My mother would like you to know that she was not cleaning out the freezer the whole seven innings, just during the commercials, which were, as everyone knows, ridiculously long. Even though her horrible daughter may have made it appear otherwise, with her --- uniherited, let me assure you --- blissful disregard for fact.
Thank you.
Third Game:
Before the start….
Dad, to world at large: Man, I don’t know why they bring kids to these games, they go so late.
Mom: Oh, come on now, it’s the World Series.
Dad: Well, don’t you think if I had brought B to a game when he was 8, by 10 o’clock he would have been zonked out.
B: Oh! That reminds me! We were just discussing my earliest memory of Fenway Park the other night. You wanted to leave in the 6th, but I made you stay and in the 10th inning Bob Zupcic hit a home run and they won the game. So eat it!
Sometime in the 8th …
Mom: Uh-oh. Timlin hasn’t been pitching well.
Greek Chorus, in three parts: Shhhhh! You’ll jinx them! (Howls of despair, rending of garments.)
Fourth Game:
Inning 1
All: John-nay!
(Much clapping)
Innings 2-7
Everyone except Mom: Mom, quit cleaning out the freezer and sit down!
All: C’mon, [Johnny/Manny/Derek/Kevin/Papi/Orlando/Miller/Belhorn/Trot/Tek]!
Inning 8
Dad: Could use a couple more runs, here. That’d be good.
Diablevert: Yeah, that’d be good.
B: Yup.
Mom: Yup.
Bases are loaded twice in the 8th inning. No runs score. A grim glance is shared by all.
Diablevert: We have to concentrate on the fact that we are, actually, up by 3 runs.
Inning 9
Complete silence reigns, and then ….
Whyishecarryingitinhisglovelikethathe’sgonnadropitthrowitgoddammit…
All: Gasp.
(Cheering and laughter, both slightly hysterical. Champagne is brought out, slightly warm. Chilling had been considered but rejected as being a jinx.)
Mom: You brought out that bottle? I was….
Diablevert: Ma, the Red Sox just won the World Series.
An entirely secular hajj, of course; I don't want to offend any Muslims that might happen upon this site and my ramblings. Or in other words, a sort of pilgrimage.
Some of you will laugh when you hear my tale of wandering --- at me. But others among you will understand that I am merely the putting forth measure of devotion the situation requires.
Until tomorrow, then, I say mysteriously, Go Sox.
FresnoFamous (04:57:55): dude!
Diablevert (04:58:45): dude, you have no idea
FresnoFamous (04:58:54): wow
Diablevert (04:59:28): they are trying to kill me
FresnoFamous (05:00:00): naaaah
Diablevert (05:01:18): well, true, it's not directed at me specifically. they are trying to kill us all.
FresnoFamous (05:01:47): they're gonna win
Diablevert (05:03:08): dude
FresnoFamous (05:06:02): jesus
Diablevert (05:06:52): dude, you can't even...oh, dude.
FresnoFamous (05:09:07): dude jesus
Diablevert (05:10:37): oh, my god. oh, holy jesus.
FresnoFamous (05:11:16): wow
Diablevert (05:13:32): dude.
FresnoFamous (05:13:42): congrats man
FresnoFamous (05:14:31): "Baseball, FUCK YEAH!"
Diablevert (05:14:50): and you don't even like baseball, man. heck, I'm not a proper fan of the game either. but the sox...it's like..nothing else.
FresnoFamous (05:15:36): its such a great story. heart wrenching really.
FresnoFamous (05:16:03): plus fuck you yankees.
FresnoFamous (05:16:38): FUCK YOU BLOOMBERG
FresnoFamous (05:16:47): (i'm drinking)
Diablevert (04:00:31): We won!
fresnofamous (04:00:40): HOLY SHIT
Diablevert (04:01:20): Now they're going to have to put up a statue to Ortiz
fresnofamous (04:01:43): Wow. Can they go two more games?
Diablevert (04:03:29): I don't know, man. I dunno. It's all messed up. Before the series everyone was all, "Keep it on the DL, but I think this is The Year," and then two days ago it was all, "Just let's not get swept. We're not going out like that." I dunno, man. All I know is that half of Boston must be breathing into a brown paper bag right now.
fresnofamous (04:04:04): Well I'm rooting for them
fresnofamous (04:04:12): Fuck the Yankees
Diablevert (04:04:16): Now I definitely have to stump to MBL for the streaming audio.
fresnofamous (04:04:36): Word.
(Note the timestamp. Well, in Fresno it was only 7, but still.)
My absentee ballot came in the mail today, and after what happened last time around when I didn't vote, I'm making very sure to fill in the bubbles extra careful. (Although being that I'm in solid blue New York, my vote is nowhere near as crucial as my friend Ill 'n P.'s; she's from Ohio, which might make her the most powerful person I know right now.)
Y'know, they give you these ballots, it's hard to resist the temptation to vote for things, even things which you know nothing about, like District Judgeships. "Wait," I told myself, "Before you color in the little bubble, maybe try and make sure you're not re-electing anyone being indicted for corruption, 'kay?" So, I googled. And now I, as a slightly better informed voter, have learned that one of the candidates was both a) rejected for candidacy as unqualified by an expert panel (newly formed to combat corruption in judicial appointments) and b) a recepient of the nomination of both the Brooklyn Democratic and Republican parties. There's a Conservative running against him, but I can't find out diddly-squat about that guy. I can't even find much about the whole flap, except for a couple of articles in the New York Sun, but that's a paid supscription site and I don't want to sign up for the free trial and have the Sun dunning me for ages about paying up; those guys are mean. And from what I hear about their circulation numbers, desperate. So, anyone who knows anything about corruption in the Brooklyn judicial system, leave a comment, okay?
Any one?
Bueller?
I am writing this from a computer in my own home, ladies and gentlemen. Got the OS X disks today --- thank you, Strunk, and thank god for Strunk --- and the installation went like a dream and it recognizes my cable modem and Praise Jesus!, ect.
More later; I have some dancing around the room with glee to attend to.
So, this is one of those posts where I feel like I should post to prove I’m not dead, but on the other hand nothing really interesting has happened, so I guess I’m just going to try and post the boring stuff entertainingly.
So, just before I flew home on Wednesday /Thursday, I got an email about a possible temp gig starting Thursday morning. My flight, and therefore my broke ass, got in at 8, so I was all, "Yeah, hell's yeah, I'm available. I may have to have my mom score an 8-ball for me so that I'm awake enough to function when I get there, but totally available." So I tried to sleep as much as I could on the way over, which wasn't too bad. I watched Mean Girls and thought it was pretty funny, but that might be the four-a clock-in-the-morning-somewhere-over-the-Mid-Atlantic factor. British Airways has cottoned on to the Jet Blue TV-in-the-seat thing, which was really pretty sweet. Instead of Starsky and Hutch whether I liked it or not it was Blackadder or Scrubs if I happened to feel like it.
I had a layover in Heathrow before flying to Dublin, and I don’t think I’ve ever been that exhausted in my life. We landed at 4:30 and it took more than an hour to get from Terminal 4 (Flights to the States) to Terminal 1 (Flights to the U.K./Ireland) and I didn’t even have to go through customs. “Numb, yet grim” isn’t a quite an emotional state, yet that’s as close as I can come to describing the sensation I experienced at 5:13 AM, after a 20-minute shuttle bus ride, two security checkpoints, and a ten minute walk, to come upon a sign warning me that I should budget another 25 minutes to get to my gate.
Dude, at that point I was just like, screw it, and let the moving sidewalk move me. I shuffled over to the side ---- by the way, the standing/walking lanes on escalators, stairs and sidewalks (strolling/walking on sidewalks, I suppose) are also on the wrong side of the road here ---- and hunched myself against the handrail, practically drooling with exhaustion. Man, those things are slow. A senior citizen in wheelchair rolled her ass past me, pausing only turn over her shoulder and mouth what I think was “Eat me, sucka;” her lips were somewhat obscured by the oxygen mask. As soon as I actually got to the gate, I quite literally collapsed, sprawling in front of the ticket desk with one arm linked though the straps on all my luggage and my bording past clenched in my fist. I must have made quite a picture --- “Dignity in Repose,” probably.
Anyway, I got home safe, and after some hemming and hawing and phone tag, found out I could start the temp gig on Friday. So that’s where I am now.
I haven’t figured out much about this place. It’s a law office, quite a small place, and I’m basically the assistant to this guy. The temp agency said they needed someone, “Um, indefinitely? I think.” But everyone refers to me as the temp and they haven’t got me a password for the computer system or anything. I’m sitting at a desk which used to belong to some girl, but it’s been made clear by implication that she no longer works here. No one really bothered to explain my duties to me when I got here, or show me around, although they’ve been nice enough --- people just keep looking vaguely surprised at the sight of me.
I think it might be because my boss eats people. Probably not literally, or anything. In fact he’s been amiable enough. But he’s a young guy, 36 or so, I’d say, and his last name is one of the names at the top of the letterhead --- the temp agency chick mentioned in passing that she thought he might be the son of one of the founders. And dude. This guy talks fast. I’ve been told I talk fast, but I have nothing on this guy. He’s almost frantic. I’ve been here two days and he’s already asked me to do something for him while he’s dashing out the door to a meeting 6 times, for 6 different meetings. His instructions tend to be frustratingly scant as well --- he had me type some letters for him this morning, then called me up this afternoon to ask if I’d faxed them yet. I had faxed the one on which he’d written “By Post and Fax,” but the others, on which he hadn’t written that… or provided a fax number…Um, no, actually. I’m beginning to suspect that working for him will involve developing either mind-reading abilities or a Forrest Gump-like stolidity and inquisitiveness when going over instructions. Furthermore, he keeps apologizing to me because he hasn’t given me more work, and it’s starting to creep me out. Like he’s one of those people whose leg starts to jiggle involuntarily and whose knuckles start cracking of themselves if they don’t have ten deadlines to meet in the next hour, and thinks that everyone else is like this as well. I dunno. It’s possible that might my time away from the legal grindstone has softened me irreparably. I’m not quite sure I want to be repaired….