Where, oh where, has that
happy anticipation gone?
As I sit here watching the rain, I
remember the anticipation I felt before Game 1 as I
stopped to buy a couple of bunches of beets on the way
home as if it happened sometime long ago in some hazy and
mythical better time, perhaps childhood or an alternate
reality. It was only Tuesday. This week. This year. Not
some mythical golden age. The beet soup (a variation on a
recipe from the [which month] issue of Martha
Stewart Living) came out really good. It uses the whole
beet: the root, the stem, the greens. It took me ages to
chop the roots, stems, and leaves. By the time the soup
was ready and Ned was here to eat it and watch the game,
all of Red Sox Nation and probably a lot of the rest of
the nation too, was wondering what the hell Schilling is
doing pitching on that ankle... He can't push off. He
looks off balance. All is not right with the Mudville Ace
tonight. As soon as Ned left, the Red Sox rallied to
within one run... but alas the dramatic come from behind
victory one normally associates with the 2004 edition of
the Red Sox did not materialize. I had lots of beet soup
left for Game 2.
There was no question I was going
to watch Game 2 and not Debate 3. After all, I'm the
idiot who said "It's only politicians. It's not like it's
baseball or anything." when people took a group
conscience on whether to end the Thursday night meeting
early so people could get home to watch Debate 1.
Besides, my cable provider has On Demand so I knew I
could watch the debate later without even needing to have
Tivo. I still felt that sweet sense of anticipation on
the way home from work knowing I had an evening of beet
soup and baseball ahead of me. Ned decided to stay home
and watch the debate out of loyalty to Kerry (he's been
working in the Kerry campaign in New Hampshire -- one of
those swing states people keep talking about). So it was
just me and the beet soup watching Varitek make thousands
of mound visits to Pedro and vaguely wondering if I
should tune in to the debate just to see if Bush is
planning to send all gay people to Mars or something :-)
Didn't he say something about that back in the State of
the Union Address? Alas, though Petey wasn't bad, the Red
Sox could not hit. Sigh. I never did bother to watch the
debate on On Demand.
Tonight's suspense/anticipation was
all about the rain. When would it hit? Would they cancel
the game? Would they start playing and then have to
suspend the game when the deluge arrived? Tonight's soup
being white bean and garlic and not requiring laborious
chopping of roots, stems, and leaves, it was ready before
the rainout decision was even made. Once the rainout was
announced I had this awful feeling that the long, dark,
cold, baseball-less winter had begun already. Beyond that
I didn't care anymore. Totally flat affect. I
didn't/don't care about anything either way: Red
Sox/Yankees, Bush/Kerry, the weather... it could rain
forever...
Ned came over anyway to return the
pan in which I had sent home beet soup for his wife on
Tuesday and to return Volume 1 of Charles St. John's A
Tour in Sutherlandshire, which I'd been wanting back
because I'd been thinking about certain parts of it and
wanted to reread them. He didn't touch the soup. I don't
think it was because I used Bush's beans :-) The soup
needed something anyway. It wasn't quite what I expected.
That could just be the flat affect again.
There is no joy in Mudville for
sure. There is no feeling at all.
