Today is the first of two Mischief tryouts. The team has been trying to organize fun activities around the event, as playing at Baylands is always fun, both for the wind, and with the barbecue pits next to the Great Meadow.

At one point yesterday, a teammate suggested, well, hinted really, that water balloons would be fun to bring and use. If the weather is hot, then water balloons are indeed a great way to cool off. The problem with this, however, is that Baylands is a protected wildlife habitat. Various things are prohibited at the part in order to continue that protection, dogs and balloons being two of such prohibitions.

When the teammate made the suggestion, I immediate responded with a request that people not bring said balloons, as they both endanger the environment, as well as the ultimate community's continued use of the Great Meadow.

My request wasn't unreasonable, it was perfectly justified. However, after making the request, I totally felt like the world's biggest party pooper. Once again, here I am, telling everyone what they can't do. Don't bring balloons. Don't bring glass to the fields. Don't do this. Don't do that.

What is it about me that I'm always worrying about these things? I blame it on "being responsible" sometimes, but I'm not sure that's really the reason (but it certainly the problem).

At Nationals last year, when we had made it into the finals, DanO and Pickett bought a bottle of champagne, just in case we won. When we did win, they brought out the bottle, and opened it. They opened the bottle. The big glass bottle. The big glass bottle with lots of cameras all around and everyone watching as we violated one of the biggest tournament rules: no glass on the fields. DanO handed the bottle to me and I upended the thing, drinking a full swig of the victory champagne.

I later asked him why he handed me the bottle first, since I hadn't actually played in that game. He said it was a litmus test: if anyone was going to be upset with the glass on the field, I would. If I drank from the bottle, he'd pass it around the team. If I had reacted with shock or been upset at the clear rule violation, he'd put the bottle back into the bag and sneak it back off the field.

I think we were both relieved I decided to tip it up and drink. The incident clear shows, however, just how much everyone views me as the worrier, the rules enforcer, the party pooper. I've talked to Kris about it, as I talk to him about many of the things I worry about. His advice is still the same as it was before: remind myself it doesn't matter.

Should I worry that everyone thinks I'm a worry wart?

Eh, doesn't matter.

I'm not sure what happened, but this baking experiment was a near complete disaster.

Yeah, I'm confused about this event. Sure, I have my culinary problems, a tragic meal that makes my guests think I've gone insane, but they are typically few, and never with souffles. My souffles are always light and fluffy, rich and exotic, and, oh, so very tasty.

Of course, they've all been chocolate souffles until today.

I mean, what's the point of making a souffle, if it's not chocolate?

I mean, really!

I picked up the cheddar-bacon souffle recipe from the Williams-Sonoma store where Mom and I went when she was visiting, where, of course, I spent too much money on kitchen items (but just try to wrest those new kitchen shears from my cold, dead hands, and see how much luck you have). Given the recipe called for a half pound of bacon, how bad could it be?

Not bad at all. If you like bacon bread.

About a year ago, my mail server started acting up.

The problem was subtle at first: mails to BJ's account wouldn't deliver, but mine would. Mostly. Kyle might have lost some emails, but I couldn't be sure. I also started receiving errors when viewing my mail via a web-based mail reader. The pages often wouldn't display at all.

Eventually, the problem became so bad I couldn't load more than one or two pages before I wasn't able to load any pages via the mail reader, and I had to check what was up. I had checked a few times, running "ps -ef | grep qmail" and looked at what was running. I'm not sure what prompted me to check, but I took off the qmail grep filter and looked to see what was up.

Turns out, the problem was each email I tried to delete (delete because I knew the email address was a spam address) caused a process to start up and not die. My system was running out of resources because of the undying processes. Instead of deleting the emails, I switched the processes to deliver to a dummy email account, which I could later view and filter.

When I figured out the fundamental problem (the delete email processes not dying), I recalled the change I had made a month before I started having the system problems. I, then, remembered my most recent lesson learned: listen to the little things, before they grow into big ones.

Clearly I need to listen better.

When I was maybe 11, my family and I were in the family room (how appropriate) one evening watching television. At least, I think we were all in there. Maybe just the kids were watching television, and Mom and Dad were off doing something else.

At some point, we all heard a loud BOOM! as something crashed upstairs in the attic. Now, unlike another episode when I didn't hear the sound, I did hear the sound, and jumped up when everyone else did. We all ran upstairs to look around. Did a ladder fall? No, there weren't any ladders around. Did a picture fall? No, none of us had pictures on our walls upstairs. Did the plumbing in the half-renovated bathroom come crashing down through the center of the house? No, it's still firmly in place, though, still half done. We looked around, and could find no cause for the sound.

Eventually we gave up looking for the sound source, and went back to the family room. Soon after, the phone rang with Mrs. Bretts calling to ask if we, too, hears the loud boom a short while ago. We told her we did, which caused even more concern. What could have possibly caused the noise that could be heard over all the neighborhood? We checked our front yards, the back yards, no accident, no screaming neighbors running around with gunshot wounds trailing blood down the street. Nothing.

We found out the next day that a meteor had hit the atmosphere over Northwest Indiana and exploded. Honestly, I can't say any of us offered that as a possibility.

Last night, Kris and I had a remarkably similar what-the-heck-was-that experience. In the middle of the night, when both of us were fast asleep in the doggie matrix (also known as the small bed where Kris, Bella, Annie and I sleep, all packed together in the bed so tight that extraction from such a pack requires delicate precision, and re-insertion into the matrix after a trip to the washroom in the middle of the night is nigh impossible), we heard a long, lonely arooooooOOOOOOOooooooOOOOOO!

Kris and I were instantly awake and rushing out to the living room. We looked around, trying to figure out the cause of Annie's howling. Annie sat in her place on the couch looking up at us with an expression of, "What?"

We couldn't figure out is the noise was actually Annie. She didn't seem to be the source, looking up at us innocently. Bella had been in the bed between us, so clearly she wasn't the source. We eventually figured Annie had howled, and wandered back to the bedroom. As I faded back to sleep, I wondered if meteors howl.

Maybe fire lightning does...

Practice tonight was an unmitigated disaster.

When I arrived, I noticed a larger number of people at the fields than normal. Sure, there are usually the softball players, or the rugby players, or even the lacrosse players. Each of them, however, finishes up around 9:00 PM, which is when we start. That all of these new people were arriving just as I was meant they would be sharing the fields with us.

We usually practice near the soccer field. This works out well because it's near the student housing, which means it's also close to the washrooms. The lights at the end we play on are more consistent, too. The field itself is worn, so we don't play on the most lush part of the fields, but the other conveniences outweigh the need for grass.

When I realized all of the people arriving were there to play soccer for an intramural, maybe interhouse, game, I asked what field they would be playing on, and how much space they would need. I then set up our field away from their field, but bordering, so that both groups would get maximum field space with minimum interference.

If only the soccer players were intelligent enough to realize the BRIGHT ORANGE cones marked the edge of a playing field. Instead of respecting another sport was occupying the field space next to them, several soccer players thought the wide open space was the perfect place to practice footwork and kicking the ball.

And, instead of demanding their space, the space their team as a club team had the right to occupy, the team avoided the soccer players, playing on a smaller and smaller field. Since the drill we were running was a huck drill, throwing to closer and closer players defeated the purpose of the drill. I went to the players, and asked them nicely to respect our field and practice on the other side of the sideline. They would move over for about a minute, then move back when I turned my back and went back to the stack for the drill. After two times asking and two times complying then returning, I was fed up. I started cutting into the middle of the soccer players, and stopping the ball when it interfered with my catching the disc in the drill.

Apparently this pissed off the soccer players. One thought it was perfectly reasonable to wind up a full field kick ten yards from me and kick. It hit me square in the groin and hurt. A LOT.

I looked at the kid, and said, "The sideline is there. Practice over there. Respect our field space, as we respect yours." At that point, I decided to steal the soccer balls of anyone who continued to play on our field. I also moved all the bags the players left in our endzone off the field, casually mixing wallets with shoes, and bags with IDs. I'd be surprised if anyone figured out where all of his stuff was.

At another point, I had to steal the soccer ball of another group on the field. It wasn't as if they were playing on the side of our field and accidently kicked the ball onto our field. They were smack dab in the middle of our field. Terribly, frustratingly annoying.

Eventually, the girls gave up and asked if we could play hotbox. It was our last practice for two weeks, so I was reluctant. However, having fun is definitely the most important aspect of keeping a team together, so we went to play hotbox instead.

Note to self: Annie tall plus Mackenzie fast equals hotbox domination.