Sunday, March 14, 2004

Books I Didn't Buy On D's Birthday

W asn't planning to post since it's D's birthday.  We already ate a bit-o-cake. Now the phone's ringing off the hook and The Practice is on commercial break, so I have a spare minute to put one together.  

We did birthday morning at B&N; could've gone to Borders, but, says D., B&N has a better selection of books for kids.  And it's D.'s birthday.  Did I mention that?  Here are the books I didn't buy at B&N (although I handled them, read parts, leafed and leafed, smiled at the idea of purchase):

Simulacra and Simulation - Baudrillard
Cod - Kurlansky
The Social Life of Information - Brown, Duguid

Couldn't justify buying them, not because they're not interesting or because I have too much to read already, but because a move might be on the horizon and, well, books are heavy.  We already have a ton.  Ton-and-a-half?  For the next three months or until the crystal ball crystallizes, it's the library for me.

Another book story: This afternoon in Smithville, Mo., at Stampede's last game (ever?), I spent a few minutes in the second half digging in my coach's bag (you know, pens, pencils, a dry-erase marker board, first aid kit, whistles, note cards scribbled with practice scripts, a binder with birth certificates).  I was rooting around for a copy of the National Federation of State High School Associations Simplified and Illustrated Basketball Rules for 2003-2004. I'm not usually one to fuss about officiating, but today got me riled.  An abomination! I was this close || to book-crossing the unqualified duo, gifting them with the Simplified and Illustrated as one to remember us by in our last game of the season.  Yep.  That bad.  But I refrained, remembered that if they weren't certified officials by now, they probably didn't aspire to be.  And I'd be villainized as one of those coach/parents. And it wouldn't be worth the $4.50 I paid for the small, rule-filled pamphlet.  But that's what was on my mind during a few minutes of the fourth quarter of the last game I might ever coach: doing a book-crossing for the refs with the Simplified and Illustrated.  Maybe I should've. Then again, book-crossings aren't supposed to be mean spirited.  Right?

Posted by dmueller at March 14, 2004 10:11 PM to Ground Swell