This Week with My Flu: An Homage to Bridget Jones

Hours on train to and from Ottawa: 16
Hours at Union Station: 5
World Series ballgames watched: 1.5
Books read: 1 (Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss. Really powerful and beautifully written)
Ballets seen: 1 (The Kirov's Swan Lake. Absolutely amazing, beautiful and awe inspiring)
Former Governor Generals Seen: 1
Coffees consumed: None!
Coffees pined for None. None? None!
Times wished I were the kind of person who could imitate Rocky and yell "Adrienne! Adrienne!" as the Former Governor General is introduced at Kirov Ballet: 1.
Wonderful friends seen: 2
New albums listened to: .5 (Badly Drawn Boy's new one)
Times said to self "I will never take feeling well for granted again": 287
Amount of train trip spent listening to iPod: 30 minutes
Stores visited at or near Toronto's Union Station in search of Gravol: 6
Bottles of Gravol found: 0
Bottles of things purchased thinking "oh well, maybe this will work as well as Gravol": 2
New York Times crossword puzzles begun but not completed: 1
Lovely joyous walks through downtown Ottawa: 2
Conversations had on train with strangers about their Harley Davidson: 1
National Libraries and Archives visited: 1
Dreams about going to the Gap and Orange Julius with baseball players: 0
Nightmares involving food: 9
Foods I may never eat again as long as I live: 1
Cats in sweaters seen at train stations: 1
Text messages sent to Dale saying "I feel really ill...": 1
Times said to self "Even with the flu, this has been a fantastic trip": 8
My favourite Sleep Number on my hotel's Sleep Number Bed: 56
Times felt joy at living in Canada again and being Canadian: 20
Conversations had on train with strangers about their pet parrots: 1
Number of times I will write blog entries about the flu in the future: 0

Vote for Curtis!

In the past few days, I've been surprised to find out that people have actually been reading this baseball blog. Thanks for your nice comments. I've been felled by the flu so this entry will be short. I've found a link on the Tigers website that allows you to vote for this year's Tigers MVP. At this point, Curtis has a mere 146 votes and, probably, that makes sense given the other options. But, all summer I've been blogging about underdogs and longshots and my admiration for Curtis. So, faithful Cafe visitors, I issue you this challenge: if you've become a fan of longshots and underdogs, go here and scroll down to the bottom left corner and vote for Curtis!
PS added later: Oh, I feel guilty since Craig Monroe should get votes too. Vote for Curtis or Craig. Or Curtis AND Craig.

World Series Game 2: Last Baseball Blog

This will likely be my last baseball entry of the year since last night was the final game for which we have tickets. I'm sure I'll mention baseball here or there but this concludes my baseball blog exercise. Since the Tigers still have a few more games, I'm not in much of a concluding mood. As such, I thought I'd pick up on an idea from my last entry that seemed to resonate with a couple of café visitors: "Next Sunday when I’m at what I assume will be the first World Series game ever attended by a Saskatchewan Martin, I’ll be cheering our team on. But I’ll also be there for my grandfather, looking, listening and taking it all in as he would have done." Here are a few observations based on my own looking, listening and "taking it all in."
1. Last night was sort of like Christmas. Like Christmas, it's a special, magical time and people were kinder, gentler and more patient with each other than they usually are.
2. Light fluffy rain is beautiful and silent in the ballpark lights. It looks like the sky in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
3. Cold is cold. Even though 46o F is technically warmer than 44 o F, after three hours of sitting in 44 o, the fact that it warmed up to 46 o in the later innings didn't make much difference.
4. There are some really nice dads out there. Like the man who sat next to us who took his 10 year old daughter to the game. They were so happy together, I don't think they even noticed the cold. At the end of the game, he was taking pictures of her against the scoreboard and I said, "Do you want me to take a picture of the two of you with your camera?" and he said, "No, that's ok... Well, ok." I snapped one that was so beautiful I thought he and I would both cry when we looked at it.
5. The creativity of these two vendors made me smile. 1: " Hotdogs...Get yer hotdogs here... They double as handwarmers... Get yer handwarming hotdogs here." and 2: "Mildly cold beer, here... Mildly cold beer."
6. There are lots of songs that have the word "Detroit" in them and I heard most of them last night. Some are better than others.
6.5 Case in point: that Journey song "Don't Stop Believing." You know those lines: "Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit/ He took the midnight train goin' anywhere." I've heard it a million times but it never occurred to me that there isn't a South Detroit. Dale overheard guys in the mens' room talking about this as the Journey song was piped through the park. "There's no South Detroit!" "Sure there is. It's called Canada." I'm stunned. No South Detroit. Hmm. Even though I live in what I guess is "South Detroit," it never occured to me. I guess this is why you should never learn geography from bands with mullets.
7. I love the Supremes. I mean, I really really love the Supremes.
8. John Mellencamp came to sing his "This is our Country" song/ commercial. It's kind of catchy and, if I were American, I think I might be moved by it. I can't imagine a Canadian writing a song like that. I'm not sure what that says about our nations. But it was cool to see him. And then Anita Baker sang the national anthem which was stunningly beautiful.
9. I'm going to miss my Tigers. I'm trying not to think about it. I know the leaves have just turned here but, how long til Spring?

Sites of the Week: Weird Librarian Stuff

I've been running into these weird little sites here and there for quite a while... this week I thought I'd assemble some of them for your amusement/ enlightenment.




Flickr site devoted to librarians' desks
Library Cats Map "Locate the closest library with a cat on premises"
Librarian t-shirts
Librarian Trading Cards
Weird Library Musical
"Reading on a Dream: A Library Musical"

We're all Behind our Baseball Team, Go Get Em Tigers

1. This is a great article about Granderson. And, check out the picture: I think he's a Mac user!
2. I used my biblio-powers for good not evil and found a sound file for the 1968 song "Go Get 'Em Tigers"
3. Here are the lyrics so you can sing along
we're all behind our baseball team,
go get em tigers!
world series bound and picking up steam,
go get em tigers!
there'll be joy in tigertown,
we'll sing you songs,
when the bengals bring the pennant home,
where it belongs......
we're all behind our baseball team,
go get em,
detroit tigers,
go get em tigers!

There'll be joy in Tigertown: Tigers Going to the World Series

I was thinking a lot about the prairies last Saturday night. Maybe it’s because we were facing west and I could watch the sun set behind the Detroit skyline as the game unfolded below. Or, maybe it’s because I’ve written about how odd it is to be a prairie kid and stare out over the Detroit skyline and have that skyline seem like home. More likely, I was thinking about Saskatchewan because the man sitting next to me told the man sitting in front of him that his father had just died a few days ago and that his father had been a lifelong Tigers fan since the 1920s. I realized listening to him that there were many more people present at that game than the gate counts could ever register. Among them was my grandfather—a crackerjack shortstop in his day. I figured he’d think it was pretty cool to have a grandkid watch the Detroit Tigers win the game that got them into the World Series.

I’ve been putting off writing this blog since words have consistently failed me when I’ve tried to describe what that game was like. My colleague Bill asked me about the game about half an hour ago and I described to him what I saw. He said, “you should write that down.” So, thanks to Bill, here it is, written down: “It was the bottom of the 9th, crowd was buzzing and chatting and grumbling. I turned my camera toward the scoreboard to capture that suspenseful moment: bottom of the ninth, two outs, Magglio up to bat. A second later, I turned my gaze to home plate and heard a perfect pop! of the ball. 42,000 people are suddenly silent and I swear I heard the ball soar across the Detroit skyline like a shooting star. It just goes whoooooosh in front of our eyes. It takes 42,000 people a second or two to blink and realize it's fair and it's a home run. We’ve won. We're going to the World Series. Men who were, 4 hours ago, complete strangers hugged each other; the two Silent Bob look alikes next to Dale nodded at each other and Dale put his arms around me and we stood there silent and incredulous at the chaos around us.

As a writer, it’s distressing when words aren’t there for you when you think they should be. But, I’m starting to think that maybe it’s ok that words fail to appear sometimes. Maybe there are things that you don’t need words for. My Dad once quoted his Dad (my grandfather), as saying: “God gave us two eyes, two ears and one mouth. Thus we should always spend twice as much time listening or looking as we do talking.” My dad then reflected: “When we miss him, we remember his words and we remember to look and listen.” Next Sunday when I’m at what I assume will be the first World Series game ever attended by a Saskatchewan Martin, I’ll be cheering our team on. But I’ll also be there for my grandfather, looking, listening and taking it all in as he would have done.

1 picture: a thousand words; 2 pictures: speechless

Site of the Week: Monk E-Mail

CLICK HERE to see your message.

This Week on iTunes: The Decemberists

Hello Ken, this week I've been listening to the new Decemberists album which I've been describing as English Major Rock. English Major Rock? Well, check out this description from their website. "The album’s unquestionable centerpiece is the 13-minute murder ballad “The Island,” with its subsections “Come and See,” “The Landlord’s Daughter,” and “You’ll Not Feel the Drowning.” As the lyrics chronicle a tale of abduction, rape, and murder, the instruments chart a far-flung course through multiple musical genres and influences. In short, a masterpiece in itself. However, set alongside the urgent, anguished rock of “When the War Came,” and perfect pop confections like “O, Valencia” and “Sons and Daughters,” it begins to seem like a statement of purpose."
Here is their website. I have to admit one of the things I really like about this band is their album art. We saw them live a few years ago; they were very good. Anyway, will talk to you later. H

Baseball Blog: Caught up!

Phew. I've finally had a chance to type up my blog entries for the past four games. Photos are going up on Flick'r shortly. Just so you know, I've posted the entries in a order that makes them more linear to read. To get you in the mood, click here.

Mapping the Terrain of Fanhood: Game 18 of 22+

Game 18 of 22+
Summary:
Score: Toronto 7 Detroit 4
Temperature: 65o
Attendance: 26,430
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: No Donut Race! Can you imagine?

It is Saturday, September 30 and I am writing this, the entry for Wednesday’s game, while standing in a rainy corridor in Comerica waiting for the rain to stop. I think I’ve been delaying writing this entry because I’m not sure what to say about it. It’s not that there’s nothing to say about Wednesday’s game but I’m not sure how to say it. Baseball, I am realizing, can be a beautiful, elegant game but, as Wednesday night’s game showed, it can also be awkward and clunky. Wednesday’s game was not the prettiest I’ve seen and I am wondering if one can say things like this and still be a fan. Fanhood, I realized, has snuck up on me and I find myself attempting to navigate its terrain. Is a fan obligated to look the other way at times like these or can a fan be honest and frank? Can a fan say to her team, as I overheard a woman say to a man last week, “no, I’m not mad at you. I’m just disappointed. That’s all.”

The Tigers are losing their lead and every inning is starting to matter. Wednesday’s game was not pretty. In fact, Wednesday’s game was darned depressing. The Blue Jays made the Tigers look like the Tigers of a few years ago. The stands cleared out and conversations around us had nothing to do with baseball. The women behind us spent 20 minutes describing every perm they’ve ever had: “and then, in 1987, I had one that…” Three people in their early twenties behind us debated whether the cheapest fertilizer you could get at Home Depot was made from sheep and cow manure or from Detroit area raw sewage. It occurred to me—as it has a number of times this season—that often people are only interested in their teams when they’re winning. I was reminded of what games at Comerica used to be like: missed opportunities, glimmers of promise, and hopes dashed. I’m wondering if I’m allowed to worry about my team in the next few weeks. Will all of our hopes be dashed in the next few games?

Wednesday’s game was pretty hard to watch and I found myself blocking out the fertilizer debates and perm chats to think about our time at this park over the past 6 years. I remember our first games here and think I would have been surprised if I’d known 6 years ago how attached to this park I would become. We got to the park pretty early on Wednesday and walked around the park for a while. I walked as close to centerfield as I could get. I saw the little patch of grass that Curtis treads and looked at home plate from his vantage point. I saw exactly what he was talking about in an interview when he said, “playing day games here is very difficult as well because the view we have behind home plate for some reason isn’t the best. You have a slight opening that you can see the street level so you have a contrast of dark and light. The early part of the season when there were fewer fans behind home plate, the tabs [silver baseballs] that signify what seat you’re in, if there’s no one sitting to block those, it looks like a million baseballs coming at you at one time.” It was pretty cool to see things from his vantage point and I realized how much I’ve learned from having a favourite player this season. Baseball has become more emotional and personal than I’d imagined it could be. I’ve learned so much cheering for Curtis and watching the game through one player.

I am wet and cold and tired and the rain is showing no signs of letting up. Dale notices that I am cold and wet and tired and asks if I want to leave. I see people heading to the exits and realize that cold, rain and fatigue aren’t enough to send me home. I want to see my team play tonight. These are my Tigers. I’m here for them.

Ooh, baby, baby,/ Where did (y)our love go?: Game 19 of 22+

Summary:
Score: Kansas City 9 Detroit 6
Temperature: 56o
Attendance: 40,071
Beach balls released: 1
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: Biggie Bagel

Tonight Comerica Park was absolutely pumped. The Tigers had the potential to win their division and people came expecting a victory. While Wednesday’s game reminded me of seasons past, tonight was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. After a fairly lengthy rain delay, the crowd were in a mood to go insane. They went nuts for the grounds crew, the tarp guys, the national anthem. They cheered for the game time temperature like it was a double play and the players came out amidst a deafening roar. The first Royals hitter got a single and then it all started to fall apart: by the end of the first half inning, the Tigers were down by 7 runs. The crowd got quieter and quieter; by the end of the game, the crowd that had been crazy for a victory was half as big and shuffled silently out of the ballpark. The lengthy rain delay had allowed me to write my blog entry (by hand) and also re-watch the rain delay video that I’ve mentioned before. Again, I was intrigued by this video because it outlined the sheer drama of this deceptively simple game. Commentator after commentator kept saying that the thing that made baseball amazing was the fact that anything can happen and nothing is ever certain. I kept thinking about these comments as the Tigers managed to scrape together 6 runs. Coming back from 7-0 is difficult, but it’s not beyond the realm of the possible. People kept pouring out of the park despite the fact that anything can happen. Many people, it seemed, came expecting to see a fairly certain victory but didn’t quite seem prepared to see a loss. I’m still mulling over this fanhood thing, when you commit yourself to a team, aren’t you committing yourself to a team in sickness and in health, for better or for worse?
Over this past season, I’ve come to see the person who selects the end of game music as a genius so I was intrigued to see what he or she would select for this game. At first I thought The Supreme’s “Baby, Baby, Where Did Our Love Go” as an odd selection, but the more I thought about it, the more apt it seemed. I wondered if the song was meant for those who left when the team was losing. I too wondered, “Hey, where did your love go?”

Heidi, are you grieving, over Comerica Park unleaving?:Game 20 of 22+

(Of the 23 games we had tickets for between August and October, I couldn’t go to 3. This ends my regular season baseball blog)
Summary:
Score: Kansas City 10 Detroit 8
Temperature: 65o
Attendance: 26,430
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: Again, no Donut Race! Ack!

Today was a beautiful and sunny day. It was also the final game of the season and I have to admit I was feeling pretty sad entering the park. At the beginning of August 22+ games seemed like infinity; it was a magical 2 months and I was feeling pretty sad to have it end. Every fall, I think about one of my favourite Gerard Manley Hopkins poems, “Spring and Fall to a Young Child”* and I found myself nerdily rewriting it to suit today’s mood: “Heidi, are you grieving over Comerica Park unleaving?” The taste of last night’s loss was still in all our mouths today and again the possibility of taking the division championship was on everybody’s mind. When we paid the toll on the Windsor side of the tunnel, the agent said, “Kansas City’s going to sweep ‘em.” Dale and I rolled our eyes and thought, “as if!” Surely, after last night’s loss the Tigers would come out fighting and take it all. At the end of the third inning, a homerun from Inge made it 6-0 and I remember thinking, “winning today would be even sweeter than last night … it will prove that nothing in baseball is ever certain. They’ll win for sure today.” I spoke too early since in the 4th inning, Kansas City started acquiring their ten runs. As the game hobbled along, we watched the outfield scoreboard and watched Minnesota beat Chicago. Our loss coupled with their victory meant that Minnesota had won the division.
On Monday, people at work asked me about the game and “heartbreaking” was the only word that seemed to fit. It wasn’t so much that the Tigers had lost the game and the division, it was that the team looked awful and that they’d blown a 6-0 lead. The game went 12 innings. A woman behind us was yelling at players to step into the pitches: “Come on, let the ball hit you! If four of you get hit, you score a run, you win the game and I can go home and make dinner.” At one point, I whacked Dale with my ball cap and cursed him for getting me so attached to this team. It didn’t seem quite fair that a team that had done so much this season could end the season like this. I thought about Curtis’s struggles this season and was heartbroken for him; I wanted things to turn out better for him. And Craig. And Marcus. And Placido. And Magglio. No matter how many times I say “nothing is ever certain” in baseball or “nothing is ever easy,” it seems I’ve still got lessons to learn in that area.


*PS: on a Hopkins side note, here’s a lovely line from what my friend Alec calls “one of the best short stories ever written”: “If they also don’t react well when I tell them Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my favourite poets, I usually downgrade these friends to the rank of acquaintances. People who don’t share the same poetics can’t be real friends” (Yann Martel, “The Time I Heard The Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton,” 103).

Playoff Game One: One perfect evening

ALDS Game 3 of a possible 5
Summary:
Score: Detroit 6 Yankees 0!!!
Temperature: 55o
Attendance: 43,440
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: No donut race

Getting our quarter season’s tickets allowed us to purchase tickets for one game of all three possible playoff series. Friday was game three of the series and the Tigers and Yankees had won a game apiece. On Tuesday, the Tigers lost 8-4 in New York but they looked really good. Things looked very promising; the Yankees had exposed some gaps in their armour. On Wednesday, the game was rained out and game 2 was played on Thursday afternoon. I had a meeting until 2 and attempted to work for the final innings but ended up piecing the game together via inconsistent video feeds, cell phone calls to Dale and the MLB scoreboard. The Tigers won 4-3. Although everyone was assuming the Yankees would sweep, things looked very promising for our Tigers.
I was surprised at how emotional I felt walking into the park on Friday. This was a series making game and the first home game of the playoffs. We got there early to soak it all up. So too did two young guys who sat next to us. They seemed nervous but excited; almost like it was Christmas Eve. Comerica was all gussied up with red, white and blue bunting and new logos on the field. Everything seemed a little bit cleaner and everyone seemed on their best behaviour. And, wow, the Four Tops sang the national anthem... how amazing is that?
There was buzzing solemnity about the place as if something remarkable was about to happen. I’m not sure words can describe how I felt as we sat in our seats Friday night but the last time I felt that alive was when Dale and I were watching whales off the coast of Newfoundland in May; both of these events were incredible and unbelievable in their own way. People continued to file in and there was a politeness about the evening that I’d not seen before; people are always friendly but tonight we smiled at each other as if we were all about to share something sacred and rare. Although the crowd was louder than I’d ever heard before, everyone seemed a bit nervous as if they didn’t want to jinx anything.
I had tears in my eyes when Granderson hit a homerun in the 7th inning: this is what I wanted for him not last Sunday. Again, the Tigers proved that nothing is ever certain and yet everything is possible. The two guys next to us were trying to pretend like they weren’t fighting back tears. I overheard one of them say in a chocked up voice: “This is the best 100 bucks I’ve ever spent in my life.” “Me too,” the other replied and then they gave each other a burly, manly hug.
The final words of this entry come from Nate Robertson’s fabulous Gum Time blog: “It was really fun, a really fun night. We've all enjoyed it. Man, that was awesome. That is the atmosphere you dream about playing in front of and being a part of. It was different. This fan base tonight was different from this season. There was a different emotion. There was a different feel. There was a buzz that wasn't present in the past. Not saying that there wasn't a buzz, but it was certainly a different type of feel. Even the faithful out there, I think we made even more faithful. Some of the most faithful Tiger fans out there, I think we've expanded that area tonight. I think last weekend is way out of their minds. We're in a position to do something really special, but we've got a lot of work to do. It's not going to be easy.”


Postscript:
And, in case you missed it, the Tigers won the series on Saturday and I was thrilled our pal Dave was there to see it.

Every once and a while someone asks me to explain why I like this team so much. I think these bits from an ESPN story pretty much say it all:

“Moments later, the Tigers emerged from their clubhouse armed with champagne bottles and they uncorked them during a victory lap around Comerica Park, slapping hands and spraying fans who danced to Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Night."

"These fans have been here for some of the worst things," Monroe said. "We wanted them to be able to have a party tonight."

"Nobody gave us a shot in this series," Bonderman said. "That motivated us."

Go get’ em Tigers.

Site of the Week: My paramour is Poe

Oh... I am indeed behind in blogging and Sites of the Week. I've got a stockpile of them to work through but this one from Cindy is indeed worthy of Site of the Week status: the Dead Celebrity Soul Mate Game. My candidates turned out to be da Vinci, Beethoven and Poe. I briefly considered Beethoven ("Looking for someone who appreciates music but isn't completely annoying") but chose Poe for his Heathcliffean allure. I've attached his ad .

This Week on iTunes

Thanks to those who have pointed out that I'm behind in my baseball blog... been too busy watching baseball to write about baseball but there are 3 entries on their way. Until then, this is for Patient Ken. This week on iTunes is actually not an iTunes thing but a website that's perfect for me right now since my desire for new music is at odds with deadlines and work. Pandora.com allows you to explore new music based on your music preferences; you can also refine your preferences and set up stations for different kinds of music preferences or moods. Right now, while prepping for some classes, I'm listening to a Thievery Corporation station. I've also got a Paul Weller station set up and a few others. It's a pretty darn cool way of learning about new music AND being productive at work. Hurrah! In a similar vein, LivePlasma is pretty neat for music and now movies: it calls itself a Discovery Engine.