this quote from an article on espn.com made me laugh: “Baseball players are the worst fighters I’ve seen in my entire life,” said former player and manager Bill Rigney. “The guy charging the mound is thinking, ‘What the hell do I do now that I’m here?'”
katie (my friend katie, not my sister katie) was telling me last night at the softball game that she is now a regular reader of my journal, and that she was quite amused at my entry yesterday when i lamented the dullness of my life. hee hee.
carter was writing this morning about planes and vacations and photos and memories. with that as a memory-jogger, i’m now thinking along the same lines. i can still remember every hotel or hostel we stayed in during our month in europe.
my favorite was a room on the top floor of a narrow, 6-floor hotel in paris, where we stayed for our second of four nights in the city. we moved to that room after an awful night at the truly disgusting three ducks hostel. i say this room was my favorite because whenever i think of all the places we stayed, this one comes to mind first, and the image is always bright and full of sunshine. the image may be tainted by the memory of my sheer happiness at finally visiting paris, but maybe it really was a great hotel room.
we only stayed there one night because they were already full for the two following nights, but the room was clean, with a nice bathroom with a tile floor and room to air out our smelly clothes. all seven of us must not have stayed in the room because it didn’t have sleeping space for more than five. i vaguely remember carter and kent staying downstairs somewhere, but i don’t remember the circumstances; i just remember the room. the ceiling sloped like in an attic, and the building was taller than most of the surrounding ones, so that when we opened the windows we could see over the rooftops of paris.
it was cool.
i was looking at my scrapbook a few weeks ago and reminiscing. we did have some chaotic issues during that trip, and i can never remember the good stuff without remembering that it was a not-so-great time in my life. but then i smile, and think “what an utterly fantastic trip.” it was a chaotic time, but despite that, i do know that for the rest of my life, i’ll be glad that i got to spend a month with some of the people i care most about.
i am thinking much more, but you know, if i wrote it all down, i’m sure it would sound like a soap opera. i have this unfortunate knack for making things sound overly dramatic and heart-wrenching and conflicted when i write them down. so i won’t write it all down. silly me.
anyway. rich came over after work yesterday and bought the bike that’s too big for me, so everything worked out well.
i ended up playing two softball games last night, one as a sub at 8:00 and then with my usual team at 9:00. the team i subbed for put me at second base. second base! i’ve never played second base in my life! i wasn’t very good at it. i mean, i can catch the ball when thrown to me, so i made a few outs, but i’m not very good at keeping the ball from making it to the outfield. and really, isn’t that a second baseman’s job?? at 9:00 it was back to the outfield pour moi. 🙂 overall i hit better than last week…i think i was 3-for-6 counting both games.
i’m glad it’s friday.
(9:53 p.m.)
i just got home from a belated birthday dinner for gavin. i was about to go to bed, since i have to get up early for a race tomorrow (a relay race at that!), but remembered that the expedition 7 crew is scheduled to launch on their soyuz in an hour. i turned on nasa tv and sure enough, there were ed lu and yuri malenchenko in their sokol suits, ready to shimmy into the cramped capsule that is the soyuz.
i know there is no reason to be nervous about this launch. the soyuz is one of the most reliable space vehicles in existance, and hundreds of people have been launched without a problem, including one american. but i am nervous anyway. challenger shocked me, but i was too young to really understand, and thus the risk of spaceflight never really occurred to me on launches or landings. after columbia, i doubt i’ll ever be able to watch a launch or landing without this anxiety.
