Shore Leave

So, I'll be on hiatus for the next twelve days as I venture east to Massachusetts.
Maybe in the first few days I'll pop in and say hey, but once we reach Cape Cod, I'm hoping there'll be nothing in the way of technology (save for a TV for Sox viewing purposes) leaving me with the tranquility of the shore, and the serenity that it should hopefully bring.

And oh yeah, Sox win, Yanks lose.
As a happy Jess retires for a breather.

Have a great couple of weeks all, and take care!

Spring Cleaning

Ah, the beauty of a sweep!
I had the great pleasure of actually watching the game last night as it was on ESPN.
There were definitely some tense moments, but in the end the win was ours. As was a sweep of Atlanta.

This was great for me to see, especially considering the fact that the last game I saw at Fenway was several years ago, against the Braves, and we lost.

Ok, that's it for me. I'm a little overhung, back to bed, then to pack.

Back for a moment with thoughts going into tonight's game.
With the way their season's gone, could anything good come from the Royals?
Well, that's where our starting pitcher comes from, claimed from the Royals via waivers.
Let's see, his one start this season, 10 hits, nine runs, (five earned) over two innings. So, his ERA is 22.50 going into tonight.
As always, I remain cautiously optimistic. At least this time, he has a real ball team backing him up. We shall see. Go (checks the lineup again) Kyle! Yeah, that's his name, Kyle Snyder. C'mon man, lay our fears and doubts to rest tonight, yes?

Good start to the day

So, it's Father's Day.
I called my Dad bright and early today, well, early-ish for me, an hour later for him since he's in Boston.

Actually, I'm going out of order here.
My parents still have a dial-up modem in their house and just the one line (it's a suburb, no DSL availability yet, go figure) so when I called this morning, the line was busy - for a while.
So, I email my dad to let him know of my attempt and to say happy father's day, I'll try back later, and I'll see him Tuesday.
Two minutes later comes the email from him letting me know he's getting offline.
So I call again. "Hello!" is the expectant answer to phone, I of course reply in Seinfeldian manner "Hellloooo! La, la la!". Then some chuckles. Good stuff.
So that's it really. We don't discuss much, baseball, hockey, double checking my flight's arrival time on Tuesday and that's it.
It might not sound like much but, it's always good to talk to him.

This is a man who survived WWII Poland, lived through the holocaust (a toddler in hiding at the time) survived cancer a few years ago, survived having me as a fairly, until more recent years, ungrateful daughter among any number of other things.
Bottom line, I'm thankful he's my dad, and grateful he's still there for me to tell him that.

I'll be seeing him Tuesday, as I descend on New England for a 12-day visit.

And oh yeah, Nats just beat the Yankees with a 9th inning walk-off two run homer.
Good stuff.

Hopefully this evening's Sox game'll be the icing on the cake.

A nice, quiet Saturday night

In deference to my week of the flu, I've chosen to stay in and be a good girl tonight. The last thing I need is to relapse going into two weeks of visiting with the family. Besides, Dave's out of town, so I can relax on the couch to watch instead of relinquishing control to him as I retreat to my room while he plays shoot-em-up games on his PS2.

So it was, with a bottle of wine and some nicely marinated chicken w/rice and veggies that I sat down to watch the first of my Netflix for the weekend.

The Motorcycle Diaries. Really a very good film.
I can't say too much right now, as I prefer a significant post film debriefing/processing time. But suffice to say, it was quite impressive and provided some keen and, at times, quite moving insight into the man Ernesto who would one day be known simply as Che Guevara.

At any rate, highly recommended.
Not sure which I'll watch next, if anything, after all, hockey's on, and the Oilers have a 1-0 lead in the second. Go Edmonton!

What is this, the Midwest region?

Ok, first things first. Yay! The Sox broke their losing streak with a decisive with against the Braves.
Well done boys, Lester, et al.

Now. The Saturday game.
I don't get one, Red Sox or otherwise, since no Chicago team plays until 3, they're not going to show the early game at all.
dammit. Fox Saturday game of the week, my ass.

Ah well. Back to in front of my computer it is then.
Go Josh!

Postscript: My bad. I went for a walk, took a nice shower and found out that the game was being shown on Fox. Just in time to watch, go figure, Tavarez, give up another run in the eighth. Still, we have a 5-3 lead right now.
Back to the game. Woo hoo!

Postscript #2: Final 5-3. Have I mentioned how much we love the Papelbon! Rock.

Final Postscript: Yankees lose to *snicker* the Nationals. Thank you Mariano Rivera, we now share the AL East Division lead again! Cool beans.

I don't like domes

At least, that's the excuse I'm using at present for my poor boys getting swept by the Twinkies over the last few days.

*sigh*

Moving right along, today is all about prep for me.
I'm taking off for a couple weeks on Tuesday and Dave's borrowing my car for the weekend, so everything I was planning on getting done this weekend, I must do today.
It's not that much, just your basic travel supplies, but my mind isn't that well organized so I was planning on figuring it out over the weekend. No matter.

Time for listmaking. I swear, I should just carry the notepad around with me all day. I really should. And I've been telling myself that for quite some time, due to this whole memory problem issue. Maybe I just keep forgetting to do that?
Who knows.

Tonight, interleague. Atlanta. Lester (who?) v. Hudson.
I won't hold my breath, but will remain hopeful.

Some things, we like to break

Records, for one, but more pertinently for me (since it's all about me, right?) FEVERS!

Yes, thankfully, my fever broke some time in the last two hours, now sub 102 for the first time in a while. My thoughts are clearing, water is staying down, and I'm getting back there.
It seems that spending twenty out of twenty-four hours in bed really does help.
I'm still a big ball of phlegm (aren't you glad I'm sharing?) and I still sound like Barry White when I talk, but hey, it's progress.
I gotta say though, this is not how I had planned to lose more weight. Four pounds in three days? I know it's all water weight lost and it'll come back now that I can drink fluid again, but still, gave me a brief thrill when I hopped on the scale.
Forty-five down, fifty-five to go. For now, anyway.

It seems it's a good thing that I slept through last night's ball game.
Just as well, I have to say my faith in Matt Clement has long since subsided.

Ok, I'm still a little fatigued, going to lay down some more.

Piłkarstwo a go-go

Admittedly, I do not, nor do I ever plan to care about Soccer, the World Cup, or anything related to either.

However, as a Polish Jew, I'm kinda taking an interest in the Poland-Germany game that's going on right now.
Poland has never beaten Germany - in soccer or otherwise, and they need at least a draw to stay in the cup race.
I don't care about that, but how great an upset would that be, on so many levels?

Maybe it's the fever talking. My summer cold has escalated into a full-on summer flu.
Yup, wishing for death right about now. Or, to at least be able to keep water down since I'm dehydrated as all get out.

Enough whining. Back to bed I go again.

Postscript: Ah well, so much for that. Still don't care. Soccer shmacher

You sure got a purty mouth

I swear tonight's game against the Twinkies was totally all about Dueling Banjo's.
Six shutout innings by both. Then, Johan Santana allows a solo home run by V-Tek in the 7th. Schilling allows one too in the bottom of the 7th.
Shutouts by both in the eighth, and by the relief in the ninth.

This is a bit of a preemptive post on my part, since I'm not planning on being awake to post when this game is over.
I hope to be well asleep, dreaming away this crappy-ass cold I've got.

On top of that, I've got my quarterly neurologist's appointment tomorrow.
If there's one thing to ensure not kicking a cold quickly, it's hanging out in a hospital waiting room for three-plus hours just to see your doc for a twenty-five minute follow-up, some Rx renewals and a "come back in three months."
bitch bitch bitch.

Don't get me wrong, I love my neurologist. He's a peach, it's just waiting around til noon for my 9:30 appointment's a bitch. Enough.

Back to the game. Now it's the bottom of the 10th, two outs. C'mon, Pap!

G'night all. here's hoping I wake up to the score I'm hoping for.




Postscript: Oh yeah, like I was really going to go to sleep with a tie ball game.
There was hope. There was a one run lead. And then, there was the Snake. Tavarez.
For fuck's sake, Tito! You got Papelbon. You got Timlin. You got, hey, a lead! And you put in this fucknod?

For those of you who have read my previous, if brief, tirade on this punk ass excuse for a reliever, I direct you here. Now I really am going to bed, pissed off.

I hab a subber code

That's what I get for typing how I speak.

I have a summer cold. Very unhappy.
You know the feeling when you head feels like it contains all the mass of the universe compressed into a space the size of your head, and then a vice is gripped onto it?
Yeah, that's how it feels today. plus a killer sore throat.
Bitch bitch bitch. Of course it could be worse, so I'll stop complaining now.

The only problem is that I'm supposed to go to both pool league and pub quiz tonight, and I'm not sure if I have the energy to do either.

Time will tell. Back to bed.

On the brighter side....

I just got back from my nice little 5 mile parallelogram of a walk around Lakeview and Wrigleyville.

Feeling good.

During my walk, I passed by, count 'em, six random people wearing Red Sox caps of varying shades/age/etc. I don't know, it just made me feel happy, and a little more optimistic for the coming week after what could be called a lackluster weekend set of games.

Yay!

Anyway, I'll be at Ten Cat tonight, for pool league. Mmmmmm....pool.
It's always a good time. It's a team that only exists during the summer session, although there are always multiple teams year round out of Ten Cat, since it is truly one of the best places to shoot pool other than a pool hall.

Our team is made up entirely of women. We all know each other from other nights of pool leagues where we often found ourselves the only females on our respective teams (I always called myself the mascot when that was the case) so we thought it would be fun to take the shorter, summer session and have a reason to hang out.
It's a good set of players and a fantastic group of people.
It's odd, it's only now that I can honestly say I have lots of female friends. Through at least my late twenties, just about all my friends were guys.
Suffice to say, I have more surrogate brothers than I can count.

So I'm looking forward to a fun night with the chicks.

Postscript: A couple hours later. Yeah, I'm not going out tonight.
Lack of cashflow's a rockabilly bitch from hell.

I think I have enough for a couple loads of laundry, so there's my suddenly, awe-inspiringly, fun-ass Monday night for you.

Ah well, there's always hockey to be watched, and that's free, so there you have it.

Six of one, half dozen of the other

Thus far, it looks like we're going to split the games today.
I know, I know, too soon to say, we're just down 5-0 going into the 6th.
I'll stay optimistic if you will. Just keep in mind we've kinda got our second string in for the second game. No Manny, no V-Tek, etc.

At least the Yanks got swept. Sometimes bad things do happen to those you wish it would happen to.

I've had enough for today. Time for some more Katamari, since the blisters haven't fully formed on my thumbs yet.

I blame Dave. He went and bought the PS2 and the game. Now I'm stuck with it, and me, with my addictive personality, have been taken hostage by it.

Ah well, there are worse ways to go, right?

Postscript #1, Ok, so now it's the end of the sixth, and we're only down 6-4. See how I did that reverse Murphy's law thing there? Pretty slick, huh?

Here's hoping the last three innings of the game go just as well.

Postscript #2, Yeah, well, crap. So much for that.
Eh, a split's ok, again, the Yanks got swept, so we're still ok. For now. We gotta figure our bullpen out, somethin' fierce.

How do you spell Relief?

P-A-P-I.

Outstanding. I am, as usual, watching the game via updates on my computer.
Two on. Two out. Two strikes. Down by two in the bottom of the 9th.

What does Papi do? Exactly what I was begging my computer screen to do.

"C'mon, Papi, walk-off three run homer, right here!"

That's the way to end the game. I was starting to get a little dejected.

Now, we just need the second game of the double-header to be a little less suspensful, and in our favor earlier on.

So far so good.

Oh, and Oakland's up over the Yankees 6-5 in the eighth.

*sigh* Most relieved. And ready for more.

It'll take a lot

to change my mind about Tavarez.

I didn't like him when he was with the Cardinals, and I sure as shit don't like him now.

Unlike other bullpen artists including, surprisingly enough, Seanez, who I've warmed up to, I still pretty much always swear out loud when I see Julian, the snake man, being left in for more than a fraction of an inning.

Not a fan.
Never mind the fact that the first game of the doubleheader, which was supposed to make up for a rainout, was rained out.

Ah well, if nothing else, the Yankees lost today too, so no ground was lost.
And, I was, if not impressed, left hopeful after seeing the initial outing of our young prospect. He's not there yet, but he did about as well as Tavarez, and didn't get the loss.

Went to the Cell for the White Sox game, which they won in extra innings. Good for them. I'm more than willing to root for them til July, when my boys come to town.

Now I'm tired.

In lieu of going to the gym, I got off the train several stops early on the way back from the game and walked, to try to salvage some supposed workout from the day.

Not even three miles, but almost which, considering the beer taken in at the game, is more than I normally would've expected from myself.

Bedtime for Bonzo.

'Night.

Rain abounds

There's supposed to be a double-header for the Red Sox today.
Currently, it's a little rainy.

Likewise, I'm supposed to go the noon White Sox game.
It's raining here as well, so I don't know if that's going to happen.

What ever happened to the glorious sunny Spring Saturday afternoon ballgames I enjoy so much? It couldn't be just a fleeting memory from days gone by.

Nah. It'll lighten up.

All will be well. In the meantime, I may as well hit the gym. I have time and it's certainly not the kind of weather I want to walk around outside in.

Enjoy the game(s) all!

Scratch that. The gym, I mean. Looks like the weather's clearing up a bit.
No time for the gym, must prep for the game. Takes awhile to get down to the South Side and the Cell.

I'll make this short and sweet

Due to excessive intake and sun yesterday, I've been (deservedly) out of sort today.

So I'll leave it at this.

We won, thus far, Yankees are losing. Good all around.

Lester(?) is pitching tomorrow. That's a wait and see if ever I've seen one.
I maintain my eternal optimism.

More tomorrow on tonight and what transpired while I was not watching my computer like a good Sox fan.

Way much gooder

I know, I know, that's not proper English, but at this point, I don't give a rat's ass.

All I know is, we won. We beat the frickin' Yanks. Finally.
Turns out, a night off did us some good.

You'll forgive me if I don't expound upon it further. I'm a little out of sorts.

Between walking outdoors (again) and getting sunburnt, and watching the game at the bar whilst imbibing, I'm a tad bit inebriated, so I have precious little to say other than, woo hoo!

There you go.

I'm sunburnt, sore, and pleased as punch.

'Night all.

A timely reprieve

My Red Sox got rained out at Yankee Stadium today.

I'm thinking it's a good thing.
Take a day. Get over the heartache and come back like no one's business.

Payback's a bitch, and it's name is the Red Sox! Oh yeah.

As for me, I took advantage of the lovely weather today and instead of going to the gym, took a nice seven mile walk around my extended neighborhood.

It was funny, actually, I ended up walking to my gym and then took the long way to walk back. So, I guess I did go to the gym today, just not in the way I normally do.

Hell, I'm all for saving on gas.

So much for that

Well, I had the unpleasant news broken to me while at pub quiz that the Red Sox lost, again, in heartbreaking fashion.
Still haven't brought myself to read the wrap. I'm just going to snap my fingers and pretend it didn't happen. Again.
Unfortunately, looking at the division standings doesn't make that come to fruition.

Ah well.


Last night pub quiz was pretty packed. We had to bring in two extra tables from the front bar to accomodate the 54+ people we had in attendance.

It was a good night. Got a chance to catch up with some people I hadn't seen in months, so all in all, despite the Sox, and ok evening.
Pub quiz is always a good time, though. I enjoy seeing/hearing the reaction to the questions Dave and I write. Some groans, some laughs.
Nothing like a little cardio for your cranium, with beer!

I'm off. Back to the gym. Out damn toxins, out!

So far so good

I know it's just the end of the first inning, but so far, no score, by either team.
Frankly, I'll take it.
Pauley (again, who? I know, I know, he's not that new, but still) only needed six pitches to end the first inning, thanks to a double play ball and a ground out.

I'm not holding my breath or anything, but thus far, feeling cautiously optimistic.

Time to head out to help run pub quiz.
Hopefully, I'll come home to a winning final.

Moving right along

Ok, I think I'm over the thrashing we took from the Yankees last night.
Hopefully, the next game that I'll be able to watch will be more enjoyable.
Grrrr... Ok, maybe not quite over it yet. But I fully intend to be by the next game.

Anyhoo, I'm still feeling a little out of sorts this morning.
I had a late dinner combined with beer from the bar.
Such extraordinarily bizarre yet frighteningly vivid dreams last night, I'm still having trouble shaking them.
Some had hum drum enough elements that I was sure they had occured, until I did my morning email/Internet reality check.

So strange. Not worthy of description, just, yeah. Weird.

On to bigger and better things, right? Low expectations for tonight's game.
We got Pauley (who?) against Wang pitching.
Exactly. Low expectations.

And oh yeah, happy All Satan's Day - you know, 06/06/06 or 6/6/06. anyway. Cheers, Lucifer, or the little Omen boy. Pfeh.

Enough. I should hit the gym. Work out some toxins.

WTF?

No. Seriously. What the fuck?

It's the fourth inning. We're on our fourth pitcher. We're down 13-3.

The royal We is not amused.

This sucks in so many ways I've lost the ability to speak and, for the moment, type.

Wtf?

Dear old Macalester

My ten year college reunion is/was this weekend.
Needless to say, I didn't go.

There simply didn't seem to be a need, not to mention that I forgot all about it until today.

Fact of the matter is, there's hardly anyone that I'm particularly curious about that I would need to see in person in order to catch. Plus, my favorite person from college is now my roommate, so that takes care of one of maybe five people I'd be curious about.

Add to that that there's certainly nothing brag-worthy going on in my life so attending would only make me feel a little worse about myself, considering that chances are, just about everyone's life from my years there is going better than mine is at present.

You may think I'm overreacting, but let's summarize.
Job? None.
Love life/marriage/kids? None.
Health? Incurable.
Fitness level? Crappy, but working on it.
Satisfaction rating? 0-1, on a scale to 10.

Yeah, definitely not something I feel the need to broadcast to the rest of my graduating class.

Ok, enough self pity. For now. The Sox are holding on to a lead in the 7th, as the Yanks are getting their asses handed to them by (sic) the Orioles. 10-0 in the 5th. Ok, so I do have one thing to be happy about, if only vicariously.


Postscript - Sox win, Yanks lose, Jess pleased.

This never bodes well

After a Red Sox loss and a Yankees win last night, we're banking on Clement to keep us from losing any more ground in the standings.

I could be wrong, but I'm uneasy at this situation.
Here's hoping this discomfort is uncalled for.

Back to feeling human

There's nothing like having air conditioning again.
It came back online around 8PM last night and, for the first time in a good week, I slept through the night, and then some.
I feel so much better. I feel my sanity sinking back into my brain.
We'll have to wait and see if it actually manifests itself in honest to goodness sanity, but that's always been questionable.

Onto other things.
Well, that's really about it.

Sox had the day off yesterday, during which the Yankees finally lost to Detroit.
Now it's our turn to hopefully sweep the Tigers.
Yankees are facing our whipping boy Orioles tonight, so we need to keep winning to stay on top.

C'mon Curt!

More later.