Thursday, September 13, 2018

Three Beautiful Things 09/12/18: Longing for the Tigers, Into the 20th Century in NYC, Cottage Cheese Balance

1. Today my free baseball game came on at 10:10 a.m. and featured the Astros and the Tigers. I longed for the days when I loved the Tigers, whether the 1968 Micky Lolich/Al Kaline/Willie Horton/Bill Freehan team or the 1984 Kirk Gibson/Alan Trammell/Lou Whitaker/Jack Morris or later teams up until 1999 when the Tigers played their last game in Tiger Stadium. Really, I guess that's it. When the Tigers moved to Comerica Park, I lost interest in their team. In the early 90s, I was a member of the Tiger Stadium Fan Club and it seriously aggrieved me when the Tigers left the park and tore it down. So, this morning, I missed the light tower's shadows slowly creeping over the playing field of Tiger Stadium, the overhanging upper deck in right field, and the ghosts of  Dick McAullife, Norm Cash, and Gates Brown and I lamented a bit that the 2018 version of the Detroit Tigers is kind of a lousy team.

I did, however, enjoy keeping an eye on the game. This is about the third time I've seen the Astros play this season and they have a dynamic team, powerful, speedy, fun-loving, and smartly managed. As they were a year ago, they will be a mighty squad to deal with when the playoffs roll around -- but, every day I hope they go on a little losing streak and the A's do the opposite and win the division -- but time and games are running out.

2. I took another deep plunge into The American Experience: New York today and watched with fascination as the documentary moved more deeply into the 20th century and I watched in horror and wonder as the stock market crashed and the Great Depression gripped New York City. The misery was horrible. The public works projects that got people back to work were a wonder as is the impact of the vision and drive of Robert Moses as parks and the Central Park were resurrected, as Moses imposed his vision of how to accommodate motor vehicles by building roadways intended to move people readily to and out of New York City. Apart from this documentary, I've read and listened to in podcasts the negative impacts of aspects of Moses' work and since I haven't quite finished the episode that deals with him, I don't know if Ric Burns will look at how Moses' designs injured different neighborhoods and peoples in New York.

3. The Deke took the combination of rice and braising liquid and leftover chicken from dinner last night and added zucchini and sweet peppers and cooked up a superb meal of leftovers. After I ate my bowl of this dinner, I suddenly remembered that I thought this food I cooked the night before would benefit from some balance, so I served myself some cottage cheese. I was right. Cottage cheese is an example of one of many foods I might have served alongside this curried chicken and rice to balance the (mildly) spicy flavors with something cool.   

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