Yu Darvish 2

Likely people get tired of me telling the story (Where were you in the great war Grandpa?), but I never get tired of telling it.

March 13th, Friday March 13th, I walked out the door of the Ten Cat full of bonhomie and beer, and of course I have not been back there since.  The next day I had my last meal in a restaurant, and Monday I had planned on a few last beers that night, but I had a routine doctor's appointment in the morning and I casually asked how well she thought I would hold up to corona and she scared the shit out of me.  Well doctors, they are always doing that aren't they?  They know they have to maximize the danger to get our attention. and we know that so we always discount what they say.  Nevertheless I stayed at home that night.  

And now I hear that the Ten Cat is open, and I will probably go there tonight.  Outdoors makes a big difference, your chances are twenty times better in the great outdoors, and the Ten Cat has a beer garden, so I am planning on making use of that.  I am a little worried about the train though.  I have ridden them during the pandemic and they have been less than half full and most of the people were wearing masks.  But now the city is pretty open and this will be rush hour.  I am thinking of walking it, but it's supposed to be 90 degrees today, so I don't know, maybe I will walk halfway,

But speaking of trains I am reminded of my post of April 23, Yu Darvish, which was about a trip I took to the end of the Brown Line and back the day before.  I had had my nose deep in a book. but I looked up at a stop and there was a big poster by Marquee, the group that had bought the rights to almost all Cub games, affiliated with Sinclair, a foul right-wing organization, and I was happy to note that they would be taking a bath on the deal because now there was no baseball.

But now there is baseball, well kind of a short silly season, but what the hell I will watch it.  And just this morning I am reading that one of our aces, Q, sliced his thumb washing dishes, so that will make Yu Darvish even more important in the Cubs rotation.

The book I had my nose deep in when I looked up and saw that poster was Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream by the very fine writer Doris Kearns Goodwin.  I had just brought it along for the train ride, my main read at the time being being a long history of the United States, so I didn't get started on the Goodwin book for some time.  But today I got to the last chapter which will probably be him leaving office.  There is a very interesting take on how LBJ dug us so deep into Asian soil, and maybe I will relate that Monday, but for now the balcony beckons.

I said I would no longer engage Beagles over corona. but perhaps I will make one last small observation, and that is that Beagles appears to be even dumber than the governor of Texas and that is a whole passel of stupid.

Happy weekend.