Simply put on your jacket and walk out the door

Walking around Grafton this afternoon...

Also, I've posted this link in a couple of comments boxes, but thought I'd extract a bit here. This is Garrison Keillor in Time, from "How to Break the Political Fever" (found via Fiddler's Green - thanks, Joe):

What will reconcile us is what has always restored our sanity, and that is the plain pleasures of the physical world, our common love of coffee, the world of apples, the movements of birds, the lives of dogs, the touch of skin. Music. Dancing to music. Shooting baskets. Shooting conservatively, scoring liberally. Lacing up our skates, gliding through the dusk. Having worked ourselves into a fever over the future of Western civilization, we will now begin enjoying our oatmeal again, with raisins, chopped apricots and honey from bees that grazed in meadows of clover. The beauty of engagement is disengagement. You simply put on your jacket and walk out the door and find good health. There is no fever that a 10-mile hike can't cure.

8:40:49 PM      trackback [] 

Breakfast of Champions

Wait ‘til next year. Oh my God! Well, I have to say that by last night I was not too worried about the Red Sox. The Cardinals, sadly for them and their fans, hit the Red Sox freight train roaring out of New York and there was no stopping them. The Red Sox were never even behind once in any of the four World Series games, not once. The last two games were pitched by players with something to prove, and the band of idiots were loose and happy and put team ahead of individual, we ahead of I. The Patriots proved that – the value of being a real team. So maybe the Sox learned “team” from the Patriots while the Sox fans learned “champions.”

A client said to me yesterday in a mock panic voice, “What will happen after we win?” I said “Armageddon! And Kerry wins, and…” – and as it reads on Boston.com today: “Pigs can fly, hell is frozen, the slipper finally fits, and Impossible Dreams really can come true.” Every pessimistic “could never happen” now has a comeback: “Hey, the Red Sox won the World Series. Anything can happen.”

Last night through the early innings I half watched while surfing around on my laptop and K studied her worms (some day I’ll post about the disgusting stuff you get to hear about when you live with vet students). I shut down the computer during the second half to devote my full attention, with that lingering doubt bequeathed to all Red Sox fans from 86 years of heartaches still whispering in my ear that they might yet blow it. But the voice was raspy and dying, so-o-o last century!

Then it was done. As Manny came skipping in from the outfield and Johnny Damon mimicked Lonnie Paxton’s snow angel (from the Patriots’ “Snow Bowl” game) on the infield grass and players bear hugged, I remembered I had a bottle of champagne (Prosecco) in the frig. K protested that she had an 8:00 class this morning plus an exam to study for, but I said, “When you get to be an old lady are you going to say you didn’t celebrate the Red Sox World Series victory because you had a class in the morning, or are you going to say you were there and you raised a glass of champagne in celebration?” Heh, that was a pretty easy arm-twist.

So we hoisted glasses of bubbly and watched as the players poured the same over each other and the fans filled the streets in Boston, joining the far-flung Red Sox Nation in joy. The Red Sox – 2004 World Series Champions. Sweet.

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Update: Okay, this made me cry. "Win it for... my Dad who watches each and every game wishing his Dad was there to watch with him..." etc. (There are also some very funny bits in the article, too.) This is what the World Series is for many Red Sox fans. (Thanks, Toni.)

11:08:18 AM      trackback []