By the time you read this, the World Cup will be in the hands of Spain or ‘Tina. We are rooting slightly for ‘Tina, but we really loved watching both teams make it this far. Spain’s dismantling of France made me start to appreciate how much there is to the sport.

Learned from Rex today that BRUSCHETTA is pronounced brews-ketta. Not kidding. He also shared this (hysterical) short guide for it:

From the puzzle, I also learned what a whitesmith is. It’s related to a blacksmith (duh). The puzzle wanted us to know that a whitesmith works with TIN.

“A whitesmith is a metalworker who does finishing work on iron and steel such as filing, lathing, burnishing or polishing. The term also refers to a person who works with “white” or light-colored metals, and is sometimes used as a synonym for tinsmith. Whitesmithing developed as a speciality of blacksmithing in the 1700s, when extra time was given to filing and polishing certain products.”

The fellow, below, is tinning a platter. When it’s finished it can be used for serving bruschetta.

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The Gnats kicked serious ass out in Sacramento Friday night, where the A’s play while waiting for Vegas to get a stadium ready for them. The final score was something like 23-4. Andres Chapparo had eight RBI (he had seven all season before Friday). Catching prospect Harry Ford (who played for England in the World Baseball Classic last year) hit his first MLB home run in his first game for DC, and looked good! Jolly good show, old chap! He’ll spell Keibert behind the plate. [OC note: In a stark reversal, the Gnats lost 15-1 last night. Ouch! Argggggh.]

Notice was taken of Joshua Kuroda-Grauer, rookie third-baseman for the A’s. JKG was born in New Brunswick, the one in Jersey, and played college ball for Rutgers. Looks like the real deal. (I picked up his signed card, below, for the collection: $10.) He was raised by two moms — Sumi Kuroda and Edie Grauer, and signed for a bonus of over $1 million. Not too shabby!

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Special Owl Chatter birthday wishes go out to Edgar Degas, born on this date (7/19) in Paris in 1834, a favorite of our Dirty Old Man Dept, for obvious reasons. Despite his lifelong attention to agile young women, Eddie never married. Critics of his work were know for “stepping on Degas.”

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I am breaking an Owl Chatter poetry rule and only sharing the first few lines of this one. It’s by Brenda Shaughnessy and is called “I Have a Time Machine.” It’s from The Poetry Foundation.

I Have a Time Machine

But unfortunately it can only travel into the future
at a rate of one second per second,
 
which seems slow to the physicists and to the grant
committees and even to me.
 
But I manage to get there, time after time, to the next
moment and to the next.

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Brenda lives (from moment to moment) in Verona NJ with hubby and their cute kids, and is a prof at Rutgers-Newark.

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Did you catch Donald Jessica Trump’s great speech on election fraud this week? Kennedy-esque, no? Ask not what your country can do for you. Before you dismiss my next prediction as nonsense (like I do), remember my prediction that we’ll never see the Epstein files? How’s that one working out? Anyway, I predict Federal troops will be used to prevent the Dems from taking control of the House and/or Senate in November. Hope I’m wrong, but don’t bet your World Cup winnings against it. Just sayin’.

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As a sign of the times, many of the posts to my neighborhood newsletter are warnings about this or that scam. I liked how one woman dealt with one. She was told she won a million dollars and just had to buy $500 worth of perfume to claim it. (Seems like a good deal. What am I missing?) Anyway, she says she ordered $700 worth of perfume and told them to take the payment out of her million.

You talkin’ to me?

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Just read a review of The Odyssey in the NYT. Looks like we should try to see it. I’ll tell you one thing, though — no matter how terrifying some of the scenes may be, they can’t come close to what happens on a regular basis in Caity’s Odyssey. “Raffi — what are you doing to him??!! Stopitthisinstant!!” Isaac — stop screaming — put that down!!

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Here’s a metaphor for you from back in the day. “I’m down to seeds and stems.” In the puzzle today SEEDS was the answer for the (unclever) clue: “They’re often covered with dirt.” It led Son Volt to share this oldie with us (that was new to me).

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Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 25, lived with his partner and 3-year-old daughter in Biddeford, Maine. The lawyer representing his family stated he was working in the U.S. lawfully. He was shot and killed by ICE agent David Brouillette. It later emerged he was not the intended target of the ICE operation.

Ho hum, hardly newsworthy. But I like this part of it. According to the NYT, Brouillette called his ex-wife and asked her to defend his character. “He said, ‘You need to tell them I’m a good person,’” and asked her not to tell anyone that he had abused her during their marriage. In fact, Ms. Brouillette said David became abusive after he joined the military. He choked her, slammed her to the floor and pushed her against a wall. She actually moved out of Maine to escape him. Still, he threatened to kill her as recently as November. “I have said to people, ‘If I end up dead, it’s him.’”

Another former wife of his also accused him of abuse. In a filing for an order of protection, she wrote that he broke her door down, destroyed her belongings and dumped her clothes over a bridge. He spit in her face and cornered her in a room. “I am scared of him coming to my home or sitting in the parking lot of my work until I leave,” she said in the filing.

Well, exes can be bitter. So it should also be noted that after high school his mom kicked him out of the house. (His mom!) (He was raised by his grandparents.)

God Bless America.

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See you tomorrow.