When you do something for almost every day for years and miss some days it’s hard to get back in the habit. That’s why I haven’t been writing. Most days I have simply been too busy. I leave for school every day around 6:40 AM. I get home around 4 PM. I then went out almost every night this week. I went to two Met games, John Platt’s On Your Radar, and Thursday I had dinner with Barry, a friend I haven’t seen in over 50 years. As I’m running on less than six hours of sleep a night when am I to blog? I could perhaps force myself between getting home and going out, but that’s when I have to do everything else in my life including putting on Gord’s Gold. I have spent much of today not moving. For once I got enough sleep, but I was still tired. I didn’t have the best sleep. I took a nap. I now have two glasses of iced coffee in me and I’m still tired. More importantly, writing isn’t coming as easy to me as I’d like. I could write about all the things I did when I was out. I could write about all my thoughts about how people think. Instead, what am I doing? I’m writing about how come I didn’t write.
I just started to write about the Mets but realized that’s a poor lede too. I was start with dinner with Barry. We met in camp when we were in middle school. The camp was from the Samuel Field YMHA. That’s Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the YMCA for Jews. It was also a YWCA, Young Women. but I can’t remember how the write the combination. We just called in the Samuel Field Y, in Little Neck. We were pre-teen so this when dinosaurs walked the earth. Kids have it so easy now, you hardly ever hear of a T-Rex eating someone on their way to school nowadays. We lost about three kids that way every summer at camp.
We went to the same high school, and I don’t have a clue as to why we didn’t maintain our friendship then. I know I liked Barry. It must have just been something random about our classes. We went out separate way and didn’t reconnect until Facebook. He has lived in the DC Area, and I am still in New York, so we still didn’t see each other though we talked on FB. We are both still nerds, Barry recently retired from NASA. I tell everyone he was a rocket scientist. He was an engineer that worked in management and communications. He never met Nichelle Nichols, that’s Lt. Uhura, but he did do a project with Kate Mulgrew aka Captain Janeway. We were Star Trek fans when we met, and this makes me cooler by connection. Don’t worry, you can still be my friend. I am way cooler, but I won’t forget the little people. I mean, you are now cooler by your connection to me. The gulf is not vast.
Barry came to New York to reconnect with people, and I was one of the people he wanted to reconnect with. I am happy I was. We had a great time eating at An Beal Bocht, an Irish pub I love that’s not far from me. I shared the food of my people. Barry and I are both Jewish but have absorbed Hibernia via the music. If you are a gentile woman aka schicksa, and you are in a relationship with a Jewish man you are Jewish by infusion. I learned this from an Irish woman married to a Jew.
Barry and I had 50 years of catching up to do. We learned each other’s life’s story. We also talked about stupid things, because isn’t that the best part of having a connection with someone? I’m disappointed we didn’t talk about Superman, but as you can tell, Star Trek came up, as did a lot of music. Hey it’s me. Really odd we both know Cheryl who does a house concert series in Maryland DC suburbs, Barry lives on the Virginia side. I love that we both met someone so unrelated to our roots. It’s a small world.
I am out of blogging shape. I didn’t tell you what I ordered? Those that know me best will know what I order at an Irish pub, bangers, and mash. An Beal Bocht does not disappoint. They serve authentic Irish cuisine. They also have Irish sessions. I need to go back to them.
The Mets went through a bad stretch and lost three in a row to the lowly Cubs. I went to one of the games. Last night they beat the lowly Pirates. Yay! I have not lost any enthusiasm or optimism for the team. You are never as good as you look when you are winning or as bad as you look when you are losing. The Mets’ starting rotation is finally healthy and in order. Look at their numbers since July 1. WARNING, math ahead, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph if you don’t care for baseball or math.
Look at ERA-, that’s a measure of how many runs a player allows compared to the average pitcher, 100 is average. The Mets have three pitchers allowing less than 60% of the runs as an average pitcher, one allowing 72%, and two below average pitchers. Walker was an all-star the first half and pitched well his last two starts. It’s not a lot to ask for him to pitch average the rest of the way. If I were the manager, I might well start Peterson. He had a terrible last start, I know, I was there; he began by walking the bases loaded. But other than that, he’s been very good. Look at his FIP, Fielding Independent Pitching. It’s about the same as Bassett’s. FIP is not so much better than using ERA but it’s a nice complement. It eliminates a lot of the luck and the fielding. The point is, this is great. I’m looking for the Mets to go far.
You know what I haven’t written about? The thing you are probably most interested in, my new life as a High School Math teacher. As I don’t intent on doing anything worth writing about today. I will save that for tomorrow. I’m sorry. I could rewrite everything, but I want to go shopping and I want to talk to a friend, and I have to prepare Gord’s Gold. Most week’s I’m recording it by this time in the week. Now I have only about a quarter of the show even programmed. I suspect that I will not go shopping or even get dressed. It’s a beautiful day but it is the seventh day and even God rested then, and he didn’t have to deal with the wear and tear of actually existing.
Wise Madness 