I'll have to fill you in on our New York weekend. All in all it was a great success. Kids had a fine time, weather held out until it rained Sunday morning. We saw Johan Santana pitch the best game of his career in a 2-0 Mets victory (only to have them lose the next day and miss the playoffs by one game, for the second straight year).
But all that will have to wait. I'm laid low with the ague, so I'm taking to the couch for the evening.
An article from AP says "Threat of rain casts doubts on Mets' plans down the stretch."
I should say so. I'm real curious how this is gonna play out, especially considering we have tickets to the 1:10 Saturday game at Shea.
They are scheduled for 7:00 PM games tonight against the Cubs and tomorrow against the Marlins. Then 1:10 games Saturday and Sunday against the Marlins.
The rain is actually supposed to start this evening, but I'm thinking they will get today's game played so the Cubs don't have to come back next week to make it up.
Friday's game is almost certainly a rainout, and possibly Saturday's too. Since the Mets are in the playoff race they need to play the games, so what would they do? Play two on Sunday and one on Monday?
Well, there's no backing out because we've got hotel reservations a half-block from Times Square for tomorrow and Saturday nights. There's nothing we can do but wait and see and hope the weather moves through quickly.
Forgive me if I've become one dimensional, but my team is making this a difficult time.
See the picture? That's what the batters have been doing. See the second half of the caption? Awful, sad pitching. Tonight we were up 5-1, next inning it's 5-5, against the best team in the National League, so odds are not on our side. I've never seen a Mets team with more unreliable pitching, yet they are still likely to be in the playoffs.
Ah well, at least with last night's victory we are assured that Saturday's game will mean something. We will be right there at Shea. Anyone want me to bring home a pair of stadium seats? Only $859.
Just over a week ago, the Mets had a three game lead in the East. Now they have a tenuous one game edge over Milwaukee for the wild card. They need a miraculous turnaround in their pitching because the offense can't do this alone.
David Wright had a bad series in DC, but overall, he, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, and Brian Schneider are doing everthing they can to try to win games, but they keep losing. I don't understand why Jerry Manuel insists on pulling a strong starting pitcher after six innings when the bullpen is clearly inept. It's up to Santana tonight to once again stop the bleeding.
Oh well, at least they are trying to make the Saturday game interesting. We'll be in the upper deck at Shea screaming with the rest of the crowd.
Not quite as dramatic a collapse as last year. Not even close, really. But it still looks like the Mets are trying to find a way to sit out the post season. Eight games to play and a half game behind the Phillies. Grrrrrr. Bad news is, they have a series against the Cubs next week.
Good news is that they still have 2.5 games over the Brewers for the wild card spot. Extry good news is that next Saturday TB and I and friends will be at Shea Stadium for the next-to-last game there before they bulldoze it . . . and the game might actually be important!
You Gotta Believe!
Wake . . . newspaper. . . walk boy to school . . . work . . . . . . . . . . . . eat . . . work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . home . . . throw a baseball <----> throw a football <----> . . . eat . . . homework . . . bed . . . read . . . sleep . . . x5
Gotta find a little more time for writing between the dots . . .
Here we go, Monday again, back at my desk. I feel like I just left here Friday with a song in my heart and a bounce in my step. Ah, well. As Mookie said in Do The Right Thing, "I gots to get paid!"
Friday night we went to the (newest, but no so new anymore) El Rodeo over in Cave Spring Corners. I've never been there before, but good grief, that place was packed! Food was just what you would expect, so no surprises there.
Saturday morning, TB wanted to ride his bike to the soccer fields to watch his friends play. He opted out of soccer this fall, but I could tell he was getting the itch to play because he put on last year's uniform to go watch the games. He later admitted he changed his mind two weeks after the registration deadline. Said he wants to play either soccer or football next fall. I'm nudging him back toward soccer if those are the choices.
Then he wanted to go to the skateboard park in Wasena. That's his new obsession, biking on the skateboard ramps. The sign says "bicycles prohibited". I'm not a rule breaker, unless it's a silly rule, and that one seems silly. Especially when there are usually more bikes than boards there anyway.
Yardwork all Saturday afternoon in exceptional heat and humidity. I think I sweat off about five pounds. Didn't do much Saturday evening. We had flirted with getting a babysitter and going out but the cheapskate in me prevailed so we just grilled out. Made those killer grilled baked potatoes again.
Sunday we had kind of a lazy morning. I dropped TB at Sunday school (we are heathens like that - drop him off then go back home to coffee and the paper).
Went and worked out late morning. TB whined and fussed about going with us ("there's nothing to do"). He's not the nicest kid sometimes. For example, he refuses to take his Nintendo DS to the RAC with him because he's afraid he might have to share with someone he doesn't know. Selfish little turd. Fine, complain and sit in the corner, but we are going to the gym. Well, in the typical way that things always work out for my son, voila! they have Guitar Hero at the RAC now.
Then first cub scout pack meeting of the year at 4PM. Kids swam in a pond and caught tadpoles in a creek. We all had a big pot-luck meal. Home by 7:00, had a couple games of Sorry and then off to bed.
So now you know the whole story.
This song by King Crimson was one of my favorites way back when. Someone put this cool video to it so I thought I would share.
Just found out that Blogger makes it way too easy to flush your entire layout unintentionally. Well, I've been talking about mixing things up for months and months and I just forced it upon myself with one errant click of the mouse.
So . . . welcome to the new temporary Realist layout! I'm too tired and lazy right now to try and recover things.
It was time for a change anyway, right?
Here I rant a little tiny bit about glue sticks . . . I'm on page three, but the "She Said" on page two is a great intro.
Here's what I picked from my pepper plants today. I've been pulling in this many about three or four times a week, and I only have one plant of each variety. The tabasco peppers aren't ripe yet, but I have hundreds of them, too! I'm not sure what to do with all these peppers. Salsa, anyone?
And finally, after three months, I have four little golf ball size tomatoes on the vine.
That's what has been posted on the sign above a Roanoke restaurant for the past few days.
"Chef Deli Salad Did Not Go To Culinary School"
I'm sure there is some inside story to that. I wonder what it means. What do you think?
You don't have to read too deep into the archives to figure out that I'll be voting for Barack Obama in November. Very little could change my mind about that.
But I will say that after the two conventions I am a bit worried. Yes, Biden is a very competent and qualified VP choice, but he's also volatile, and remember all the other silly things that brought down other viable candidates for office? Macaca anyone? I'm kinda on the edge of my seat waiting for him to let something fly that will be hard to backtrack from.
Then Obama's speech. Yes, it was inspiring. Yes, it was energizing. And yes, he took it to the Republicans in ways that neither Gore nor Kerry did. But what I didn't hear were specifics. I wanted more specific, attention grabbing ideas that would pull more undecideds to his side. I don't think he pulled that off.
Then we have Sarah Palin. At first, I thought her a very odd choice. Until we all got to know her. Sure there are questions of her experience. Her family should be off limits and I hope they are, BUT you can't ignore the fact that so many right wing pundits villify pregnant teens in the entertainment world, but the case of the Palins is just the "family doing what they think is right." You have to admit, her presence on the ticket may well shore up support from the crumbling Republican base, evangelicals, and probably, working women with pregnant teenage daughters. Politically, I think McCain made a brilliant gamble.
What worries me is that most of the criticism of McCain's choice went only to those topics I just mentioned. Nothing deeper. No one was getting to the real reasons why we should be frightened of the McCain-Palin ticket.
Colleen, from Loose Leaf Notes offers a clear and succinct summary of those reasons.
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