The old man and the Yankees

So I just finished a two-page essay question about the use of stereotype characterization in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. And what a paper it was. See Little Kev had this honor's English homework due and he had already written like a 15-page review of the book (which I strongly suspect he never read in the first place) and then he ran out of Hemingway gas. So he turned to me late this afternoon (I was well rested) and asked if i would answer this one single question for him. I, of course, love this book because Hemingway talks about my beloved New York Yankees in it and specifically Joe DiMaggio who he calls "The Great DiMaggio." Btw back in the day I read The Old Man and the Sea to the kids and I will never forget the first time I took the boys to an Orioles game and Sean, who was about 5 or 6, asked me when we got to the ballpark if we were going to see the Great DiMaggio? I loved that, of course. Anyway my paper is terrific in my high opinion and I will be anxious to see how i am graded in the high school honors English class and if I get anything lower than an B I will, of course, be ashamed but I will also use that as leverage the next time one of my kids wants me to write a school assignment because i can say "well, I'll only get you a C" and i can say this in all honesty.

Speaking of literary figures, la Sooze and I kicked back on the ol' Country Squire last night and watched a movie on Turner Classic Movies (loooove TCM) that was a film version of four short stories written by that fabulous author W. Somerset Maugham, the dude who wrote "Of Human Bondage," which is a very terif book and one of La Sooze's all-time faves. Anyway the movie was called "Quartet" and was pretty good and made me feel very smart indeed because instead of watching like The Fast and the Furious (ugh, double ugh) I was watching something written by a smart guy. Oh ol' W. Somerset was even in the movie - he introduced it. Good thing he didn't go into acting. Not his gift. Writing, however was. In fact Of Human Bondage was one of those books that moved and motivated me back in the day. In actual fact it so moved me that the very first little "chap" book of poetry I ever self-published about 100 years ago was called "The Bricklayer's Germ" and the epigraph to that completely unknown tome (which btw is not available anywhere for any price) was a terrif quote from 'Of Human Bondage' that makes me sound brilliant just for copying it over - goes like this:

"He thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad, meaningless facts of life: had he not seen also that the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories."

In other words it is noble to be a nobody. I like that thought. I am nobility according to ol' W Somerset.

So today was an absolutely beautiful, wonderful day weatherwise, sunny and clear and in the 50s, just terrif east coast autumn. So after like three consecutive months of raining and black skies and wind, you would think i would have perhaps stripped down to my undies and frolicked on the GodView lawn to celebrate such a day, no? Instead, you know what I did I do to celebrate? I took a nap. Really. I came back from playing music at church this morning and made an absolute delish egg sammy on toast with grape jelly (the jelly is crucial) and I talked to La Sooze for a few moments and then i hit the Country Squire about 12:30 and woke up at halftime of the 1:00 football games. Delish, really. The only problem was that I had ridiculous bed head and had to wear my Yankee hat later when i went to the grocery. The ravages of napping. Oh, and this weekend I cleared out the God View garage. How satisfying. I even vacuumed the little pieces of rug we have out there to wipe off your muddy feet when it rains as it does 8 months out of the year in Miz Maryland. But there is something about a clean and uncluttered garage, no? I mean its one thing to have a clean and organized house, but if you then step into the garage and it looks like you've stepped into the middle of a yard sale, then you have not done your job. This would be like stuffing all your clothes under the bed. The bedroom might look nice and tidy, but you know in your heart of hearts that clutter lurks. My garage is now uncluttered. I have darn near achieved self-actualization.

Finally, if you have not been under a rock for the past week you know that tonight they are finally playing game six of the ALCS between my beloved Yankees and Angels of Anaheim. It seems to me that this series began about a month ago and is still going on and the Yankees have not wrapped it up yet despite holding a 3 games to 1 lead about two weeks ago. Since then they've had more travel days than Paris Hilton and then they go to New York where it is raining and baseball was not meant to be played in the rain in October in the east. Imagine that. You know I have faith in the Yankees, of course, as Ernest Hemingway tells me to, but that faith is beginning to wane, especially since the Yankees are now trailing the game 1-0 and the specter of their blown 3 games to none lead against the dreaded Red Sox of Boston is still out there on the horizon all the way from 2004, the last time the beloveds made it to the LCS. Bad karma. (Update - as I'm editing the Yanks just scored three in the bottom of the fourth and lead 3-1 - lots of game left, though, lots of game).  Anyhow since i slept most of the day away today i have no good reason to not stay up and watch this game, unless it goes way south way quick. Meantime the Phightin' Phils of Philadelphia have already made it to the World Series (much to Nation reader Bill's great joy) and are out there somewhere loving the fact that these two teams are killing each other and I am schvitzing and my great buzz from a terrific regular season is slowly beginning to ebb. If the Yankees blow this series i may have to lay in the Country Squire with no lights on for several days repeating the phrase "a 3 games to 1 lead" with my hair all askew. I can't stand it. Anyway, complete review tomorrow. For now I will continue to avoid the television. I wonder if kev has any more homework he needs done?