Bliss

We are having a sleep over tonight with Hurricane and Tornado. We played, built a couch fort, watched some cartoons, painted a carved pumpkin for Halloween, dumped every toy in the house on the floor and went to get Lola’s dog food. All of this, before supper. We had pancakes for supper, partly because we know that both kids like them, and also because Louise and I like them. There were veggies of course, but they came a poor second to the syrup covered pancakes. Once they couldn’t possibly eat anymore, not even if we put a funnel in their mouths and poured it down their throats, we had jello. There is always room for jello!

The activities for après supper included play, Winnie the Pooh chocolate suckers, some destruction, a little crying and an opportunity to watch Wall-E again. A bedtime bottle of milk for the little one and two or three stories for Hurricane, and before you can say “Do you think they are asleep?”, they are! Ahhhhh....bliss! Tomorrow is another day and who knows what we will be up to then.

I was wondering today about how it would feel to be the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. I imagine that Texas would be so completely down that it would be impossible to describe. You come within a breath of achieving what you had been working towards your entire life, only to have it snatched away just when you have victory in your grasp. Could you be professional and just shrug it off and tell yourself that there is always next year? That would be incredibly tough to do. Would it be possible not to go over the games and point the finger at who was to blame? It is a team sport, but that guy really fucked it up! Oh, and that guy over there with the towel over his head, what a dick he is! Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit. Let’s go get something to eat and a few beers.

St. Louis? Well, they are heroes aren’t they? The adulation of an entire country (except for those die hard Texas fans), champagne and interviews, new hats, a ring, something for your agent to bargain with, a parade, endorsements and more than likely they will get a “Happy ending”. Everybody loves a winner. I wonder just how long the euphoria will last. A couple of days, a week, certainly not a month. Then what do you do? Back to life as usual, getting the groceries, car pooling, arguing whether you will take that job in Cleveland when your career is over and just carrying on carrying on.

Win or lose, life goes on and the only real way to tell if someone is a winner is the smile on their face and the smiles on the faces of those that know him. Perhaps it is when a couple of little arms go around your neck and a tiny voice says “I love you Poppa!”