One of the Best Ballpark National Anthem Performances.

The Red Sox have been uneven this early season, though lately they've hit their stride, winning their sixth straight game with a win over the Chicago White Sox last night.

Whatever the fortunes of the Red Sox, a video taken at Fenway Park four years ago seems to have gotten renewed attention. It will warm your heart if you stay with it: It was National Disabilities Awareness Day and a young man with a disability sang the National Anthem.

He got nervous, but the day was saved. Watch it and smile:

April 27 Always Kills My Garden

What is it about the days around April 27 each year? Each year, extreme weather on that date kills my garden. Seriously.

The spring of 2010 was very warm, like this one. Everything bloomed early. Rainfall was generous, but not excessive.  As the end of April approached, most of the leaves on trees were out, and the flowers were  blossoming beautifully. My lilacs in particular looked awesome.

Snow smushes one of my lilac bushes on April 27, 2010.

Then, on April 27-28, I got 16 inches of wet, heavy snow. It collected on the leaves, and broke a lot of trees, flattened the flowers and smushed my lilac bushes almost flat on the ground.  It was a mess.

Three days later, the temperature was back up to near 80 degrees, and I was outside picking up the mess in shorts, stepping around waning snowbanks as I hauled the broken branches away.

On the bright side, the lilacs recovered nicely and even most of the flowers rallied.

The next year, 2011, spring ran a little later. Things were pretty much on schedule. Around April 27 things were starting to green up, but it was awfully wet after a snowy winter and a rainy early spring.

Then, on the night of April 26-27, thunderstorms raked over my property repeatedly. Rain gushed down in torrents, hail like so many icy bullets piled up in the heavier storms. The brook by the house roared. Finally, a culvert upstream became overwhelmed, and a wall of water swept across my lawn and gardens.

Rocks and mud cover my lawn after a
flash flood on April 27, 2011.

Luckily a stone wall I built in front of the house for decoration acted as a seawall, diverting the water from the house. Only a little water got into the basement. But as the water receded, I saw that my lawn was covered with gravel, rocks, sticks and other debris. Part of my driveway was washed away. A small spruce tree was somewhere downstream, and I could see a some of my flower bulbs hung up in the weeds downstream. It was another big mess to clean up.

This year, spring was early again after a remarkable, record hot March and early April. Leaves were coming out, and my flowers bloomed happily. Even stuff that comes up out of the ground later, like hostas and astilbe, were happily growing.

Now, here on the weekend of,  yes, April 27, it's destruction again. We're getting a three-night, hard freeze, with temperatures well into the 20s. We've had one night of the cold already, and two nights to come. I see this morning that my lilacs are wilted and shriveling.

Elsewhere, I tried to protect many of my plants by covering them with layers of compacted leaves from the compost pile, and tarps, and whatever else I can find. It's a lot of work for something that might not work, since I had to haul the leaves everywhere, I have to repeatedly cover and uncover the plants over the weekend, then clean up the mess next week. That will undoubtedly include all those leaves blown across the entire yard in the dry cold.

My sad attempts to protect a Korean lilac and my
peonies from a killing freeze, April 27, 2012.

I know I'm whining, because all I'm dealing with here is inconvenience, not destruction. In 2010, that snowstorm brought down trees on cars and houses in St. Albans, causing a lot of damage. In 2011, that flood damaged dozens of Vermont homes. And the storm system that caused the flood was the same one that caused  the worst tornado outbreak in the nation's history, killing hundreds of people. And this year's freeze is destroying the livlihood of so many orchard and vineyard operators.

Still, extreme damaging weather is disheartening for even a little gardener like me. I'd like to go back to normal weather in the spring and summer, but it doesn't look like it's in the cards for any of us in coming years.

What Do You Grab From a Burning House?

You've heard the question before, as sort of a parlor game. Your house is on fire and you have to flee. What to you grab on the way out?

What one submitter to "The Burning House
would grab if her house was on fire.

Since everything is found on the Internet these days, somebody created a blog, called The Burning House, that asks just that: People submit a list of items they would grab from their blazing homes.

The blog is a fascinating time waster, a window into the psyche of all of us who would act rationally, irrationally, and very much like humans in an emergency.

For some reason, most of the submitters in The Burning House said they would take their MacBooks.  in (kind of like the one I'm typing away at now.   But of course my house isn't on fire, so we're good)

Most of the people included photographs of the items they would take. Of course, almost everybody would take important papers, wallets, old family photographs, that kind of important stuff.

But it's interesting to see what items are near and dear to some people. Simple items, that wouldn't mean anything to anybody, except to the people who posted in The Burning House. It's an interesting list: dark chocolate, a husband's toy dinosaur, "my favorite Heidi Klum t-shirt," a dollar, high heels, favorite perfume and chunky pearl earrings.

My list would be similar to the people who submitted to the blogs. I'd take my Macbook, my wallet, phone,  a photo of me and my sister Lynn when we were children and fat and had bad haircuts, the teddy bear I had since I was three, a favorite children's book of mine called "The Gift of Nothing," a Diet Coke.

So you tell me, what would you grab first if your house was on fire?

Bad Analogies Delight

I stumbled on this list of bad analogies, from an old Washington Post article, just for chuckles and as a nice time waster. I especially like the one that references the Hefty Bag, just because I have a sick sense of humor:

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. Joseph Romm, Washington She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. Russell Beland, Springfield McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. Roy Ashley, Washington Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. Chuck Smith, Woodbridge Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. Russell Beland, Springfield Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. Unknown He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. Jack Bross, Chevy Chase The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." Russell Beland, Springfield Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. Jennifer Hart, Arlington The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. Russell Beland, Springfield The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free Chuck Smith, Woodbridge The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. Unknown

Obama Conspiracy Theories Get Hilarious

Did you know Barack Obama, during the 2008 primary, worried that Hillary Clinton learned he was really a Kenyan, unfit for president,  so he told Hillary that he would personally kill her daughter Chelsea unless she shut up about everything, got out of the way and let him win?

Unlike in a goofball conspiracy theory circulating,
this man did not plot to murder Chelsea Clinton.
 

OK, that's not the least bit true, but it's a real lunatic conspiracy theory circulating out there.

Every president, it seems, is subject to wild conspiracy theories from the fringes, and Barack Obama seems to get some of the looniest, most hilarious ones.

This theory seems to have originated, or at least propogated by a guy named Jerome Corsi at World Net Daily. 

There's lots of good, reliable conservative political Web sites out there. I would say WND is good for um, conservative comic relief rather than serious news. It does have a certain flair, with headlines like Phyllis Schaffley seeing scandals, scandals everywhere! EEEEEEEKKK!!!

And another columnist on the site is appalled that there's so much fraud out there that Mickey Mouse can get on the presidential ballot. Which would probably be a better thing than said columnist getting on the presidential ballot.

Our fearless "Obama wanted to  kill Chelsea" author, Jerome Corsi, has quite an oeuvre himself. The poor guy sees ugly plots all around him. It must be awful living in his world, where the usual bad things we always see are augmented by the even darker conspiracies only he and his fans see.

Corsi has said a terrorist group with ties to al Qaida and criminal gangs was supporting John McCain's 2008 bid for president, that oil companies and others are hiding the notion that oil is a limitless resource and is not a fossil fuel, and Martin Luther King was a shakedown artist.

I appreciate and admire people who think outside the box, have a different take on things, offer fresh ideas. So I suppose I should like Corsi and whoever came up with this Obama as Chelsea murderer idea.

But Mr. Corsi? Guess what? The world is not out to get you. Most people don't care what you think, as harsh as that sounds.  But you're articles are entertaining,  and we thank you very much for brightening our world that way.

Chilly Vermont, But Spring Is Still Here

Today is not a great spring day, weatherwise, in Vermont. It's windy and chilly. The sun comes out every now and again, but the sun quickly disappears and is repeatedly replaced by cold, gusty showers. Some of the showers are laced with hail, and it's been snowing some in the mountains. A hard freeze is forecast for the end of the week

Still, the spring beauties are hanging in there, and below is a series of photos I took in recent days to prove the point. Maybe people shivering today will be warmed a bit by the photos.

Another Super Music Reality Show Star is Born

I'm a sucker for those moments on music reality shows when somebody makes a grand entrance and just blows us all away. The most famous example was Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent back in 2009. She was the dowdy, awkward woman who shocked everyone with her amazing voice.  As most people know, she's a big star now. (That famous first YouTube video now has 90 million hits!)

ac

Rachael Leahcar, 17, wows 'em on Australia's Got Talent

Last year, we had Landau Eugene Murphy on "America's Got Talent" an underemployed, scruffy car wash worker who belted out Sinatra like, well, Sinatra.

And then we had Sung Bong Choi on "Korea's Got Talent," a teenager who has been homeless since he was a little boy, blowing away the audience

Today, hat tip to Cat Fraser via Facebook, I found one Rachael Leahcar, 17, who blew them away on Australia's version of "The Voice." That's the show where four singers who are the judges on the show sit with their backs to prospective singers, and then swing the chairs around to face the singers if they like them and want them on their teams.

Leahcar had to be led up onto the stage because she is blind. The judges, Delta Goodrem, Seal, Joel Madden and Keith Urban, seemed a bit impatient at that. Then Leahcar started singing Edith Piaff's "La Vie En Rose" The rest,  as they say, is history.

Watch the video below, which today has gone uber viral, 'natch: