a ridiculous Chief's game

They should have won by about 30 points, it seems, but they made enough mistakes to take it to the last minute of the game. But a win is a win is a win, and they still have a shot to make it into the AFC playoffs with some weaker teams left on the schedule.

When Green got hurt in the opening game and with a tough schedule, I thought they were pretty much toast. But Huard has played well and the defense has been improved except against the Steelers. But the record is 4-3, and they have several winnable games remaining on the schedule - on the road at Miami, Oakland, and Cleveland, and home games with Oakland, Baltimore, and Jacksonville. (The other three games are at St. Louis and San Diego, and home for Denver.)

My guess is they will win ten games. Five of the six labeled easier, and one of the three labeled tougher.

Anyway, back to today's game. Chiefw win by seven, but it did not need to be nearly as stressful as it turned out to be. Consider that of the four touchdowns Seattle scored, one was the result of a turnover inside the ten, one was the result of a botched KC field goal (which was a ridiculous call by the official and should have been overturned), and one was the result of a 50 yard bomb when the KC defender was an idiot and looking into the backfield instead of covering his man.

Throw in a missed field goal, a dropped first down pass by LJ that set up the missed field goal, the botched field goal, the interception that should have ended the game except the defensive lineman was too stubborn to get on the ground, a defensive holding penalty on third and ten, a dropped interception, and you have the reason why one team completely controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and still was behind with two and a half minutes left.

But a win is a win. It is a key game in St. Louis next week. A win here and I think you can pencil in the Chiefs for a post-season berth.

read this .....

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19590

a long week

It has been a long week around here, and I am certainly looking forward to the weekend. There is not a whole lot scheduled around here this weekend, which is nice.

Katie has her last soccer game on Saturday morning. I have enjoyed her being on the team, but it will be nice to be done with the scheduled stuff three days each week. Her coaches are great and the kids are nice, and maybe the best part is how supportive as a group the parents are without being obnoxious.

She will have to decide soon whether she wants to play soccer in the spring or do the play at the church since they both are Saturday morning commitments. I would prefer that she continue to play soccer; she has improved much this season, but she is still very shy and I would like to see her be somewhat tougher. And she needs to deal with a little bit of failure to understand it is part of life. But she came off the field crying last week when someone scored on her a couple of times, and so I would like her to learn some of the important lessons of sports.

And I don't want to be in the church yet another day.

Granted, by then, I almost assuredly won't be working there anymore. So maybe it won't be so bad.

And now, to bed.

the closing comment

From the episode of Everwood that Katie and I watched tonight. This rang really true for me ....

When things are working right in the universe, the loss of innocence is usually followed, in time, by an increase in humanity.

Time is funny like that.

For everything it robs us of, it grants us something.

Sometimes it is a new friend.
Sometimes it is a better understanding of ourselves.
Sometimes it is just a perfect day.


And I close with a thought from Gonzo, one of my favorite Muppets, who reminded us that "there's not a word yet for old friends that just met."

But I do think that it is in the time of brokenness, and of being robbed of something, that we allow ourselves the kind of vulnerability that makes the people who would be just new friends and allows them to be old friends that just met.

Off to bed now ....

Everwood again

ABC Family started showing Everwood in syndication a couple of weeks ago, and to them I am most grateful. I started watching it again today and saw the first couple of episodes, and it is simply as amazing as I remembered. The first episode in particular is so perfectly executed and so real in terms of the emotional content that it is just stunning.

I think my favorite character of these early shows is Julia, the wife who has died. The actress and the character are so well done that she continues to be a real presence in the series even though I don't think she appears very often after the first few episodes. Compared to the dead mom in Providence, for example, which is a show we used to watch back in the day, Julia is so real and vital and such a part of the family though she is gone.

I am passed the time of feeling Becky around us much. I guess that is healing. It is also sad for me, I must admit. And I don't know how true that statement is anyway. Simple things, like coming across her handwriting, still brings her so tangibly into my life it is amazing.

Anyway, if you have never seen the show, check it out in syndication. It is so worth it.

a great party

We went to a birthday party this afternoon, and it was just wonderful. Jay will turn eight on Sunday, and he and Katie sing together in the children's choir at church. The party was at a park towards downtown, and there are so many things I enjoyed about it.

First of all, I thought it was pretty cool how all of the attention was not on Jay. He opened presents as they came in, and they had presents for all of the guests, and so both sides were very gracious all the time. They didn't do a huge singing of happy birthday, or else we missed it during a trip to the bathroom.

Fred and Rocio brought enough food to feed a small army. I have no idea how many people they expected to have, but they had at least twice as much food as was required. And so they went out and brought in complete strangers from around the park, people just walking their dogs or working there, and had them eat some pizza or a plate of barbecue. And we didn't just feed them and send them on their way, but visited with them and got to know them a little bit.

It was just a really generous, outwardly directed party, and I so appreciated it. And then we went to the planetarium across the street, and watched a little movie called "Rocket Ride" or something like that and pretended like we were visiting all of the planets in the solar system. (And the movie was already modified to demote Pluto down to a "dwarf planet" or "Plutoid." I was suitably impressed.)

And then we came home and Katie went to bed and I talked on the phone with Natalie for over an hour. I dig her. She has the cutest giggle. It is a silly thing to be attracted to, perhaps, and I am certainly attracted to more than her giggle, but when she laughs I am happy. And we find it very easy to talk.

I have been trying to figure out for a week why our date last week was so much better than most if not all of the dates I have been on since Becky died. I think, fundamentally, it comes down to this: I didn't have to be careful. She was so willing to be known and so interested in knowing me, and I reciprocated that, and we both cared much more about getting to know the other person than we did about whether we were doing the things we were supposed to be doing on a first date. She didn't have to be careful about admitting that she wants to marry someday and have children. I didn't have to be careful about whether it would be okay to put my arm around her or kiss her or whatever. I just was myself, and she was herself, and there was less of a barrier between us than I have experienced in the dating life. And we have agreed about a lot of things and disagreed about some things, too, and disagreeing doesn't mean we don't value the other person implicitly.

What does this mean cosmically? Who knows? But I am looking forward to Friday night in Austin. The rest can take care of itself.

a great first date

I had a great first date on Friday night, the best first date I have been on since Alisa, if not Becky. Those are the only two on this level, for sure. It is just a first date, but it was a really good time.

We went to a great bar called Luna's on San Pedro. It is a smoke-free establishment. The band playing was Collective Soul, made up mostly of people who play for our church's 11:00 service. They were awesome. The bar was very cool with cabaret style seating and a small dance floor and great ambience.

We got there about 8:30; the band started at nine, so we had a chance to visit and get to know each other a little more. I was very impressed with the conversation. I think it is that Natalie has such an openness about her, a real desire to know and be known. I appreciate that and really crave that. I miss the emotional intimacy more than anything else from my marriage.

And she is totally cute. Which isn't everything, but it doesn't suck.

And she has the cutest giggle. I thought that the first time we talked on the phone a couple of weeks ago.

One of the many things we talked about was a somewhat goofy question of if you could see five years into the future, would you? To me the answer is no. Worrying about the future takes us out of the present, and this moment right now is too precious for that. And she said she would like to know the answers to some big questions like whether she would be married or have children by then. I agreed with that at the time, but upon further reflection, it is the answer to the big questions that might be the most misleading.

Because if you sat me down seven years ago and gave me just the answers to the big questions, and told me I would be widowed and a single dad and working for peanuts at this time in my life, then Katie wouldn't even be here. I wouldn't have thought myself capable of being the kind of single dad that in fact am. Which is far from perfect, to be sure, but also far better than I ever imagined.

But it is only when you get past the headlines, and past the big questions, that the really meaning of the story comes into focus. Yes, I am widowed, but it is the fact that our love was proven in the fires of cancer that is transforming me into the kind of man that only Becky could ever see before. I never would have signed up to be a single dad, and yet it is the most meaningful journey I have ever been on, with the possible exception of walking with Becky through cancer.

So if I could see five years out, I would need to know I could spend some real time seeing to know whether I could answer the questions I would most want to know about.

Anyway, this is the kind of stuff we talked about, as well as the staples of first date conversations like where have you travelled and what are your favorite movies. And we shook our booties some on the dance floor, which is always a good time. And during the second set of music, I just hauled off and kissed her because I couldn't imagine not kissing her. It was just sweet and simple and as natural as can be.

And now she is heading off to Seattle in the morning, and I am going to Houston on Monday, so probably it will be two weeks before we get to see each other again. And I will choose to think of that as a positive thing and not as a torment. At least while I can, though my guess is that within another day or two it will just be a torment.

One More Day

Katie and I went to the Child Bereavement Center for the first time on Monday night. It was "family night," which means that there are not just children that have lost parents but also siblings, grandparents, or friends.

One of the interesting things is that an adult must accompany the child and participate in the adult group. So I couldn't just drop Katie off and come pick her up at the end of her time.

Katie seemed to have a good time and is excited about going back.

The adult group was good except for one thing. After doing introductions, they asked us to tell them what we would do if we had one more day with the person who had died. And I answered, but this is the kind of question that drives me nuts. Why do we want to dwell in the land of the impossible? Why not discuss something that could happen?

In actuality, I have no idea what I would really do if I had another day. What would I have done if I had known March 28, 2004, was the last I would have had? I know that I am not going to torture myself thinking about things that I will never be able to answer. I know what I hope to be true, but I also know how far I usually am from doing what I would hope to do.

We will go back. But I hope the adult time becomes more productive.