November 13-15 --- First Pre-Season Tournament For Sydney & Haley's Basketball Teams

With a few weeks of practices under our belt for Sydney and Haley’s 6th and 5th grade travel teams, respectively, we ventured off to our first weekend-long pre-season tournament in Braintree. Ninety percent of all the games were played at Thayer Academy, and memories and flashbacks of me playing against the “Dixon Brothers” while I was at Groton and they were at Thayer came rushing to my thoughts. I had one of my best games against Thayer my senior year, scoring 33 points in that gym. I remember Grandpa Joe showed up late for that game, and I was a little bummed, because I had been having such a huge game up to that point. It’s funny what we remember.

Anyway, the schedule was as follows:

Friday, 7:00 p.m., Haley’s 5th grade team VS. Westwood (at Thayer)
Saturday, 8:00 a.m., Sydney’s 6th grade team VS. Weymouth (at Thayer)
Saturday, 10:20 a.m., Sydney’s 6th grade team VS. Milton (at Thayer)
Saturday, 3:00 p.m., Haley’s 5th grade team VS. Weymouth (at Braintree South Middle School)
Sunday, 8:00 a.m., Haley’s 5th grade team VS. Braintree (at Thayer)
Sunday, 8:00 a.m., Sydney’s 6th grade team VS. Hanover (at Thayer)
(Yes, we had a conflict for the Sunday morning game… I coached the 5th graders by myself – my assistant Paul had to attend his daughter’s last soccer game of the season – while Amy handled the duties of Sydney’s 6th grade team on her own.)

If either of our teams won enough of the first three initial games to qualify for the Championship games, then those games would be held at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. Alas, we were not fortunate enough to qualify… Haley’s team only won one game, and Sydney’s team didn’t win any. However, to be fair, that is not at all completely unexpected, given that most of the other teams we played against had been together longer and had been practicing for as much as two months at this point.

Haley lost her first game to a Westwood team that was pretty good, had one or two marquee players, and had already been together for an entire year on last year’s 4th grade travel team (some towns have 4th grade travel teams… Hingham does not.) Happily, Haley’s team destroyed Weymouth during our second game, winning going away, 38-10. The 5th graders played very well on both ends of the court. Finally, in our Sunday finale, we got it handed to us pretty good by another good team, Braintree, who also had been playing together for quite some time already, since Braintree, too, had a 4th grade travel team last year.

So, overall, I would say despite our 1-2 record in the tournament, Haley’s team showed a lot of grit and effort, and I think we have A LOT of potential. Haley herself played pretty well, too. She’s just got to get over this occasional shyness or tentativeness she shows from time to time on the court and realize she should have the confidence to do her thing, because she is usually one of the best players out on the court (and she’s only a 4th grader).

Sydney’s team had a similar experience. We lost to solid Weymouth, Milton and Hanover teams, so this was not necessarily surprising. However, we steadily progressed and improved with each game, and like last year, I think this team will just get better and better and better as the weeks unfold. Sydney had a breakout game in our first game, surprising everyone but me. I know Sydney has the ability, and I have seen her improvement over the summer months and early on in this practice season, she just needs to have confidence in herself and just go for it… and she did just than in her first game. She scored 9 points, and was in on the action on both ends of the court. She has improved tremendously over the last summer and heading into the fall, and she deserves it, because she has worked hard and focused and tried to improve all her skills. Coach Amy and several parents came up to me after the game, commenting how well Sydney played and how much she has improved. It was very nice to see. I was very proud of her. (Of course, I was very proud of Haley, too.)

Well, the season is now officially under way. One more preseason tournament the weekend of Thanksgiving in Marshfield, then we are off to the races for the regular season the first weekend in December.

Go Hingham!

(By the way, this weekend absolutely just kicked the sh$# out of me! I know I didn’t actually play in these games, but coaching can be exhausting, very much mentally so, and since I coached five games spread out in just over 36 hours, it really took a toll on me. It didn’t help that Bridget suckered me into a Wilder Memorial Nursery School 70’s-themed party on Saturday night… when we don’t even have any kids going there anymore! I couldn’t go on anymore, watching Bridget bouncing off the walls and dancing on the Sons Of Italy dance floor, so at about 10:30 p.m., I stole her keys and went to sleep in the car in the parking lot. I had an 8:00 a.m. game the next morning [two actually, but I would have to miss Sydney’s game while I coached Haley’s game], and at this point, I figured Bridget would have just as much fun – if not more so – without me while I slept in the car, waiting for Bridget and John and Katie to wrap up their night. I wasn’t too sad when we lost both 8:00 a.m. games the next morning and didn’t qualify for the Championship… I was beat up and all I wanted to do was go to bed. I remember being so tired Sunday night that I actually couldn’t sleep… now how exactly does that work????)

November 9 - Sydney's First Real Concert - Miley Cyrus

Sydney has become quite the little social butterfly of late. First, this past Friday, she had her first 6th grade social. Now, today, Monday night, Maddie invited her to come along with another friend and Maddie’s mother to the Fleet Center to see Miley Cyrus in concert.

She had a great time. She’s gonna be hurting tomorrow morning… 5:45 a.m. wakeup call for school! Ah, the life of a party animal!

November 7 - $1 Daddy Trivia Questions... $20 Worth... During Blasetti Six Dinner At The Liberty Grill

The girls asked us if we could go out for breakfast this morning… this Saturday morning. Given that it was about 10:30 a.m. when they asked, and given that a few of us had already eaten breakfast, we told them no, but that maybe we could go out for dinner.

“OK,” they all reluctantly sighed in unison.

Well, they didn’t forget, and off to downtown Hingham and The Liberty Grill we went, sometime around 6:00 p.m. or so.

While we were waiting for our food, and since I was in such a good mood (the two or three Guinesses didn’t hurt in getting me there after gathering leaves all day long), I pulled out twenty $1 bills and began a new Blasetti Six game that will surely become another one of our traditions (and perhaps another way to take me straight to the poor house). Anyway, I would ask a bunch of random questions, and anyone that got it right, or the first person that got it right, depending upon the situation, would get a dollar. Certain questions I had to preface with, “Mommy can’t answer this one.” The game would be over when all my $1 bills were gone.

The girls loved it, or at least most of the time. Several of them whined from time to time, pointing out that someone or other might have had more dollars than they did. Too bad! Answer the questions right and you’ll get a dollar! (You can tell from some of the questions that I tried to skew the results from time to time.)

Here is a random sampling of just some of the questions I asked. Some questions weren’t answered correctly by anyone, while some of the questions had two or three of the Blasetti Five answer them correctly.

How old was I when I beat Uncle Billy in a game of chess? (This was a recent journal entry – October 30 – so it was fresh in my mind.) ANSWER - 7

Who said, “Boy, the food is great here but the service is terrible!”
ANSWER – Uncle Bill… Ryley guessed correctly.

What is the first name of either the husband or the wife, Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, where we stopped last week during Trick or Treating for a bathroom stop and a glass of water?
ANSWER – Mike and Sally… Sydney correctly guessed Sally, Haley correctly guessed Mike… I was very impressed.

What species of shark was caught in the movie JAWS… the one that they cut open on the dock at night and found that it had eaten a license plate, but proved it was in fact not the JAWS they were looking for?
ANSWER – Tiger Shark… no one guessed correctly… I was very disappointed.

Who said, “Why don’t you sit on my lap?”
ANSWER – Grandpa Joe’s friend Tony Nazzaro… no one guessed correctly.

How long is the pier at our old family condo in the Florida Keys? Is it 100 feet, 200 feet, 300 feet, 400 feet, or 500 feet?
ANSWER – 400 feet. The Blasetti Five guessed all of the choices except the correct one.

What is Perry’s favorite color? (To try to get a dollar in Perry’s hands).
ANSWER – I forget, but Perry got it right.

Name any of my old teachers at Groton School?
Nobody guessed correctly, but some got close.

What four sports did I play at Groton School?
ANSWER – Football, Basketball, Baseball, Crew (I don’t remember if anyone got this one right or not.)

How old was I twenty one years ago?
ANSWER – Twenty two. Sydney and Perry got this one right, but I think Perry was just repeating what Sydney said.

November 6 - Sydney's First 6th Grade Dance... Excuse Me, First SOCIAL

This Friday night, Sydney went to her very first “dance”, or as the school was calling it, a “social”, amongst just her sixth grade peers. It was held at the Middle School, principally in the gym, and I was told there were chaperones everyone. Bridget volunteered to be a chaperone, but when she was told that all the chaperone posts were taken except the ones in the girls’ bathroom, she took a raincheck… she didn’t feel like spending two hours in the Middle School girls’ room. Who can blame her?

Anyway, the social was from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Bridget and the girls dropped Sydney off at 6:00 p.m., then they went over to the Drinkwaters to kill two hours while several other parents and friends of ours awaited the same two hour block of time for their children who were also attending the social. I showed up at the Drinkwaters around 6:30 p.m. or 6:45 p.m., and was immediately greeted with all kinds of snide remarks from all the women there (there were no fathers hanging out… just mothers… I had been duped!). They were saying how beautiful Sydney looked and how much in “trouble” I was in the immediate future with Sydney and the boys.

I slowly became very agitated, as the other mothers laughed and nodded their heads. Yup, they were saying, I was really going to “have my hands full.”

I left the party early, went to the gym in my wife-beater t-shirt, and then drove to a sporting goods store to apply for a gun permit.

October 31 - Halloween Night, Daddy's Birthday

Just like we did last year, when we did so for the first time, we loaded up our girls into the SUV and headed for the neighborhood called Liberty Pole, the Disney World of Trick-or-Treating. Last year, we did this after maybe forty five minutes or an hour of Trick-or-Treating in our own neighborhood. However, this year, we weren’t messing around. I loaded up the Blasetti Truckster with our necessary supplies (double stroller, extra pillow cases for goodies, flashlights, jackets, etc.) while the four girls went to about six or seven houses on our street. I told them we would pick them up at the end of our street in ten minutes. So, Mattie, Roma, Bob and I pulled out of our driveway at about 6:00 p.m., met Sydney, Haley, Ryley and Perry at the end of our street, and we took our full capacity load to South School and parked there for the beginning of our Halloween adventure.

Two hours later, around 8:30 p.m., we decided we had had our fill. It was a great night. Liberty Pole is the place to be on Halloween night. The girls loved it. Bumping into people we know on every street, both kids and adults. We even stopped at the Cunningham’s for bathroom and water stops for the girls. We revisited with many people we hadn’t seen in fifteen years who still live in the old neighborhood. It was a blast.

When we returned home, it was time for my birthday cake. Bridget had a cake made in the shape of a whistle, since I am coaching both Sydney and Haley’s travel basketball teams, and Bridget and I both will be coaching Ryley’s GALS’ team. I thought it was really cool and a great idea. (Sorry, Honey, but I actually thought the whistle was a leaf blower when I first saw it.)

Anyway, Halloween/Birthday night was the best one yet. Each and every year, I enjoy going out Trick-or-Treating with the girls even more and more. It is such a great way to revisit your childhood and live vicariously through your children once again. Awesome!

Costumes: Sydney – Bumble Bee, Haley – Goth Person, Ryley – Ghost, Perry – Cupcake (Bridget made, of course!)

October 30 - Mark Blasetti Story From The Past - Beating Uncle Billy At Chess At The Age Of Seven

When one has a birthday, one tends to reflect upon the present, the future, and sometimes more frequently, the past. Today is such a day.

Having children at various ages often throws me back into my past, to compare and contrast the life of my girls at their current ages to my own life when I was perhaps their age. What was I doing? Who was I? What was I thinking? Are my kids and I similar or different at that age?

Currently, my girls are 11, 10, 7 and 5.

A milestone in my life popped up in my head today… when I was seven years old, I beat my Uncle Billy in a game of chess. As my mother recalls, “He was furious!” I imagine he probably was… my Uncle Billy is certainly the type that is very competitive (whether he is playing cards, billiards, whatever…), and I can’t imagine he would ever “mail it in” for the benefit of his seven year old nephew. I am quite sure he wanted to win, and when he didn’t, he showed his frustration.

I remember it like it was yesterday (and not actually thirty six years ago). I was seven, and Grandpa Joe had just bought me a beginning player’s chess set. I remember the chess set well (in fact, I remember it so well, that within the last year or two, I acquired one just like it, so I could teach my own girls how to play the game). It was a chess set that displayed the possible move directions and move ranges of each piece right there on the front of the piece, so the beginner can be reminded how and where the piece could move. It was actually pretty neat, actually, a nice way to teach and remind beginners about the different pieces.

Anyway, Grandma Roma thought Grandpa Joe was crazy. She thought there was no way a seven year old could pick up the complicated and strategic game of chess, let alone even enjoy it. Well, apparently, Grandpa Joe thought I was a seven year old that Grandma Roma might not have seen, and I picked up the game right away.

About a week after having received the set from Grandpa Joe, Uncle Billy had come by and Grandpa Joe suggested that he play me in a game of chess. I remember it vividly. We lived on King Street in Dorchester. I remember setting up the game in the living room area, I think on some kind of an ottoman or something. I think I was sitting on the floor while playing, while Uncle Billy was sitting in a chair.

I don’t remember the details of the game, I don’t remember how long we played. All I remember is that I beat him, fair and square. Even Grandpa Joe and Grandma Roma knew that Uncle Billy wouldn’t have “let me win”, so just as much as Uncle Billy was furious, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Roma were delighted and amused and couldn’t stop laughing, half praising me, half ridiculing Uncle Billy.

Surely, this was one of those early moments in my life when maybe it was becoming clear that I might turn into a pretty smart kid.

At times, although I don’t usually say such things out loud, I often find myself looking at my children, comparing their ages to when I was their age, and saying things in my head like, “Hey, when I was your age, I beat my Uncle Billy in a game of chess!”

Of course, this is completely unfair, and perhaps even irrelevant, which is why I say them in my head, and not out loud. I have actually used the same chess set that we acquired in the last year or two to try to teach Sydney and Haley, but we have never really spent that much time with it, only one or two sessions, however brief, so they simply hadn’t been exposed to it like I had. Very simply, life seems so busy that we seldom have time to sit and relax and play a little game of checkers or chess or whatever. But it is always interesting and fun and reflective to look at my girls and their current ages, and to recall what I was doing when I was their age.

I guess this reflection is part of having children, and part of having another birthday.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

October 30 - Mark's 43rd Birthday

My birthday has always been celebrated on Halloween night, since that is when more people are around our house and we can simply piggy-back the two events. So, see you tomorrow.

(By the way, I made a declaration today that is true, given my extensive math background… “I am now closer to 70 than I am to 16!”)

October 30 - This Friday's School Bus Antics

Halloween – Crazy Old White Haired & White Bearded Chinese Man With Walking Stick & Black Cape & Hood

I’m baaaaccckkk……. OK, not really, but sort of.

As you are aware, I quit the bus tricks heading into this school year. However, I promised myself, Doris the bus driver, and our three South School girls (Haley, Ryley, Perry) that I would do a bus trick from time to time. So, what better time to break out my bag of Tricks (as in Trick or Treat) than the Friday before Halloween?

And, yes, OK, I admit that I have used this mask and basically done this exact same bus trick before, so my streak of “no repeats” is probably officially over. However, since I am “semi-retired” from bus tricks now, I don’t think anyone would mind if I repeat a bus trick from time to time… it’s better than not doing them at all, right?

So, today, I surprised everyone on the bus with my first bus trick of the 2009-2010 school year. Dressed up as my favorite crazy old white-bearded Asian man with a hooded cape and a walking stick, I walked out in front of the bus as it approached, forcing it and oncoming traffic coming from the other direction down Main Street to come to a complete halt. I didn’t care if I was holding up traffic… besides, all those honks from all those cars were honks of encouragement and acknowledgement of my bus trick, right? After taking a good minute or so to cross the street, all hunched over and physically challenged in my old age, I turned and made old man gestures at the bus with my cane, as Haley and Ryley and Perry smiled and yelled out “Happy Birthday” to me along with all the other kids on the bus.

It’s good to be back!

October 29 - Daddy Spends Time With Perry's Kindergarten Class As A Volunteer, Fun Time Had By All

Mrs. Mullen (who has taught all of our girls in Kindergarten except Haley) sent out an email looking for parent volunteers on Thursdays to run an activity center. So, I decided to throw my hat in the ring and spend some time with Perry and her class.

I showed up around 9:15 a.m. and sat down and observed the next fifteen minutes of class, when all twenty or so of the kids were in circle time, reviewing days of the week, the weather, etc. It was fun to watch. Perry was very attentive and alert and really concentrating on what Mrs. Mullen was teaching… not at all distracted by my presence.

Around 9:30 a.m. or so, I was put in charge of today’s activity center featuring two giant pumpkins. Each kid would be given a little orange booklet with activities I was supposed to supervise for the kids, focusing on numbers and math and measuring. So, in the booklet, we had to measure the circumference of the pumpkins (after guessing), weigh the pumpkins (after guessing), and counting the lines along the perimeter of the pumpkin (again, after guessing). The kids came over in three groups of roughly six or seven per group, and it took a little more than an hour for me to get through all three groups. During this session, the other kids were broken up into two other groups, doing things with Mrs. Mullen and Mrs. McArthur (Mrs. Mullen assistant). Every fifteen or twenty minutes, the three groups would switch.

Perry was in my first group, and we had a great time. I tried to be engaging with the kids, and also maybe try to teach them something. We laughed and had a good time. I had to try to convince the kids that their initial guesses of “a hundred million inches” and “a hundred billion pounds” were probably a bit on the high side.

I feel lucky, given that I work close by, that I can do things like this from time to time. I can’t wait for the next visit to South School!

Thanks Perry!

October 28 - Another Type Of Journal, By Another Dad... Their Young Daughter's Legacy

This morning, before the girls got on the bus and before I left for work, Bridget had asked me if I had gone outside yet to feed the pond fish. “No,” I said, “Why?” I figured something was wrong about something, for sure.

She told me the shed door way in our backyard was open and the light was on. I immediately knew that it must have been the girls the prior night, who had been playing basketball on the court and most likely forgot to close up the shed and turn the light off. As I started to go outside, I mumbled something like, “You know, I’m gonna treat your stuff the way you treat our stuff and see how you girls like it!” I walked out and noticed a leather basketball out in the wet grass, getting soaked… and ruined… it was pouring outside. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of water or wind damage had been done to our shed. (A light bulb in the shed was out, and there was a fair amount of water from the rain just inside the shed where the door must have been opening and closing all night long, but other than that, I didn’t notice anything too bad or out of the ordinary.)

This afternoon, while at work, I got an email from Bridget.

bnblasetti@aol.com has shared something with you
bnblasetti to you - 35 min agoMore Details
From: bnblasetti@aol.comHide
To: atlasinsur@aol.com
Date: Wed, Oct 28, 2009 2:55 pm

Another reason why leaving the shed door open is not such a big deal!

'Notes Left Behind' Dad Says It's All About The Smaller Moments
by Jeanne Sager (Subscribe to Jeanne Sager's posts) Oct 28th 2009 1:13PM

Keith and Brooke Desserich wrote "Notes Left Behind" to their daughter Gracie, front left, about the last days of the life of her sister Elena, front right. Credit: Harper Collins

When Keith and Brooke Desserich learned their daughter Elena had pediatric brain cancer, they were also told she had only 135 days to live. She made it 256.

Nearly every day has been recorded by the Desserichs in "Notes Left Behind," a book first published by the family at a small press and sold as a fund-raiser.

Now the book has been republished, this time by publishing giant Harper Collins, and is filled with greater detail. A journal of Elena's last days -- written for her younger sister, Gracie -- the book brings two parents' love for their child from the abstract, unconditional love we all feel, to the simple joy of reading bedtime stories and singing lullabies.

Named for the love letters Elena left scattered throughout the Desserich's Ohio home, reminding them she loved "Mom, Dad, Gracie," "Notes Left Behind" is its own love letter. And with profits from the sale of the book going to The Cure Starts Now, a foundation to fund pediatric brain cancer research, they're sharing the love with future generations.

ParentDish spoke with Keith Desserich about his family's decision to go public with their story and the goal of revolutionizing cancer research in America.

ParentDish: "Notes Left Behind" was one of those books you hate to read, not because it's bad - it was fantastic - but because you know what is going to happen in the end. But it was written with a lot of warmth and humor. Was it hard to keep that humor?

Keith Desserich: I don't think think it was. The position we were in -- we have a different perspective. When anyone goes through that, you kind of pick up on the smaller moments. That's really what the point of the book was. We wanted to be able to pass on memories, pass on reflections, pass on not only the struggle that Elena had to her younger sister, but we also wanted to pass on some of the funny things, the things that, frankly, we would want her to remember about her sister.

PD: This book was originally written for Gracie; when did you decide to put it online?

KD: This is the one book we never intended to publish. We put it up online not for the benefit of everybody else reading it, but because we had to make an hour of phone calls to our extended family every single night. In an attempt to alleviate that, my sister suggested we put the contents of this journal up online so our family could read it. The simple concept was put it up at Desserich.org because no one could spell our name in the first place, so the quickest way to make sure only family could read it was to put it up on a Web site that was our family's name. Obviously that strategy didn't work too well. We had a lot of people reading it and never really realized it until it crashed our computers twice.

PD: Reading it, the first reaction I had was to hug my daughter. Is that the reaction you've gotten from parents?

KD: We've gotten two reactions. One is that they really learned to spend time with their children and really cherish their children and see life through a different perspective and appreciate life for what it was. The second thing we've heard from people is it taught them the power of smaller moments. You look back on life and believe you're going to remember the day you got married, the day your son or daughter was born, and those seem like milestones when they happen, and I think they always will be. But I think we also remember even more powerfully the smaller moments in life. I look back on it and I can't tell you necessarily how Elena felt in my arms, either of the girls, but I can tell you the feeling of Lucky Charms on my cheek when they would give me cereal kisses ... I guess in the end your life isn't made so much in milestones as it is in minutes.

PD: Tell us a little bit about The Cure Starts Now.

KD: You'll see somewhere in the beginning of March there's a journal entry where we write about how late one night, like any other father, I was up reading the pages of Clinical Oncology. You're hoping to find that one thing that everyone missed, hoping to cure your daughter. Going through it, I'm noticing there are a couple of traits about pediatric brain cancer which make me think that the cure for all cancer might be found within pediatric brain cancer ... I called up Elena's doctor and said, "I'm reading this, it's 10 o'clock at night, please tell me I'm wrong and I'll go back to bed." And he says, "No, you're 100 percent right on this. The cure for cancer could be found in pediatric brain cancer and many oncologists believe that." I asked him why hadn't we heard this before, and he said it's difficult to say that the research should be in children first instead of adults.

PD: And the foundation?

KD: A lot of people read that and started coming to us and saying really that represents a whole new strategy in cancer research. Instead of curing it by the numbers and saying this one has the most number diagnoses and we're going to allocate the most dollars to it, at least a part of our strategy should be spent on those that we believe we can learn the most from. We're really spending almost nothing in terms of dollars and cents on those we can learn the most from ... as people started picking up on what they read in that journal, they started a cause, and that cause is The Cure Starts Now, which basically took the last line of that journal entry and took it to the next step. The community really jumped behind the cause even before Brooke and I did. There were four or five giant fund-raisers for it, and people started selling copies of Elena's I Love You print, and raised something like $20,000. They originally tried to give the money to us to cover medical expenses, and we didn't want it. We appreciated the efforts, but it just wasn't what we wanted to do with it. So we started a foundation.

PD: Is the money directed more toward doctor's research or more toward helping families?

KD: It's designed for research. We believe the best gift we can give is to focus on research. There are some elements of it where we have families come to us and say can you help us come up with funds to cover medical expenses, and we've said sure. However when we put them on our Web site, we say "Look, if you're going to donate money to this family, it goes to this family." But if people donate general dollars to The Cure Starts Now, it goes to research.

PD: Other than buying the book, what's the best way to donate?

KD: They can donate online at The Cure Starts Now. We have the unique feature in that anyone who donates directly -- rather than through a fund-raiser -- we automatically place those funds into restricted status. That means they can't be used for anything, including administrative costs. They can only be used for research. Somebody donates $100 to The Cure Starts Now, $100 of it goes toward research.

Related: Medical Conditions and Information About Cancer.