sweetheart-mine

the mother sounds like the best of the lot.

i also want to say congratulations to brennan. i've been remembering what a huge thrill it was to get the license at last -- a major new freedom. it's also a miracle i ever got one, because while my parents taught me, my mother insisted i always drove too close to the right edge of the road and my father insisted i was too close to the center line. to this day i still wonder if i'm driving in the middle of the lane where i belong or about to cause a disaster!

are we safe here on the east coast or does he really get around?

i'm glad you appreciate that part. handwriting was a real art form in those days. i'm not even sure they knew it. it has fallen beneath the wheels of the computer-age bus. i can't even read my own handwriting anymore, and the fountain pens i once loved so much sit dried up in a drawer.

FABulous pics!!! what a treat. it took 30 minutes to look at 3 pages; you can't just skim. more browsing time to look forward to. thank you!

red sox fans are in identity-crisis mode. i see it. i see it up close. i am one. oh the tragedy!

i like the mets, post-1986. i don't know why. but the wiki says this, which may be part of the reason: The "Mets" name originates from the New York Metropolitans, an 1880s baseball club. They are nicknamed the "Amazin' Mets,"[1] or simply the "Amazins."[1]

we got so burned out on green mountain coffees in the northeast that i'll drink anything else. anything, including whichever fifty-year-old instant in a jar my mother drags out when i visit.

wrong. i couldn't care less about the politics of the agenda. if bush, cheney, or babar the elephant started championing the idea of taking care of the planet, i'd be cheering them all the way and calling myself at least half-neocon, or an elephant, whichever fits.

that's because they don't have one. well said. it's simple, really. if we don't take care of our home, where will we live? it's strange how some people seem to think this is a version of "the earth is flat." it wasn't flat then and it isn't flat now, but it may end up some non-literal version of flat if more people don't take on some sense of responsible stewardship, and do it with passion. terrorism has been used so outrageously and so often to instill fear for the gain of the very few that it's almost funny, except it's not.

i used to be a liberal, but the new liberal is centrist if not at times downright hawkish, so now i'm left of liberal. free. radical. perhaps a free radical, but i'll have to look that up.

that would be one big fat day to celebrate! i wonder if their parking lots could be de-paved. we're missing several meadows here.

my state, low in population, rates losing only two starbucks. i'm hurt.

"Papelbon pinned down save No. 30 in Tuesday's 4-2 win, marking the third time he's achieved that milestone in his three seasons as a closer. In fact, Papelbon is the only Red Sox pitcher to ever save 30 games three times -- consecutive or otherwise." (ian browne) and now i'm thinking maybe paps pretends not to speak english well too.

it turned out that the love of his life, baseball, didn't require proper english. so be it.

"ought"? maybe. he lived in mostly dominican immigrant neighborhoods. perhaps that had something to do with it. in fact, i bet it did!

politicians, from whatever corner, have to get serious about the fact of global warming. they'll be out of their jobs in short order if they don't, and now they know it. i wouldn't have thought that six months ago. but gasoline goes up over $4/gallon and within 2 or 3 months' time we have ford backing away in a hurry from producing trucks and suv's, and instead planning smaller cars, and more of them. very soon. and that's just the latest example. amazing.

p.s. i think this might have been edgar renteria's main problem in boston. i mean he did make 30 errors on the season, but a significant percentage of those might have been chalked up to his discomfort in the limelight and how the boston media gave up on him too soon.

true, and especially sad when there are a number of native-english-speaking players who really aren't too bright but get all the attention because they like to talk and happily repeat themselves over and over. one comes to mind right now, whose last year with the sox was 2005 . . . but let's not go there!

he is definitely book-worthy. and when a reporter gets lucky and manny agrees to an interview, or even a few short questions, manny is always entertaining in ways only he knows how to be (i.e., without trying). i agree that he is way sharper than people tend to think. part of the problem earlier on was that he barely knew english, so he didn't talk much and people assumed he was either arrogant or stupid. now he's somewhat fluent, and so long as readers/listeners cut him a little slack for not being great with the language, his high-spiritedness and intelligence shine through.

occasionally (and i'd say rarely now) there are times when manny attends a game but is not necessarily there. it's part of his charm. it did become less charming over time, though, so the rarer it is now, the better, esp. if he wants to stay in boston via options. i love manny. aside from his offensive talents, the guy makes me laugh, whether he's trying or not. there's a lot to be said for that.

toronto's old blue jay also needs to come back; the surreal aerodynamic one has been a loser ever since it arrived. also, i wish the red sox would wear more red. they bring out their reds only a few times a year, at home, and not only look better but tend to play better also. i don't have the stats to back that up so don't ask me.

my favorite part: He called his own grandmother a racist. We all have racist grandmothers, but we don't brag about it to everyone. I like to imagine that his granny wasn't that bad and that Obama was just super-sensitive. Like she would tell him it was bedtime and he'd yell, "Oh, I have to go to bed because I'm black!"

he's a great player in many ways. if only he wouldn't whine, almost without fail, from striking out at home plate all the way into the dugout. bad for morale everywhere, including in my living room. even manny got sick of it. i think youk has been trying harder not to do it lately, though, because now it looks like he's only thinking "bummer" instead of "home plate ump needs to be euthanised because HE'S NEVER FAIR TO ME."

i think you're absolutely right about this. good and open-as-possible relations with other countries and their leaders -- any of them -- will be crucial in the next presidency, especially in the wake of the "who cares what you think, world" bush presidency.