A place to indulge my narcissism... and write stuff...
During the Spring and Summer of the season, Yankee fans like to give us a wink and remind the Nation of past Fall failures. That act is now officially over and those days gone like the Yankees in the first round.
Go ahead, say it: “World Champion Boston Red Sox.” Again.
Last century kinda started like this too, but then the Red Sox blew it by sending a young pitcher to the Yankees for money. I hope they don’t make the same mistake this century with Alex Rodriguez.
Perusing the Denver Post’s coverage of World Series Game 3, I found this gem by loopy “MountainLippy:”
“hey, trim $100 million off your payroll and then give us a call…nice “bought” WS win. By the way, just how fat and how ugly are the people in Boston???? **** on a sausage, at the end of the day we’ll still have the Mountains, great weather, our health….and thankfully we won’t live in Boston.”
I mean, who complains about payroll? Doesn’t the recent ineptitude of the New York Yankees prove that payroll doesn’t win championships? When the Yanks won banners 24-27 in the late nineties, their payroll was south of $100M. Since then it’s swelled to $160M; they’ve won nothing and they are in shambles.
Yeah, some of us are fat and ugly, but the Italian sausages outside Fenway kick ass. Oh, and maybe if the Rockies were eating boogers, they could pitch, hit and not choke on Rocky Mountain Oysters like the one Matt Holliday spit when he was picked off in game 2.
Oh, and what’s with the towel waving in Cleveland and Denver? Can you imagine that silliness occurring in Boston or New York?
Actually I’ve only two and while cradling my new grand-bundle-of-joy I’m quickly reduced to the cliché of the one armed paper hanger. Last night as I left-handedly clutched Madison against my chest I pondered how to simultaneously hold her bottle under the PUR water dispenser spout while moving the handle to um, dispense the H20. I needed a third hand, but lacking one, I eventually stretched my index finger enough to nudge the handle forward for flow. I’m also wondering is there a bottle warmer technique or contraption superior to submersion in a boiling pan with intermittent temp checks with a semi-sterile finger? Today I learned room temperature formula works just fine. I ran that by Megan, but she’s still watching the pot…
Oh, and the third hand would also help me to blog while loving this grandfather thing.
All these years… 49 to be precise, I thought it was so cool to share a birthday with “the Mick.” Today I discovered Tom Petty turns 57 and Snoop Dogg will undoubtedly celebrate his 35th by emptying several firearms. Sadly I must also report actor Viggo Mortensen was also born on this day in 1958 and looks better than… Well, he looks like freakin Aragon and I don’t.
Anyway, enough celebrity nonsense. Christopher Wren would have been 375 today. Why is he important? Well, he designed 53 churches in London, including St Paul’s Cathedral. Of course St. Paul’s was the sight of a famous royal wedding in the 1980’s, but more important to me, it was on the steps of St. Paul’s the scene was set for the song, “Feed the Birds (Tuppence a Bag)” It is a song I’ve heard Kyle sing many times and one that will always have a home in my heart.
The song was penned by the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman) and was said to have been the favorite of Walt Disney himself. Wikipedia attributes the following recollection to Robert Sherman:
“On Fridays, after work, [Walt Disney would] often invite us into his office and we’d talk about things that were going on at the Studio. After a while, he’d wander to the north window, look out into the distance and just say, ‘Play it.’ And Dick would wander over to the piano and play ‘Feed the Birds’ for him. One time just as Dick was almost finished, under his breath, I heard Walt say, ‘Yep. That’s what it’s all about.’”
Happy Birthday and thank you, Christopher Wren.
“Oh, sorry. She’s your baby.” Gigi’s reaction was to run toward cuddling when the nurse asked “Do you want to hold the baby?” “Grammy” deferred to the new dad, as did the new grandfather, “the Big Papi.” At 3:47PM today, Nearly 49 years to the day my mother delivered me to the adoring masses, my baby really took one for the team and pushed a healthy, beautiful baby girl into our family. Baby having always seems to involve statistics… Weight, height, trust fund balance. All I’m going to say about Madison Olivia is that she taught her mother never to have sex again and she entered this world like her mom: hungry.
Lately my mind has been like a dryer, mechanically turning and doing its duty, but with the erratic thumping of a sneaker tumbling and banging around with random abandon. The Chuck Taylor is fear and it’s fucking with my fluff cycle.
Tonight I read Kyle the 30th and final chapter of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and I could barely choke most of the words from my vocal chords. As I struggled, Kyle looked at me with odd curiosity. Without plot spoiling, I’ll just say the pages painted images of a funeral at the shore of the brilliant, sparkling lake aside Hogwarts.
This boy, who is so loved by so many is struggling with things he doesn’t fully understand and that those who love him cannot control.
“…he must abandon the illusion …that the shelter of a parent’s arms meant that nothing could hurt him. There was no waking from this nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really…and he was more alone than he had ever been before.”
– J.K. Rowling
Writing is tedious without inspiration; more so sans subject. Over the past few years of this blogaholic existence, I’ve bookmarked things I could later wax on. “11 Most Important Philosophical Quotations” is one of them. Charitably making the top ten (“This one goes to 11”) is this post title by Heraclitus (ca. 540 – ca. 480 before year 0) [As an aside, can I still use the term “BC” if I believe JC was just another guy?] Anyway, as you can see by the not so Polaroid accompanying this babble from your not completely evolved ape, Heraclitus, or “Clete” to the old boys back in the Athenian hood, was an intense dude.
The point is that our lives, our reality flows and is impermanent. This morning I spent over an hour researching “Developmental Dyspraxia” in an effort to figure out what ails my son. The condition does sound dead on, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve spent countless more of my finite time searching for “the answer.” It just doesn’t matter. The next hour I spend reading to Kyle and the hours later today we pick pumpkins matter. Enjoy the beauty of the river and don’t dwell on why it runs.
On March 11, 2003 I read an article in Slate.com about a company working on memory therapies. I did additional research that included comments by testing participants including one man who indicated the “Ampakine” “lit up his mind.” I thought this biotechnology would someday help people like my son. On May 7, 2003 I purchased my first shares of Cortex Pharmaceuticals and have been accumulating them since.
Yesterday I accompanied Kyle once again to the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts-New England Medical Center, this time for a consultation with a neuro-surgeon. We were there to determine if surgery to remove a cyst within his spinal cord would help him to walk, something that’s becoming more and more of a challenge for my boy each day. The answer was “no.” The doctor was very gracious and explained the cyst was below the area of the spinal cord that affects walking. Kyle’s mom asked, “what do we do?” Kyle has been falling and we fear he will seriously injure himself one of these times. The doctor didn’t have an answer. In front of us, he scanned hundreds of Magnetic Resonance Images and found no abnormalities or damage to answer the question “why?” He recommended metabolic testing, then genetic testing as next steps. As I put Kyle’s socks and shoes back on I looked him in the eyes and said, “I don’t care how long it takes. Mom and Dad are going to find out how to help you walk better.” “OK,” was my boys reply.
Oh, at about the same time we were getting our latest non-answer, Cortex got theirs. Their lead drug candidate was rejected by the FDA and the company stock lost 60% of its value.
It’s just something Megan says…
How long would the line be this afternoon at the Topsfield fair if there was a contraption called “The Manny Home Run Experience” where lucky fans could feel what Manny Ramirez felt at 12:44 a.m. this morning? Someone could make a lot of money with such a “Baseball Orgasmatron.” It would produce that rarest of feeling that travels from the fingertips up the arms, down the spine finally peaking by firing all endorphin guns at once as you euphorically watch a baseball explode into space.
This morning there are 3 jilted lovers in the baseball playoffs, all facing steep odds of getting back the girl. This reality does douse my 2007 playoff fantasy with icy cold water. My scenario went something like this:
Division Series:
League Championship Series:
World Series:
My picks aren’t looking very solid this morning, but hey, teams have climbed out of worse than 0-2 series holes, haven’t they?
© 2026 Fifteenkey
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments