Tag: NLDS

  • ODDS and ENDS: Gym Time, CUBS Anxiety, and Corduroy Pants

    ODDS and ENDS: Gym Time, CUBS Anxiety, and Corduroy Pants

    (Dear I fear we’re facing a problem…)

    I wanted to go to the gym today. I know, I’m a little scared, too! (In a weird way, this feels like the call is coming from the inside of the house, if you know what I mean.) I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this development. For the past month, I started going to the gym at the start of the day. In the past, I had fit the gym in later during the day, and I found ways and excuses to not go. This shift came from two places. The first was that I had to admit to myself that my old way of doing things wasn’t working. If I was serious about getting healthier and back in shape, I had to try something different. The second place my change came from was my best friend and old college roommate. He, in his very subtle way over the past year, had hinted that starting you day with a workout can help you in multiple ways, the most important being if you schedule it as the first thing you do, then you are less likely to miss it. Provided you stay committed. I guess I’m committed, because I wanted to go this morning. I’m up to four days a week, and I think I will add the fifth. Things are changing… What’s going on?

    It has been a weird time for me when it comes to the Cubs. I’m very excited that they are in NLDS and at the same time I can’t watch them. I say this because every time I have watched them, they have lost. I’m not saying that I am the reason they lost, but it does seem odd. The other odd thing is that there was one game I didn’t watch and they lost, so there must be another Cub fan out there that is cursed with this ability. Oh, I know it’s not like it was in ’16, and the Brewers are pretty damn good, but I would like to see Cubs play the Dodgers for the NL Pennant. But if the Cubs make it to play the Dodgers, odds are I won’t be able to watch them. My anxiety would be too high, and it would doom the team.

    I want some corduroy pants! I used to have some, but maybe ten years ago, I tossed them as the knees were wearing thin. I have regretted that decision every day since. The pair that I tossed I had purchased at the GAP back in 2003. I remember this because I went with my then girlfriend to the mall near our campus, and working at the GAP was a mutual friend of ours who was willing to give her employee to my girlfriend. While at the store, the two of them talked me into trying on a pair of brown corduroy pants, which I had no intention of buying. But hot damn, I sure did look good in them! Not that I had the money to buy pants that day, but I did it anyway. The girlfriend didn’t last, but the pants did. Well, lasted until 2015 that is.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Fly the W, Baking Brownies, and The kid Hates the MTA

    ODDS and ENDS: Fly the W, Baking Brownies, and The kid Hates the MTA

    (Love and happiness…)

    The Cubs won! They beat the San Diego Padres and are moving on the NLDS! This season I was pretty hands off with the team. Followed them through the MLB app, mainly because baseball on TV is now behind a paywall, and due to flex pricing, the better the Cubs did, the more expensive the tickets cost when they played in NYC. (But a discussion on how MLB, clubs and players have made the game too expensive an elitist will have t happen on another day.) The CUBS are moving on to the next round in the playoffs!

    Brownies make me think of home and comfort. It won’t be cooler this weekend, as Summer has returned for the next four days. No bother! It’s October and the time of the year to start making this home nice warm and cozy. That means afternoon coffee, and brownies in the oven. Warm gooey chocolate seems to solve all problems, and I will be baking on that this weekend. Not that anything awful is happening. I feel like I should be prepared just in case.

    The kid hates the MTA now, and especially the randomness of the C train. This school year, she’s venturing out more on the subway, and gaining valuable mass transit experience. And what she is experiencing is that the MTA sucks. It costs too much and the train you need is never on time. And of all trains, the C is close to the worst. Like, two of them will arrive within three minutes of each other, then the next one is in twenty minutes. It makes no sense. Her anger at the MTA is a deep dark red seething cauldron of rage and disappointment, and never have I been more proud of what a great New Yorker she is becoming.