Monday, October 29, 2018

Three Beautiful Things 10/28/18: Revising, Big Salad, Red Sox Win

1. I rewrote the blog post about Mom and I'll read it over again on Monday and see if it's what I want to say and written how I want to say it. This isn't exactly an earth shattering post, but, to me, it's sensitive material because I'm writing about tensions that I experienced with Mom and that continue to be present in our house -- the house where Mom lived for over fifty-five years.

2. This afternoon I chopped Romaine lettuce and purple cabbage and added cucumber, mushrooms, and raw cauliflower to it to start making a salad. I stir fried and let cool a cubed block of tofu and cooked a batch of Lundberg Black Pearl rice and let it cool. I added the tofu and rice to the salad along with walnuts. I had made a really good vinaigrette a couple of weeks ago and dressed the salad with it. I loved this salad. It was tart, earthy, nutty, and the rice added a little sweetness to it. Moreover, it was both crunchy and soft, giving it a superb feel in my mouth.

3. The World Series is over and the Boston Red Sox are champions of Major League Baseball. While tonight's game was not a classic nail-biter packed with twists and turns and a lot of tension, I found it a most enjoyable game. The game's outstanding player and the MVP for the World Series was Steve Pearce, a well-traveled thirty-five year old who has played for the Pirates, Astros, Yankees, Orioles, Blue Jays, and the Rays. The Red Sox traded for him in June and he became a solidifying presence in the Red Sox clubhouse and a reliable hitter. Remarkably, in Games 4 and 5, he hit three home runs and a double and drove in seven runs. So, I enjoyed that the premier hitter for the Red Sox was such an unlikely player. I also enjoyed the pitching performance of David Price. Until this year, he'd had a reputation as a poor postseason pitcher and in this World Series, as well as in the playoff series with Houston, he was nearly impeccable, a pleasure to watch.

There's more I enjoyed, but I won't detail the other stuff. I'll just say that through the years I've admired baseball teams who are unified, complete, versatile, inventive, and a bit unpredictable, teams who have unlikely, even obscure, players rise to the occasion and perform well. The Red Sox were such a team in 2018.

Yes, I now have some chunks of time back in my life that I spent watching this year's playoffs and World Series. The viewing has been a pleasure. I was very happy to watch so many games, to follow this year's postseason so closely, and to have conversations before, during, and after the games with Cas, Seth, Byrdman, the Troxstar, Rocket, and others who were also invested in enjoying and commenting upon them. I think the last time I watched even one World Series game was in 2013 at the Troxstar's house -- when the Red Sox last won a World Series -- and I'm pretty sure I haven't watched every game of a World Series since 1979 or 1981. It's fun to be back and I'm already looking forward to next season.

No comments: