Wednesday

A beautiful day in River City.

I had lunch yesterday at Biaggi's and an early dinner at the Olive Garden. Very Italian. And not a glass of Tuscan red at either meal. I ordered one of the daily features at each place, and both were very good. Do you suppose that the pasta will have had enough time to process through my system to be of benefit for my run tonight? I mean, it was at lunch yesterday, not just last night at dinner. I know that the latter carb-dose is for tomorrow.

The sports writers are at it again with A-Rod in NY. There must be a story in this week's SI about the suppposed turmoil on the team as a result of A-Rod's struggles this year, and the guy's inability to be "one of the guys". Not that A-Rod is blameless. It appears that he may care too much about what people, particularly Yankee fans, think about him. And everybody has a comparison going with him and Jeter. In NY, A-Rod is going to lose that comparison, regardless of what is being measured. From a baseball standpoint, he's got 34 HRs, 116 RBIs and is hitting .286. Those are border-line career numbers for 95% of the players. And he's admittedly in a down year. It's a tough crowd out there, A-Rod.

The Hawks should win in a walkover in Champaign this week. ND will have its hands full at Michigan State, and the Clones may be out of their league in Austin. NASCAR is at Dover. Funny, I lived in Dover for over two years in the '70's and I didn't even know that there was a track in town. Then again, I had almost no life for a good chunk of that time. Working on the flight line on weekly rotating shifts doesn't exactly set you up with lots of friends.

4's comments about my handwriting are timely. I was signing some returns last Friday, and as we looked at the signature, there was absolutely no relationship to the letters in my name. Daddy would have been proud. His was a scribble too. Does the gene code go that far? He always used a blue, stick-like ballpoint pen that he brought home from the courthouse. And he always used a pocket-protector. I can't remember if he always wore a tie to the courthouse or not.

Another incident at coffee this AM where a gal who is a regular customer, but usually just in-and-out, had come early to meet a friend, and they had sat in the easy chairs that our group normally commandeers. I had taken a small nearby table expecting them to leave, but they stayed longer, and when other of our regulars showed, we got up to move further back to a bigger table. But then the two got up and were leaving, so we all moved to our normal spots. The regular gal saw this as she was leaving and actually turned and apologized, to me in particular, for taking my chair!! What does it say about my life when strangers start considering me a permanent fixture at SB's?

OK. I'm outta here to do my run.

Be careful out there.