My Urban Meyer Story

Background: Urban Meyer is a college football coach, a particularly successful football coach.  He had his first division one job at my alma mater.  He is currently in the news because he took a coaching job at The Ohio State University after less than a year after leaving Florida because of some (stupid player behavior/NCAA violations/hoodlums on his team) health problems.

The Story:  Little known NGS fact - I worked for the athletic department at my undergrad institution as an academic tutor. I was a highly coveted tutor, not only because I'm awesome, but also because I had a lot of mathematical knowledge and could tutor A LOT of different types of math classes, the discipline with the most tutor requests.  If an athlete missed an appointment, it was a big damn deal because it meant someone else who could possibly have had that time slot was missing out.


So my last semester working this job, there was a new football coach. The woman who had been my supervisor left her position and no one had taken over her job, so no one was keeping the student athletes accountable about missing tutoring sessions.  I had a football player who missed three appointments in a row.  Since no one in the academic progress office seemed to care, I emailed the new football coach, Urban Meyer, directly.  But I want to be clear - he wasn't THE Urban Meyer at the time - he was just some untested football coach.


Urban Meyer emailed me back, telling me he would take action. And I don't know exactly what he said to that student athlete, but the player showed up for the next appointment, all apologies and maybe with some candy to bribe me.  When I was introduced to Meyer later on in the semester, he remembered my email and told me "you can coach any of my boys anytime you want."  He cared about his players, their academic progress, and the BG community. 


I hope he does well at OSU, despite the fact that it's a school I despise. I have a great respect for the man despite all the controversy and strangeness that has swirled around him recently.  Do good work, Mr. Meyer.  But more importantly, be well, Mr. Meyer.

Green!

Even though it is grey and cloudy outside, inside our apartment, life is thriving. Our kitten weighs in at over six pounds, our spider plant is out of control, the herbs haven't succumbed to winter's doldrums yet, and our Christmas cactus has decided it needs to bloom in November. Isn't it pretty?

What? I'm not supposed to bloom until Christmas? Whatever.

I worry about this plant. My mother-in-law gave it to us when it was just a little bitty thing last year, one of five plants from a bouquet her sister had sent the family. I tried to beg off, using that old "we don't have green thumbs" excuse, but as we were leaving, she shoved it in my arms. I just couldn't say no. She's doing chemotherapy now, my mother-in-law, that is, not the plant. And honestly, even though it doesn't make any sense, I keep thinking that if I can somehow keep this plant alive, she'll thrive just like it does. So I worry.  I want it to do well.  But I worry that the petals will start to fall, the blooms won't come, and I'll have failed. 

Instead, it brings light to us on this dark November day.  We jokingly place bets on when that bud is finally going to pop open and show us everything it has to offer.  We wonder when the kitty will finally eat it.  We test the soil semi-regularly, but since we don't know what we're looking for in the soil,we're on a fool's errand and we know it.  We put it in a place of honor, letting it represent family and love, and care for it as best we know how, pushing the worry into some other realm, some other universe, some other day. 

(I tried to get pictures of Zelda the Kitten but she's a horrible picture taker. I'm going to enlist the help of a better photographer, aka Dr. BB, and get some adorable Zelda pictures up here soon enough.  She's darling and adorable, but just not a cooperative model.)

Tuning In

I can't work the iPod in the car and drive at the same time just like I can't talk on my cell phone or read a map without almost driving off the road.  I don't take pride in this, but it's a weakness that I understand and recognize.  In and out of the bluffs, the radio signals fall off around every bend, so we don't bother to preset stations. I just hit the scan button and hope for the best. 

Joe Diffie sings "Bigger than the Beatles." I haven't heard this song in years, but I'm singing along with the lyrics like it's 1995.  Images of my first pickup truck driving down a dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust behind float through my mind. 

'Til Tuesday comes on with "Voices Carry."  I think about how lucky I am that I feel safe at home, loved and appreciated.  The nightmares have stopped. The white noise drowns out the song and I gladly change channels.

Suddenly I'm laughing as I hear the dulcet tones of Kid Rock blaring "Bawitdaba." I'm in college, living in a crappy off campus apartment on Clough Street with my Bestest Friend.  There's a gecko in an aquarium, spaghetti boiling on the stove top, and grape jelly not in the fridge. 

It's NPR for the rest of the drive home.  Mismanaged government home and abroad, sexual harassment problems for Herman Cain, Penn State in turmoil over coverups and sex scandals, Berlusconi is still an idiot, and I suddenly reach for that scan button once again.

The Incident

It started innocently enough.  After I finished a workout, a workout that included much panting and sweating and dreaming of killing my cartoon trainer every time she gave the impossible order of giving it 110%, I went into the bedroom to strip off my clothes before my shower.  As I sat down on the bed to take off my shoes and socks, I realized that the mattress I was sitting on was wet.  Also wet - the pillows, the sheets, and the box spring.  Water was dripping down the inside of the window above our bed.  There was no explanation for the water since it wasn't raining.

Long story short, there was much cursing, moving of furniture, drying of same furniture, fans going nonstop, towels used to collect water, and a call to the management company where I was told "they'd get to it sometime this week" while water continued to stream into our bedroom.  At this point, I realize that the water smells bad and I am gagging as I am trying to clean the mess up.

When Dr. BB gets home, we wander downstairs to consult with our downstairs neighbor.  It goes something like this:

Us: Uh, is there water leaking out any of your windows facing X Road?
Him: Uh, no?
Us: Well, our window is leaking water, but it's not raining...
Him: Uh, well, I'll let you know if I see any water.

We knocked on the upstairs neighbor's door, only to find no one home. Dr. BB wrote a very kind note requesting information from them and slipped it under their door.  Half an hour later, a note is slipped under our door.  I would take a picture of it and post it here, but I'm just too lazy to hunt down the camera.  Turns out that Brandon and Tiffany*  from upstairs had a "problem with a filter," but they fixed it and the water is no longer leaking. 

We know that Brandon and Tiffany have a HUGE fish tank in their main room because we can see it through a window.  Turns out they must have another one in their bedroom because now our bedroom SMELLS LIKE A FUCKING FISH TANK.

Water continued to seep through the window for the next two days and have I mentioned that IT SMELLS LIKE A FISH TANK in our bedroom? 

Today I finally went to Target and shelled out $4 for some Febreze.  Now our bedroom smells like SPRING AND INSPIRE FEBREZE.  I am quite upset about this situation. 

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the maintenance man has not yet showed up. 

*Names are unchanged because I don't give a shit about protecting the innocent.

Dear Detroit Lions

Dear Detroit Lions,

I am a loyal fan. When I was growing up, I lived in a house with a devoted Chicago Bears fan (ARGH!) and I rooted for you just to spite my father. But eventually I started to really love you. You are representative of what's right with Detroit City - hardworking men and women who continually get beat down over and over and over again, but get back up again and again and again. Ford Field brings a lift to downtown Dtown, part of the revitalization of a city that desperately needs hope. Roary is one of the best mascots in the NFL, Lions fans are loyal, and ours is a storied franchise that deserves its place in football history.

But you also haven't won an NFL championship since 1957, before they called it the Super Bowl. And you haven't even been in the playoffs since 1999. I've been lugging around my Lions fandom from city to city, hoping against hope that someday someone would need to be the person wearing Honolulu blue in the room at a Sunday Night Football game. You haven't had a winning season since 2000!!! Let us not even talk about the 2008 team that went without a single win. But things started to turn around. Jim Schwartz was hired on as coach and brought some excitement back to Ford Field. Matt Stafford was drafted as quarterback and Calvin Johnson began to show the world why the Lions had drafted him. Cliff Avril brought something to the defense, Schwartz started working on shoring up the offensive line, and we had a team at long last!! I'm not entirely sold on Ndamukong Suh as an addition to our team, but things are starting to look good for us. We currently have a winning record this season!!

The Lions Bear usually doesn't watch television - he hangs out here to the left of the television set.

Please don't let me down. Keep it up. It's too bad we are in the same division as the seemingly unbeatable Green Bay Packers, but I think we will make the playoffs. Please. And if you could beat the Bears again when we play in Chicago in a couple of weeks, I could enjoy another victory this season over the dreaded Bears. And maybe, just maybe, I could brag just a little bit to the man I married who is a Bears fan (ARGH!). 

But now the Lions Bear sits on the recliner to root on his team.

Good luck!  Please do me a solid and keep on winning!!

The Town

The name is a bastardized version of Sioux name, the daughter of a chief who, the story goes, died tragically in order to avoid marrying a man she did not love. It's a gorgeous river town, with the Mighty Mississippi making up the eastern border.  It sits in a river valley, bluffs surrounding it, protecting it from the worst of the Minnesota weather and giving it the claim of "most temperate city in Minnesota."  The most notable landmark in town is a rocky mass of limestone that juts out over the rest of the bluffs, the only limestone remaining from the quarrying that was an early industry in the town.

Taken from the scenic overlook when we first moved in August

The 2010 census puts the population at just over 27,000.  Three institutions of higher learning are located in the city and the combined enrollment of those schools is about 10,000 of that population.  But education is not the number one employer here - industry and health care get the top billing.  More than 20% of the land area of the city (town?) is water and it feels damp and wet everywhere you go.  As I sink into the sheets at night, I squirm around, feeling the dank invade my soul.  Rumor has it ice skating is going to be awesome this winter thanks to the lakes that make up such a large part of the town.

It's a border town and we've taken our bikes across the bridge to Wisconsin more than once.  It comes with the eccentricities of any border town - the Fleet and Farm has both Vikings and Packers apparel for sale, we get television channels from both sides of the river, and there is a lot of talk about filing taxes in two different states at cocktail parties.  When we first moved here, all we could talk about was how nice the people were.   And they are nice.  Road rage doesn't seem to exist here.  Folks let pedestrians cross the streets without marked crosswalks.  The clerks at the grocery store are genuinely concerned when Italian parsley is not in stock.  The baristas at the local coffee shop are willing to make recommendations.  It's weird to actually see Minnesota nice in its full glory here since no one who lives in the Twin Cities is from Minnesota, you don't actually get it there.

Dr. BB loves it here.  He really does.  I hope someday I do, too.