Saturday, October 9, 2021

Three Beautiful Things 10/08/2021: Copper in the House, Errands in CdA, BoSox and Giants Launch Missiles

1. If you are reading this blog pretty regularly, you know that a chief concern of mine, day to day, is the comfort and well-being of my nervous and sensitive cat, Copper.

Thursday evening, after I carried Copper into the house -- I hadn't seen him since Tuesday -- he spent time with me in the Vizio room, spent other time in the basement, and ended up spending most of the night on the bed while I slept.

Friday morning, he dashed to the basement and settled in on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, a place of refuge for him when he's anxious.

I fed him in the basement and let him be for much of the day while I took care of some business in CdA and until Debbie and Gibbs left the house to visit Diane -- around 4:00.

Once Debbie and Gibbs departed, I carried Copper upstairs  and he spent several hours with me in the Vizio room watching baseball games. My hope is that he can learn to relax like this when Gibbs is in the house, but that might be a ways off. For now, I enjoyed Copper spending more time than he ever has in my lap, letting me pet him, and I enjoyed that he and Luna shared the Vizio room without any conflict.

At one point, later in the evening, Copper dashed back to the basement, but, to my surprise (and pleasure), he returned to the ground floor and joined me and Luna on the bed. He had a restful night, I thought, and even pressed himself against my lower legs. He hasn't done that since before I traveled to New York. 

I'm writing this blog post on Saturday morning. This morning, with Gibbs on the top floor of the house with Debbie, Copper ate his morning meal in the kitchen for the first time since Debbie, Gibbs, and I returned from our trip. Soon afterward, he wanted to go back outside again and that's where he is now -- I hope he'll want to come back in at some point during the day on Saturday.

2.  I had planned to make a trip to CdA on Thursday, but I wasn't feeling quite up to par. This morning, I felt better and hopped into the Sube and blasted over the pass to CdA. It was an uneventful trip, but a good one. I dropped of a package at the UPS Store to be returned to Amazon, gassed up at Costco, bought some cheese at Costco, bought more cheese and a few other items at Fred Meyer, got a haircut at Supercuts, and finished my day buying some produce and other a few other things at Pilgrim's. Normally, I like to include a beer stop when I go to CdA, but when I'm not feeling at my best, alcohol doesn't work for me. I also had be back to Kellogg by 4:00 and my errands went slower than usual -- I didn't wrap them up until around 3:00. I did, however, head over to Outpost Brewing just to see, for future reference, if they were open around 3:00, saw that they were, and, with a little research later on, discovered they open at 2:00 daily.

Outpost used to be Slate Creek. Its location is close to Pilgrim's, Byrdman, and the 4th street exit to I-90 -- a great location for ending a day of errands in CdA with a beer. It's a cozy tap room with an atmosphere I enjoyed a lot in the Slate Creek days and I look forward to finding out if the Outpost gang has kept the place cozy, friendly, and a spot for some good locally brewed beers.

3. Originally, Debbie, Gibbs, and I were going to pay Diane a visit at 4:00, but once I returned home from CdA, I realized that I wanted to stay home, rest, drink hot fluids, tend to Copper, and watch baseball. 

All of this went swimmingly, especially my time with Copper and the baseball games.

I enjoy both Tampa Bay and Boston a lot and was happy that their game didn't begin until after I returned home. 

Boston started the game hot, scoring two runs in the top of the first inning, but they ended the inning with bases loaded and I feared that they might suffer the consequences of not scoring more runs right off the bat.

In the bottom of the first, it looked like my concerns were justified. 

The Rays exploded with five runs, four of them coming on a Scud missile that Jordan Luplow launched to deep left field with the bases loaded on a Chris Sale's pitch that seemed to be at chin level. Luplow crushing a pitch out of the strike zone the way he did gave me fun memories of the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates who had a slew of free swinging hitters ready to hit any pitch, in the strike zone or not. I understand the wisdom of being a disciplined hitter, very selective about which pitches to swing at, but I love seeing players do what Luplow did -- send a wandering pitch Sales was trying to get him to chase and miss out of the park. A robot hitter would have never swung at that high ball, but Luplow saw something he liked and blasted it for an electrifying grand slam. 

But, as it turned out, Boston answered Bruce Cockburn's song, "If I Had a Missile Launcher" by making it clear they had plenty of them. Xander Bogaerts launched a homer. Kike Hernandez fired his missile launcher. So did J. D. Martinez, Alex Verdugo, and Rafael Devers. Not only did the Red Sox erase the Rays' 5-2 first inning lead, they annihilated it and cruised to a stunning 14-6 victory. 

Over in Oracle Park in San Francisco, runs were more scarce, but Buster Posey muscled an opposite field  parabola into McCovey Cove with a runner on base on a 3-0 pitch in the first inning, Logan Webb and two relievers stymied the Dodgers, and, for good measure, Kris Bryant and Brandon Crawford also slammed round trippers. The Giants won the first game of their playoff series with L.A., 4-0. 


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