Random Thoughts and Sayings

When you become a parent, you almost instantly find yourself saying things that you swear you never would have said otherwise. My wife's favorite example is, "Don't scratch your neck with your chicken."

Last night, I heard myself saying a smaller example in the same genre: "Just give me a minute and I'll help you fix your pumpkin." And that wasn't a metaphorical pumpkin. It was the real thing.

Of course, this morning I got to type another phrase that you wouldn't expect to come up with. You see, the Dalai Lama has been visiting the university where I work, and some special event was taking place under some tents in the athletic field this morning. In order to accommodate the crowd, extra parking passes were apparently issued to the parking garage where I park. This gave me the opportunity to type, "Some Dalai Lama-lovin' jerk nicked my parking spot."

This led me to wonder what I would say to the Dalai Lama if we happened to run into each other, most likely in the men's room. Assuming that I would avoid saying, "Hello, Dalai!" what could I possibly say to this truly holy man? "Keep up the good work?" "How about those Red Sox?" "It must be easy to get a fit off the rack when you're wearing drapes." "¡Cuidado! ¡Lama!"

Or maybe, simply, "Eyes front, mister!"

However, thus far, we seem to be two ships who passed in the night. Just one of those things.

Finally, there is a blog post on The New York Times by Will Leitch in which he argues that it is time for Red Sox fans to stop the moaning and realize that their team is now a powerhouse, not an also-ran. And I agree with him. Failure is a habit though, and so is expecting failure, so I'm sure you'll forgive me if I tell you that, when I checked Game Channel last night and saw that the Sox were up 3-1 in the top of the fifth and that the Indians had runners on the corners with one out, the thought, "I wonder how they're going to blow it this time?" wafted through my mind. That they ended up winning 11-2 and that the Indians--an excellent team--lost through the kinds of screw-ups that the Sox were noted for over the years (can you say "Johnny Pesky and the double pump" or "Bill Buckner's legs" or "Bucky 'Effin' Dent"?) should have shaken the faithful out of their fear, but I doubt that it completely has.

There is pride in accomplishment, but romance in failure. Particularly failure by a series of near misses. And romance is far more addictive than pride. Still, it's not a bad thing that the Sox are in the World Series. I just hope they don't blow it.