AND HOW WAS YOUR TUESDAY AFTERNOON? . . .

Mine was fine. Except that the Yankees LOST. I took a day off of work and 8 hours away from an urgent and important assignment to see them lose?!?!?! Sigh. The only redeeming moments came in the this-only-happens-to-us experiences that occur only when Cheech and I are together . . .

. . . though I had purchased four tickets, only two of us could go. We had SUCH a difficult time getting rid of the other two -- people signed on, then backed out; others signed on, then backed out; more signed on, then backed out. (I'm sorry, but WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL WITH TAKING A DAY OFF OF WORK?!) Finally, Cheech decided that he would scalp them (out of my sight, of course). So there we were, at 12:30p.m., trolling the sidewalks around Yankee Stadium, Cheech muttering "Tickets. Two tickets. I got two tickets. You need two tickets? Two tickets." After a while, it became too ridiculous -- who goes to a Division Series game without tickets, anyway? And besides, Cheech couldn't take himself seriously as a ticket-seller anymore. We gave up. On a high note, we had extra seats on which to put our stuff, and I had no beer-gutted dude elbowing me in the side every other pitch.

. . . Cheech and I had a severe craving for hot Italian sausages. I have never had this craving before, and thus have never really indulged it, but today, I just HAD to have one. Of course, the lines we stood on for our Italian sausages were the lines with the broken cash register (both of us), an extremely overweight cashier on crutches (serving Cheech's line) and another cashier who was worse at written math than myself (serving my line). I watched in salivating agony as the cashiers scribbled down our orders, looked back at the menu to ascertain the prices, stood there chewing on their pens as they attempted to add the figures in their heads, ruffled through the increasing pile of loose bills on the counter in an effort to find correct change. We panted on line, waiting for those dumb Italian sausages, for 35 minutes. Yes, I said 35 minutes. We missed the entire first inning. Sad.

. . . The Twins scored, and they scored fast. And the Yanks kept messing up, bobbling balls, letting grounders simply roooooolllllll on by. My boys just didn't try today, and Moose gave me minimal love. But more aggravating than the lack of action on the field, was the over-reaction going on behind us. Sitting directly behind Cheech and I were a father and his two teenaged daughters. The father just TALKED the entire time. Not about anything remotely interesting or truly relevant or even slightly accurate. He just chattered about everything he thought he knew about Yankee baseball. He pontificated . . . wrongly. He made negative, sarcastic and critical comments about everything the Yankees did and everything they are. I don't even know why he was there. If his voice had been deep and mellifluous, maybe, MAYBE, I could forgive him. But no. Imagine Ross Geller combined with Gilbert Gottfried combined with Bobcat Goldwaithe, with a touch of Carrot Top to ice it all off. And the daughters! Oy vey! Is it really necessary to scream, at the top of your screechy little lungs, "YOOOOOOOUUUUUU SUUUUUUUUUUCK!" every time something happens that you don't like? Ouch.

. . . It was perfect baseball weather . . . kind of. When the sun was out, it was perfect. Warm, breezy, even nominally sweat-inducing. When the cloud cover approached, it was wretched. Cold, chilly, windy, even slightly flu-inducing. Cheech and I alternated between taking catnaps with our faces tilted towards the sun, and huddled together, shivering and waiting for the wind to carry the clouds past the Stadium. Again, ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Matsui being robbed -- ROBBED of his home run.

But, again, a good outing with Cheech. We pigged out, putting things in our mouths that we would never ingest outside the Stadium (excepting the beer, natch). We got sooooo sleepy late in the game and afterwards, we could barely talk to each other on the way back to Manhattan. Now I'm home, warm, still sleepy, still full, and totally looking forward to Game 2 . . .

***

I love being in the city and being able to walk everywhere and anywhere. Today, Cheech asked me if I wanted to take the subway for 10 blocks. I must have given him the oddest look -- "Are you NUTS?!" Everything your heart could desire is at your disposal on the streets of New York (and I'm not talking prostitutes or crack cocaine). This evening, Cheech and I got off at our subway stop, and I popped into Best Buy, then strolled next door to browse at Barnes&Noble, then went next door again to look around inside Staples, then made my last stop on that SAME block to buy a bottle of water for the ride home. So satisfying to my type-A soul . . .

***

I love October, which arrives in T-minus 4:20 hours. I flipped the page of my paintings-by-Picasso calendar early just now, and saw, to my great delight, that October's painting, the painting decorating the month of my birthday, is my favorite painting in the entire world: Don Quixote. Smile -- now it hangs on my wall AND my bulletin board.

I anticipate that this October will be interesting and strange and difficult for me, for a variety of reasons. I expect to live through much change, and to grow a good amount, and to learn much about myself. I expect it to be really, really fun and really, really painful at the same time. But . . . I love Don Quixote and I love October anyway . . .