Gratuitous Cute Dog Photo

PITTSBURGH -- This guy (and the cute little kiddo behind him!) and hundreds more folks were enjoying the concert in Schenley Plaza last night:

 

Blue Slide / Bark

SQUIRREL HILL, Pa. -- There is a piece of Frick Park on Beechwood Boulevard near Forward Avenue that is sometimes called Blue Slide Park. Beside the entrance to the dog park, a slide is cut into a hill near the playground's swing set. The slide is painted blue, but after use by a lot of Pittsburghers' butts, now old red paint is showing through. Grab a flattened cardboard box and take a slide.

She's not sitting still. She's sliding on a piece of cardboard.

It might seem like I'm changing the subject here, but stick with me. Perhaps you have heard of rapper Mac Miller. He's from Pittsburgh, and he wrote and recorded a rap called "Blue Slide Park." Sorry rap-addicts, but to me it's mind numbing drivel, even torture. But apparently lots of somebodies out there don't agree with me because it's made a lot of money and made Mac famous.

Larry's Poker Journey Continues

PITTSBURGH -- After returning from the WSOP, it was hard for Larry to go back to Rivers Casino and play just old regular tournaments. But he has played some, and he's done pretty well.

Last Saturday, he decided to go for it, to win the noon tournament no matter what. I dropped him off and didn't find out until later in the afternoon that that particular Saturday noon tournament was a deeper-than-normal deep stack. It was a guaranteed $25,000 prize pool with a $500 buy-in. The usual Saturday chip stack is around 12,000 to start. This one was 30,000. Instead of 20-minute levels, the levels were 40 minutes.  It had the potential to be a long day.

By the dinner break at 8:15, Larry had more than the average chip stack. I met him in the poker room as the break started, and we went upstairs to a lovely buffet dinner.... It's a tough place to eat for vegetarians who no longer eat gluten or wheat flour and who eat very little sugar. (I'm the still-eats-some-sugar person. Half a brownie. It didn't kill me.)

As play started again at 9:15, there were 14 players left out of 60. 

There was one other wife sitting behind her husband. She had been there since noon.

At midnight there were 12 players. The final table came together just after midnight. By 2 a.m., the remaining 5 players had been battling it out for a while. FINALLY, everyone agreed to chop the pot. 

Hey WSOP Main Event, take that. 



 

Do You Hear What I Hear?

PITTSBURGH AND CAMBRIDGE, Ma. -- I almost ran over a young woman jogger. I was pulling out of a parking lot at Carnegie Mellon when she popped out from behind this sign and dashed right in front of me. 

 

While I sat in my car attempting to absorb a sudden flood of adrenalin, she jogged merrily down the street, ear bud wires hanging from both ears, oblivious to that fact that she had just been spared a really bad day.

I took a deep breath, pulled out and drove beside her, willing her to look my way. Nothing. She turned right, toward the Carnegie Library. I drove past her and pulled over, waving my arms. She saw me and slowed down, tugging on her ear bud wires. Pop, the first one came out, and then pop the other one.

            I hoped my voice would sound calm and rational, not loud and crazed. No luck. “You ran right in front of my car! I almost hit you!” She looked confused. I pointed to the ear buds in her hands. “Take those out when you run. You need to be more aware!”

            “I’m sorry,” she said, not just to me but, I think, to her potentially flattened self.

            Part of the reason I reacted so strongly is because a few years ago, the minivan I was driving through Squirrel Hill was totaled by a driver wearing headphones. The driver’s brain was so shut off from the fact that she was actually driving that she “didn’t see the stop sign.”

            Plugged-in people cause accidents and nearly get smooshed every day. Those are two pretty good reasons to at least cut back on headphone usage. But another reason is the sounds of the natural world that might never be heard. Like the song stylings of a mockingbird. Have you ever heard a mockingbird? Believe me, you would know it if you have.

            Just after sunrise in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I heard the bird outside my hotel window singing like a star in a Broadway show. Using clear, strong projection that CMU voice majors would envy, he’d repeat a 3-note ditty then maybe a 4-note stanza or a series of runs. Add in a trill, a scale, a frog. A frog? Sure, why not. Mockingbirds repeat what they hear, and since they don’t wear headphones, they hear a lot of critters.

Mockingbirds aren’t just about sound; they’re about a complete performance. 

For this bird’s solo, his opening stage setting was the tippy top of the pine tree in the photo, swaying in the early morning breeze, where he harnessed the acoustics provided by the buildings on all sides. As he came toward the end of his repertoire, he dove from his perch, white wing stripes swooping past as he circled his tree, heading for the tallest building in the complex. 

On the windowsill of an upper floor, he let loose three repetitions of a piece of bird music. Dive. Swoop. The next higher floor. The sounds of crickets, amplified. And then, the pinnacle. The top most extreme corner of the building. Like a figurehead on the bow of a ship, he leaned forward, scanned his world and then let it rip. Like a fireworks finale, he threw everything he had into one long bird-song sequence. I expected him to end with the piccolo solo from Stars and Stripes Forever.

            Who wouldn’t want to hear that? And to think that I was about to plug in my own ear buds to listen to music in my hotel room. I would have missed the performance of a lifetime.

Sometimes it’s okay to lose yourself in headphoneland. Like when you’re sitting on a plane or a bus or a train, or you’re waiting on a park bench for a friend who’s always late.  But jogging anywhere near cars? No. And driving? Are you nuts? Anyone who has ever worn headphones or ear buds while driving, surrender your license right now.

 I’m begging you, please unplug when you and your brain need to be aware. It might save your life. Or mine. And a mockingbird needs his audience.

A Basket Case

PITTSBURGH -- Hannah was here for a few days after returning from Australia and before heading back to Atlanta. I helped her pack her car (that I had been car-sitting for the summer). By the way, if you're looking for a great little car, get a Honda Fit. The best. Anyway, Hannah made it to Atlanta and didn't leave anything behind. 

The next day when I was doing laundry, I couldn't find my laundry basket. Where could it have gotten to? Well, duh, it had gotten to Atlanta. I packed it in the car myself filled with freshly folded clothes and a few pantry items. Apparently both of our brains were on vacation at the time. 

The next day, I planned to go to Target to get, among other things, a laundry basket. Every new or returning college student in the area (along with parents and in some cases even with sullen siblings) was in Target. They were buying storage bins (one aisle over from laundry supplies). They had carts full of cleaning supplies and toothpaste and canned goods. I wish them well. Just, please, somebody tell them that Ramen noodles are not real food.

 

All Locked Up

PITTSBURGH -- This is on the bridge between the CMU and Pitt campuses.

 

Singing in the Sun

PITTSBURGH -- This young woman was hoping to subsidize her college tuition by offering up some show tunes.

Her stage name (or sidewalk name) was "Aria Song," and she goes to school in Harrisburg.