Thursday is my 29th birthday. It is also the first game of the National League Championship Series, in which my darling Dodgers face-off against those filthy Philadelphia Phillies. And so I offer up this prayer to the goddess Nike to ensure victory for my boys:
Please let them win. Please let them win. Please let them win.
I will continue to slaughter the office Red Vines in your name.
Please let them win. Please let them win. Please let them win.
10-3, Dodgers! I expected the Cubs to be out for blood after last night’s 7-2 trouncing, but they just don’t seem to be able to hold it together. Last night, the pitcher walked 7 in 5 innings before Panella pulled him. Tonight, the Chicago infield made 5 errors which directly contributed to almost all the Dodger runs. It’s kind of sad, actually. Everyone was talking about how LA was outmatched against the Cubs, how the Cubs were basically going to wipe them down, but that is definitely not the team I’ve watched for the last two nights. I’m glad for my boys, but I feel a little bit for the crowd out there in Chicago. They all looked so sad.
But, as Curt has repeatedly reminded me, they would not feel sad for the Dodgers if the roles were reversed. Curt reminds me everyone underestimates the Dodgers, everyone assumes they will fight, but go down. Curt reminds me that even the announcers (and I can attest to this) are siding with the Cubs as they insist there is still hope, that the Cubbies can come back and sweep the remaining three games, even though two of those are in LA and the Dodgers are significantly better at home than they are away.
The Cubs, he says, have enough support. And why shouldn’t they? After all, that’s what October is to baseball, though I never knew it: it is a month of dreams, when there’s no harm in staring up at that big, bright, autumn moon and praying, praying, that somehow, your team is going to come back from a 2-0 count to win a series. I don’t begrudge them that.
I’ll just reel in my pity until AFTER the Dodgers sweep. ;)
I’m irritated that all of this is happening just as the playoffs are beginning so I have to worry about losing all my money AND the Dodgers losing all at once. WTF, man.
God, the government is a moron. I’m irritated that the $700 billion dollar plan is the only thing they’ve come up with to fix this. I’m irritated that that number, pulled out of the blue by Paulson, is still on the table. You know why it’s $700 billion? BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WOULD BE BUYING BACK BAD MORTGAGE DEBT FOR MORE THAN IT’S WORTH.
Obviously, if we want to prop up our artificially (well, all of it is artificial) inflated economy, something needs to happen. I do not relish the idea of going through an economic depression, but part of me just wants to see it all go up in flames and see if we learn something here. Like: stop fucking borrowing to fix the problem we created by borrowing. Stop government subsidizing of private debt. Why should I pay OVER market price for bad mortgage debts someone else incurred?
The country needs revenue based on something tangible. We should legalize marijuana. Not that I would partake because the whole smoking thing is troublesome, but apparently it’s non-addictive (unlike nicotine), it can be grown locally (as we are frequently reminded by our friendly neighborhood news anchors), and it will probably pull in billions of dollars a year in tax revenue, not to mention the fact that we spend that much less money trying to force people not to do it. Billions of dollars. Not, say, $700 billion, but it’s a start.
But of course that won’t happen. The nation is prudish enough to say that’s bad, but certainly, if you want to defraud the country by borrowing more than you can afford, go ahead! The government will bail you out, cause it’s not like you’re a dirty pot smoker.
I was all set to write a rant tonight on various serious things like the $700 billion dollars we are all about to owe, the WaMu bank failure (it is official!), Sarah Palin, and other things that will soon have a very serious effect on the country – but then I watched the Dodgers lose a game against the Padres, and still not care because they just clenched the Division Title, whee! :)
They acted like idiots and poured champagne all over each other – even took it to the field and dunked some of the fans in it:
After they ran out of booze, it looks like they raided the water coolers and began pouring those over people. Manny Ramirez started throwing bubblegum out to the crowd, and Derek Lowe was pelted with sunflower seeds as he tried to give an interview.
The coup de grace had to be the rookies, though, who were forced to commemorate their first big year in the big leagues with outfits befitting their achievements:
There’s Clayton Kershaw, the 20-year old kid starting pitcher, and youngest guy in the majors, dressed up as Bo-Peep.
Here’s Corey Wade, a relief pitcher, dressed up as some kind of purple-haired genie.
Hiroki Kuroda, another starting pitcher, who, despite being a rookie in the MLB, was a veteran in the Japanese baseball league, so he was only forced to dress up as a pimp, rather than a nubile young lass.
And best of all, the lovely young Blake DeWitt. Someone walked by and tweaked his boob, and he giggled. The little tramp! ;)
Silliness, after all, must be celebrated.
So, it’s looking like Nomar might be out for the season after a pretty messy spill on the infield today. Will they pick him up after this season? Oh, it’s looking not so great for the handsome utility player. *sigh* Oh, Nomar, I shall miss you and wear your shirt with pride!
Anyway, HOLY SHIT did the Dodgers suck it tonight. I’d heard Curt’s rants about their all-too-numerous late-inning screwups, but I didn’t really believe until tonight. It’d been a pretty solid game up to the bottom of the seventh. They were playing a decent game against the Pirates (which, in and of itself should have told you something was up since they’ve basically spanked the Pirates the last two nights and it’s not like, you know, Pittsburgh is any good this year), when all of an f-ing sudden in the bottom of the seventh WITH TWO OUTS AND NO MEN ON BASE, whoops they suddenly sort of let
runs in.
Are you kidding me. I mean, as much as I am capable of caring for a group of men playing a sport, I support these guys, but letting in eight runs with two outs and no men on base? If I were a Pirates fan, I’d feel like I’d just won the lottery. These are the things you dream about at night and wake up yearning for in the morning.
I felt bad for them, but watching them make these errors, I realized that, as Curt had intoned a few weeks earlier, they were not playing play-off caliber baseball. They go out there, and win because they have fun, but they do not do well under pressure, no sir.
Anyway, Curt’s set up a blog about the Dodgers, so he has somewhere to rant about their shenanigans. He’s more technical than I am, having years of experience being mad at the franchise. ;)
Curt’s work shirt is filthy. There’s a tenacious little almost-hole taking root near the front pocket, various ink stains, several committed dirt patches, and a lovely, musky man-stink smell that wafts up from it when I hug and kiss him goodbye in the mornings.
He knows it is a dirty shirt, but he refuses to buy another because 1) he sometimes climbs up poles, up ladders, and under houses (sometimes he comes home looking just like a red-headed Pigpen) so he’s bound to get dirty ANYWAY and 2) he is a supervisor and does not interact much with the general public, so who’s to care if he’s a bit rough around the edges?
(Anyway, that’s his logic.)
So he got to work this morning to find one of his installers, Hugo, refusing to wear the new shirts the company had bought for the installers (who interact with the public and are unreasonably expected to be clean) because they had printed his name as “Hubo”.
Besides the unimaginative Hugo, who of us would pass up the opportunity to be Hubo? Certainly not my husband! Not only did he take the shirt, but he had the following exchange with a customer about it:
Customer: Hubo, huh? What kind of a name is that – Hungarian?
Hubo: No, it’s Russian. And Polish.
Customer: Oh yeah? Pretty unusual, I’ve never heard of that before.
Hubo: Oh yeah, it’s a family name. It’s run in the family for years, and so that’s how I got it.
Customer: Huh! Hubo.
Hubo: Yeah. Hubo. Hubo Valinsky.
He has eight shirts, has Hubo. Ah well, says the long-suffering Mrs. Valinsky: at least they are clean! ;)
So, the Dodgers did not play tonight. I watched part of an Angels game instead, feeling a bit of baseball withdrawal. I wheedled Hubo (the erstwhile Curt) into getting tickets for a couple of Dodger’s games, and feel a little sad that the season will be ending just as I got back into the joys of rooting for a team. Then, while surfing the Dodger’s website, I discovered that Andre Ethier has a little blip of a blog on LA eateries.
After skimming through it, I realized two things:
First, that my little giggling infatuation with him is probably on its way out. I mean, there’s no denying he is a talented ball player and quite the handsome young buck (younger…than…me…), but reading his words and realizing that he’s actually a real person, with a real life, who actually was not created just for me to ogle? Suddenly it is a little creepy to giggle over him. Suddenly, I feel a bit stalkerish and intrusive (although I have not intruded in any way), and suddenly he’s just my favorite player who I’m looking forward to watching, but will no longer, you know, gush over.
(inpublicanywaybesidesthatiswhatpatrickdempseyisfor)
The second thing I thought about how I admire their community service and charity work, and yet rarely do anything like that myself. Granted, I probably have less free time and certainly have less money, but every little helps, so they say. The library has been looking for volunteers. Maybe I can sign up for that.
Alright, off to bed now. Whee almost Friday!
They might win this one, but they’ve done little to deserve it. This game has been full of errors, mostly on Arizona’s side, but for which the Dodgers would be losing. The only real talent (besides Ethier being gorgeous and not-bad at bat) was Arizona’s starting pitcher, who was throwing real pretty pretty pitches. While he lasted.
Okay, that awesome sumbiscuit Broxton is actually rocking his job, now.
Eh, well. Here at the parentals today. Washed the car, did laundry, went grocery shopping, fixed two shirts, and made a heap of food, including these shiskabob betel leaf rolls:
They smell yummy, man!
So, we went to the Dodger’s game last night and it was pretty awesome.
They won, 8-4. Nomar wasn’t playing, but I ended up buying a shirt with his name on it. The Padres got a base hit off a ball that got stuck in Angel Berroa’s jersey, and Ethier got some nice swings in.
I used to watch a lot of baseball when I was a kid. Not so much for the last 15 years or so, but then Curt came along and now we watch the Dodgers. I like baseball. I find it satisfying. Every time someone steps up to the plate, it’s like someone may win the lottery! You don’t get this in other sports. There are not enough chances at scoring, or too many. With baseball, the possibilities abound. Continue Reading