Oh mah gaw

The Mets are going to the World Series. The Mets are going to the World Series. The freaking Mets are going to the freaking World Series.

If anybody needs me, I’ll just be somewhere in Sharjah, quietly freaking out.

My Mets mojo is still in effect

I got to attend two Mets games when I was home for the summer, but if I’d had an endless amount of time and money, I definitely would have gone to more. I was happy that I got to take the kids to see a game. Satanski had a good time, as usual, but it was Pork Chop’s first baseball game, and I was please to see how much she enjoyed herself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had a great time at the game, especially when it came to helping me heckle various players, calls, officials, and the like. Only the littlest one was actually wearing Mets garb, as mine was in the laundry (oops) and Satan had outgrown his (in fact, she’s wearing his Reyes jersey from seven years ago).

So, for various reasons, I was bummed to leave the same time zone as my favorite baseball team. Not that I’ve ever had the most stable sleep patterns anyway, but having most games start at 3 AM my time puts a strain on feeling like a good fan. I’m super excited that the Mets are somehow still as good now as they were when they went on that 11 game win streak in April. Of course, there were a few missteps that reminded me that they’re still the Mets, but on the whole, I’m really stoked about what they’re doing these days. Usually Mets fans have to abandon all postseason hopes by like July (at the latest), so the fact that the Mets are still in first place IN SEPTEMBER is huge!

And it’s all because I live 6,000 miles away. Mets fans, should you want to express your appreciation, I accept appreciation in the form of Amazon gift cards, PayPal, and worsted weight yarn.

You’re welcome, Mets fans

Why did the Mets wait until 2015 to start off smoking hot, with a 10 game winning streak (without David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud, Jenrry Mejia, or Jerry Blevins)? How has Wilmer Flores (mostly) stopped sucking? How did Bartolo Colón at one point have more RBIs than Curtis Granderson? It’s because I moved to another continent. Duh!

You’re welcome, fellow Mets fans.

Take it out on the opposition

It sounds like Mets closer K-Rod nearly got into a fight with bullpen coach Randy Niemann on Sunday night. That would be the same Sunday where K-Rod came in and struggled, and then struck out A-Rod on a 3 – 2 count to end the game. On deck was Robinson Cano, who has turned into an alarmingly (if you’re not a Yankees fan, anyway) awesome baseball player lately, although he’s not putting up the numbers he did in April and the Mets were able to shut him down this weekend. He’d slumped so much during the series that if he had come up, I’m sure he would have wanted to redeem himself by putting his team ahead. Anyways, I suggest that K-Rod spend less time getting into heated arguments with old guys and more time actually doing his damn job. Sure, K-Rod and Niemann made up later, but K-Rod has to learn control. A lot of control.

Jeez

I go away for a few days and WordPress goes and changes everything…including my avatar, which was formerly a photo of my adorable nephew. Weird. I’m still angry with the Mets right now, and do not prefer to have their logo represent me on WordPress.

I haven’t been doing too much lately. Except for knitting. I’ve been doing a lot of knitting. And frogging. I’m never so OCD as when I’m knitting, and then I get this perfectionist streak that is completely at odds with the fact that I still don’t pay as much attention as I should to what I’m making. That’s because I need to watch something when I’m knitting.

Recently, I’ve seen 27 Dresses, Enchanted, Step Up (I’m a bit ashamed about that one), and I started Made of Honor, but I find the pratfalls a bit much and haven’t yet resumed from Dempsey’s second face plant in a single scene. I finished up the third and final season of Veronica Mars, and I’ve now moved on to Cupid, which I just learned is on youtube. How awesome. I remember loving that show, but the details are blurry at this point. I’m pleased that it’s as smart and funny as I remember, and that the wardrobe and hair isn’t so dated as to be a total distraction. I’ve also been really into Chuck lately, and it’s gotten so good that I even watch it before Gossip Girl! Heroes is still stupid, but not as single-mindedly moronic as it was earlier in the season, so I’ve resumed watching it on Monday, instead of allowing several episodes to pile up and then watching them all at once.

I’m about to be single single again (as opposed to mostly single), so that should leave me even more time to 1) make socks and 2) not make any of the Christmas presents I intended to knit.

I cannot believe how quickly summer/autumn happened, and that it will be winter in just a couple of weeks.

Whatever dudes

So the Mets choked. Again. Some more. I am disappointed, but definitely not surprised. It came to me this morning that my team has become the baseball equivalent of the early-mid 1990s Knicks, which is pretty sad. They look promising, beat the teams that need to be beaten, and then make stupid mistakes that eventually prove to be their undoing. To say that the Mets have become the premiere choke artists of the MLB would be an understatement; I think they had that one sewn up in 2007. This has gone on for three years now, and it’s sad that expensive mediocrity has become the norm for the Mets. Well, now I can root for either the Red Sox or the Rays; the Sox have always been my preferred AL team, but the Rays have such a good story this year (despite the stupid name change).

But on to other things. While the Mets were in Flushing crushing the dreams of their fans, I was elsewhere in the borough, attending the Hispanic Heritage Parade in Jackson Heights. Satanski is quite obsessed with parades, so even though our connection to Hispanic Heritage is tenuous at best (his maternal great-grandmother was from Puerto Rico, and I’m the usual black American mutt), we went. It was pouring when we exited the subway and I was sure that the parade would be canceled, but we’d come all the way from New Jersey, so I thought we should check. How smart I am! A local traffic cop told me that the parade was still on and a few beat officers directed us to 37th Avenue. My nephew, who at 3 has a completely unfounded phobia about police officers, was quite impressed with their helpfulness and shouted, “Thank you, police!” as we walked to our destination. It was supposed to start at noon, but it was closer to 12:45 before it actually got under way. As you might imagine, the sounds and colors were amazing, and the parade really got going when the rain stopped falling. I went largely to see my belly dance teacher and fellow students perform (to salsa music, which was actually a neat combination), but the kid was getting cranky and all paraded-out, so we left after they passed us by. I brought my smaller camera and did not properly charge the batteries, so I actually don’t know what kind of shots I got. I turned off review to preserve battery function and didn’t look at them when I got home, so I will go over and post those pictures when I get home after work (which might be delayed, as I just found out that Helen Wang is having a store closing sale and things are going for 80% off).

Sorta Boom (no dynamite was involved in the making of this post)

Yesterday morning, my parents’ church was torn down to give way for a bigger, awesomer, more churchier church. They have well over 2,000 members now and that church was constructed to hold 400 (which, in 1948, seemed like a huge sum and was way more space than was necessary), so even with three services, they were struggling to seat people comfortably and safely. I went with the parents and Satanski to see the demolition, and it was a pretty interesting experience. I attended that church for my entire childhood, and spent countless hours with a lot of the people I saw at the demolition. I’m no longer a member there, but I have mostly positive memories of the congregation and the times I had there. I’ll admit, it was nice to be fawned over and to have people tell me how nice I looked and how great it was to see me. Weird, since I don’t often think about a lot of those people, but nice all the same. I do go to church every now and then, and it’s nice to know that there’s a place where people think of you, miss you, and wish you well. I wondered what kind of reaction I’d have to the demolition, but I have to say that I really don’t feel anything at all. Some people did cry, but to me, it’s just a building, and the congregation is staying together while it’s being built, so it’s not exactly the end of an era. It’s probably wrong to bring baseball into this discussion, but that’s also why I don’t care so much that Shea Stadium is getting thrown over for something younger and prettier. Actually, now that I think about it, I might mind that more, because it will soon cost me more than it already does to get into a Mets game, and I’ll probably still end up leaving with that same sense of disappointment that I’m feeling right now.

The first thing the demolition crew did was to remove the church’s cornerstone. Or, they tried to remove the cornerstone. What was supposed to start at 7:30 and take no more than an hour started at 8:30 and took at least three hours. Apparently the chuch wasn’t built by professionals, and it seems that they overcompensated and made sure that everything was in there real good. That rings true; when one of my  college classes visited the Habitat for Humanity headquarters in Georgia, the person who with whom we met told us that Hurricane Andrew showed that HfH homes were more likely to withstand hurricanes than homes built by professionals, because (motivated, but largely untrained) volunteers always used more nails than was strictly necessary and therefore built sturdier homes. A couple of guys were still working on that at the front of the church while the rest of the crew starting knocking in the roof and the back of the church. I had been told that there would be dynamite, or some other explosive agent used, but that turned out to be a dirty lie. They just used one of those excavator things to keep knocking stuff in. We didn’t stay for the whole thing, because I had to get to work in the afternoon and also watching a building get knocked in doesn’t stay exciting for long, but we were told that, by the time the crew called it a day, only one wall and the front steps remained.

What is this feeling?

I think it might be..yup, it is…ladies and gents, I have hope. Hope that my stupid Mets can stave off their inevitable collapse long enough to make it into the post season. They beat the Cubs tonight, which is great, since the Cubs are kicking butt this season. I’m looking forward to that colossal choke as well. Also, it’s official that the Yankees cannot possibly make it to the postseason, so I’m pretty freaking happy right now.

Happy Sunday

Today has been a nice day so far. I didn’t go to church with everybody else, so I got to awaken to a peaceful house (which was nice). I slept in, which means I didn’t get up until quarter til 9. I knit for a while, as I watched Grey’s Anatomy. I’m on the second disc of season two, and I’m almost ready for a break from this show. I think I’ll switch back to Buffy soon.

I went with Shiz to a street fair on eight avenue, lunch, and then a walk around Soho to pick up some longer length circular needles. I’m serious about making this baby blanket, and I’ll be all set once the yarn arrives in the mail.

I caught the bus home at Port Authority, but as I waited, I sat in Meet Me at McAnn’s and watched those sorry Mets lose to the Braves. Some guy was watching me express disbelief and then outrage as Heilman came in and gave up more runs, and was ridiculously surprised at how knowledgeable I was about the Mets. It’s a reaction I’ve run into somewhat frequently, so now I’m more amused than offended by it. He kept saying, “I don’t know how you know this stuff.” The first time he did, I responded with, “The same way other people know it: I read the newspaper and watch ESPN.” But that answer really did not penetrate his skull, so I didn’t bother to repeat myself when he asked again. He was pretty surprised to hear that I hate the Yankees, until I told him that it was mostly the result of fairweather Yankee fans. I told him that I found Yankee fandom kind of soulless, but he thought that word was a better descriptor of New York sports fans in general. He didn’t like the fact that I root for Boston in the AL, but what can I say? You can’t please everybody. I regained some of my points when we started to discuss Joe Torre, the Dodgers, and Manny Ramirez, and I still knew what I was talking about.

I’m glad I was able to converse intelligently and throw around names like Rick Peterson and Dan Warthen, and maybe blow this guy’s mind.

Yippee!

The Mets, despite putting in Aaron Heilman, actually managed to win last night. It was an ugly game full of ridiculous errors (by both teams), but they finally remembered that they’re professionals and managed to win. And because the Phillies lost yesterday, they Mets are now in first place (by half a game). Let’s hope they can keep it up!