Friday, July 10, 2009

Turn again, Dick Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London


This post has absolutely nothing to do with Dick Whittington or his having been thrice Lord Mayor of London, but how many times does a person get an opportunity to use the word “thrice”?

Mrs. RWP and I are back in hilly, beautiful, and definitely cooler North Georgia after spending nearly two weeks in Tampa Bay. Well, we were not actually in the bay. You know what I mean.

Some people say things happen in threes -- I don’t -- but three things did happen to me for the first time during our Florida trip. One was fun, one was scary, and one was mind-boggling.

On June 26th, for the first time in my life, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, I attended an American League baseball game. I have seen several National League games before in Atlanta and Philadelphia, but this was my first chance to witness a designated hitter up close and personal. The Tampa Bay Rays (formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) defeated the Florida Marlins by a score of 7-3, as I recall, after a three-run double by B.J. Upton in the bottom of the eighth inning broke open a game that had been tied three times. Afterward, on the way to our car, we could see that the roof of the stadium was illuminated in brilliant orange, indicating a home-game victory. That was the fun one. I wondered why so many people were wearing Evan Longoria shirts when B.J. Upton did all the heavy lifting. A few days later in Toronto, B.J. took the first pitch of the ball game and knocked it out of the park. (A slight clarification is in order: B.J. Upton was not the designated hitter.)

On June 29th, I rode in an ambulance for the first time in my life, accompanying Mrs. RWP on the first ambulance ride of her life. This is an event we both would rather have done without. She stayed in a very wonderful hospital until July 1st, when we were able to put this three-day scary event behind us.

Finally, on July 7th, along with my two grandsons, I saw the first Transformers movie in my life. It was called Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen. I fervently hope it is also the last one I ever see, as the movie consisted of very little plot and very many explosions and great climactic battles, one after the other, from start to finish, for two hours and thirty minutes. This event was the mind- boggling one. I can report that both Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox emerged triumphant and relatively unscathed, so there will probably be another sequel if Hollywood has anything to say about it. (If you want to know more about Shia or Megan, you can seek out their Wikipedia pages on your own, but I am not going to do anything more to further their acting careers.)

I could go into much more detail about each of these first-time events, but I’m not going to. I’m going to concentrate instead on trying to insert the word “thrice” into my conversation as often as possible.

7 comments:

  1. Glad you are back home, and hope Mrs. RWP is well and will not have to be riding in any more ambulances. Keeping you both in my prayers.

    Stay cool.

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  2. RWP:

    Welcome back and if you had used that word one more time in your post, you might have concluded that you had managed to use it thrice.

    Sorry about the MRS., Happy yo hear you have braosdened your horizons to interleague play the dreaded designated hitter.

    I am awfully sorry you had to see the movie...not a very thoughtful piece I understand.

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  3. Well I hope Mrs Plague is okay. What have you done to her man? Surely you have not been physically abusing her again have you? Thrice the constabulary have visited thy house and thrice they have commanded thee to cease thy evil machinations!
    My condolences for having to endure the "Transformers" garbage.

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  4. Pat - Thank you. Mrs. RWP is doing extremely well but don't stop praying.

    Reamus (Michael) - Re the movie, the words "Transformers" and "thoughtful" should never appear in the same sentence. Re the baseball game, the dreaded DH never really materialized; it was all the regular roster what brung the crowd to its feet. And re my use of words, if you replace your broken counter with one that works you will see that I did use the word "thrice" thrice in this post, four times if you count the one in the title!

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  5. A Yorkshire Lad - How does one answer the question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" when one has not been beating one's wife in the first place? (Answer: Very carefully.)

    Verily, methinks the constabulary have never visited my house (*knock on wood*) nor have they ever commanded me to cease my evil machinations because I have committed none. Dost thou, my good man, include thyself under the appellation "constabulary"? We know your type in the colonies, and we prefer the Barney Fife/Don Knottss variety to henchmen of the Sheriff of Nottingham...plus we have an amendment to our Constitution that protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures.

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  6. Yay for the Devil Rays and the Marlins; Yikes for Mrs. RWP and her frightened hubby; probably a "no, thanks" on the movie, although I think my guys like it. At least they liked the first one. So your grandsons probably did too. No more ambulances, I hope. Although you do get in sooner than if you just walk in to the ER :) Hope the Mrs. is ok.

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  7. I hope Mrs. RWP is doing well.

    Welcome back.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...