uniforms while he was here in Chicago. He also got Harry Caray to sing “Take Me out to the Ballgame” at Comiskey, introduced uniforms that included shorts, and oversaw the debacle/triumph known as “Disco Demolition.” He was not boring.

Veeck was a renegade who irked the establishment. Exactly the kind of person my mom adored. Between that and our proximity (when I and other school patrol boys got a special outing to a ball game, it was to Comiskey Park on the South Side), the Sox became mine, and I became theirs.

Almost heaven. Me at Game 1, 2005 World Series.

A friend who works in baseball once said to me, “It’s important to care deeply about something that doesn’t matter.” That’s how it is with baseball, and for me, with the White Sox. There has been heartbreak (Damn Yankees and others in the 50s and 60s, Oakland As during the 70s, the strike in ‘94) and indescribable joy (2005!).

Back in 1983, I introduced Beth to my parents at a game at old Comiskey Park. The day after our wedding, Beth and I and some dear friends who had traveled in from Washington, D.C went to a game. In July of 1985, just before our first wedding anniversary, Beth and I visited her eye doctor for a follow-up visit after a last-gasp surgery to save her eyesight. We learned that she would not see again.

Before heading back to Urbana to face our new reality, we drove to Comiskey to have a Polish sausage with onions (“wit” onions is the correct pronunciation), and take in a ball game. Twenty years later, in 2005, Beth and I and her Seeing Eye dog Hanni got seats in the handicapped section for the playoffs against Boston. Later, I sprung for game 1 of the World Series.

This year the White Sox are defying low expectations and leading their division. They’ve had a parade of rookie pitchers come through in the clutch. They have a rookie manager who’s never managed at any level before. A starting pitcher who is excelling after unprecedented surgery to fix a gruesome injury (a chest muscle tore free of the bone). They have Yankee castoffs (Jose Quintana and Dewayne Wise) and a Red Sox throwaway (Kevin Youkilis) starting. A guy from Cuba nicknamed “Tank” starts in left and one of his countrymen, Alexei Ramirez (“The Cuban Missile”) plays a sparkling shortstop.

It can be irksome, the way the White Sox story routinely gets lost in the shuffle. Then again, on a whim, Beth and I can decide to get on the Red Line, get off two stops later, get tickets at a decent price, have some great food, and see this phenomenal baseball team. So really, it’s just about right. They’re not a media sensation. They’re a baseball team. My baseball team.

P.S.

If you want to learn a little more about the White Sox, past and future, I hope you’ll read one of my favorite writers–Roger Wallenstein–at one of my favorite Web sites–The Beachwood Reporter. 

Settling in

White Sox home opener, 2012. Hot dogs, fireworks, Jack Ingram singing the national anthem, cheering, a fly-over. Both pitchers settled in right from the start, but it took Whitney a little longer — it was the fifth inning before she could sit down!

The White Sox put on a great show – Mike and I had a ball. It was one heck of a well-played, entertaining baseball game. If you appreciate the game, you appreciate great defense, and there was a lot of it: a diving catch in left field by Dayan Viciedo, and shortstop Alexei Ramirez started a double play with a terrific play behind second. Jake Peavy, who suffered a horrendous injury (a muscle literally tore off the bone) two years ago pitched great. The Detroit starter, Max Scherzer, was almost as good for most of the game, so the game went quickly.

Whitney doesn’t yet appreciate the game, so I’m afraid her favorite part of the day was trotting down the ramp to leave the park and go home!

Opening Day started a week of firsts for Whitney. It’s Spa Week in Chicago, so I’ll be celebrating Monday, getting my first massage since coming home with Whitney in December. Will she sit quietly for the entire hour? We’ll see.

And then, this Wednesday Whitney takes a train with me to Champaign where she’ll be asked to sit through her first university lecture: I’m giving a talk to an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois. I plan on telling the students what it’s been like transitioning to a new Seeing Eye dog, then going over some of the qualifications necessary to become a guide dog instructor. Most guide dog schools require instructors to have a college degree and then do an apprenticeship, and some apprenticeships last as long as four years.

Considering that guide dog schools are non-profit organizations, I would guess the pay for apprentices and instructors is far below what a lot of today’s college educated people expect to earn. If you’re looking for job satisfaction, though, this kind of work must be pretty dang rewarding – I’m hoping my talk might motivate some of these University of Illinois students to consider it as a career. I’m also hoping Whitney will settle in to her first university lecture a whole lot faster than she did for her first baseball game – there won’t be any fireworks or hot dogs, and everything I’ll be talking about will be old news to her!

Another great-grandchild for Flo: Addie Rose.

We’ll cap off our week of firsts on Friday when Whitney will attend her first birthday party for Flo, who will be 96 years old on April 20. We’ll ride a commuter train to Elmhurst and meet Flo and other family members to celebrate at the wine bar across from the train station. No need to bring presents; Flo says she already got the gift she wanted. Her 20th great-grandchild, a healthy little girl named Addie Rose, was born on Friday. We’ve got a lot to celebrate, and It’s going to be one joyful celebration. Cheers!

Hanni + White Sox = Winners!

White Sox fans who found out Hanni was coming with me to Monday’s game against the Tigers, and then again to last night’s game against the Twins, all told me to make sure she brought home a winner.

And she did it. Figuratively, and literally. Monday’s do-or-die game against the Tigers had a three-hour rain delay, I had to have someone from guest services accompany us outside towards the end of the three hours so Hanni could “empty” before the game started. And, good girl that she is, She did it. Right outside White Sox Park.

I have never, ever endured such a long rain delay Before, but…wow! Was it worth it! A grand slam Monday meant we beat the Tigers and could play the game last night against the Minnesota Twins. Mike couldn’t join us Monday afternoon because he had
to work, and tickets for the Tuesday night game against the Twins sold out in one hour. Hanni to the rescue again! I called the park yesterday morning, asked if they still had any handicapped seating available (Hanni needs the leg room, of course! and…voila! Mike was able to come with us last night, too, along with two other friends.

Thank you, Hanni.. Last night’s do-or-die game against the Twins was one of the best baseball games I’ve ever been to. Two reasons why: first, the pitchers from the Sox and the Twins each pitched outstanding games, real nail biters. That meant the fans were on each & every pitch, so i could judge the pitch count just by the reaction of the crowd. Second, the game was so last-minute that Major League Baseball didn’t have time to reserve special tickets for dignitaries and celebrities., Behind us were a bunch of union plumbers and electricians who had bought last-minute standing-room-only seats — it sure seemed all the fans there were pretty “normal.”
Except for Hanni, I guess.
The game was very, very fun. Well, okay, it was *especially* fun after Thome hit his home run – we ended up winning one to nothing, which means THE WHITE SOX ARE GOING TO THE PLAYOFFS!

Hanni was pretty excited and animated during both games. After Thome’s home run last night, though, one of the union guys behind me poked my shoulder and yelled (he had to yell, the park was so loud with cheering) into my ear, “Your dog is sleeping!” I felt down, and sure enough, Hanni was curled into a ball, sawing logs. She had done her job, so to speak, and was confident the White Sox would win.

For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, let me try to explain why the White Sox had to win three different games, against three different ballclubs, during the last three days, in order to get into the playoffs this year. No, wait. I’m too exhausted to explain. Let me leave you with a blurb from MLB Headlines instead. I’ll paste it below and close this post with one of my favorite salutations: Go, go, White Sox!

Chicago, IL — (Sports Network) – Alexei Ramirez slugged a grand slam to break a tie in the sixth inning and Chicago steamrolled Detroit, 8-2, in a make-up
contest from U.S. Cellular Field.

The extra tilt was necessary after the clubs’ September 13 game was postponed due to rain. As a result, the White Sox came into action trailing the AL Central-leading
Twins by a half-game.

Jermaine Dye knocked in a pair while A.J. Pierzynski collected two hits and drove in a run for the White Sox (88-74), who will host Minnesota for a one-
game playoff Tuesday to determine the division winner. Whoever comes away victorious will face the AL East champion Tampa Bay Rays beginning Thursday.

Chicago is expected to send John Danks to the hill facing Minnesota’s Nick Blackburn for a 7:30 p.m. (et) start.

“Tomorrow will be just like today,” said Pierzynski. “We win or go home. It’s that simple and I am glad we are playing here.”