The run up to the baseball playoffs always brings a certain je ne sais chaos to our home especially in the past few years when the Yankees have not been doing what they are (extremely well) paid to do.
Let me just say right off that I know most people are Yankee haters and they need read no further. But for those of you like me who grew up with the Yankees in our milk, then married a converted Yankee lover (even worse, like a converted Jew or Catholic, much, much more observant) and then was the dam for four additional Yankee fans, I can only say that cranky misery has once again descended on my humble abode and there doesn't seem to be a thing I can do about it.
I have a long and until recently happy history with baseball. My father was born next to Yankee stadium and I grew up going to the games. The batting order of the sixties teams is right up there in instant recall along with Kennedy cabinet members we had to memorize at school and the lyrics to every Beach Boys song. I loved the Yankees and despite the fact that my mother had been born in Brooklyn, once the Dodgers had skipped town and before the Mets were created, the Yankees were really New York's baseball team. You loved them unabashedly and you were faithful to them because they were true to you too.
Anyway, now that the Yanks are the reviled, overpaid, underperforming mess that they call a team, the whole house has lurched into what I like to call Pre-Playoff Depression and for which no amount of Wellbutrin seems to be enough. This year to make it even worse, it's the Seattle Mariners that are the threatened spoilers: Seattle is the team my husband abandoned for the Yankees (it was his home town) and my son was actually drafted to play for the Mariners out of high school (He went to college instead.)
What this means is that I am, in effect, a baseball geisha, for widow is too tame a term.
I begin to notice that our social calendar is utterly devoid of any names or events penciled in (the Hamptons? Aspen? The Vineyard? Perhaps there, people are having parties and enjoying life but the possibility of a sophisticated dinner where we could discuss art or even Alberto Gonzales is a complete pipe dream). In self-defense and to create a a faux festive atmosphere right here at the house, I prepare my most luscious meals (River Café spicy Linguine with Crab, Lucques wild halibut marinated in lemon rind and thyme with smashed pototates and crème fraiche etc) with the hope that since we have no social life during these months (the games are on at four or five PST and range well into the dinner hour or begin at 7 if they Yanks are on a rare trip to the West Coast), I can in some way take the sting out of the misery on screen (Detroit 15 - 1. Come on.) I dress in more alluring clothes (sheer Indian blouses) and wear make up and dangly earrings in an effort to provide a modest distraction from the endless calculations on the Sports section of the paper as to who is moving where in the standings. Neither of these gambits work: we end up eating hamburgers because nobody wants to come sit at the table (TV too small in the kitchen) and I therefore change right back into my sweatpants and navy t-shirts so that I don't muck everything up standing over the grill.
The other day, in desperation, I suggested we drive to Anaheim, even, (a drive we last undertook over a decade ago to take the children to Disneyland under intense pressure from out of town guests), to take in a game in an effort to make this vigil more of a pastime than a penance, but the idea was roundly rejected since we would have had to see the glee on the faces of the Angels fans, no small impediment.
I am getting a lot of reading done and catching up with my email as I must take frequent breathers away from the hothouse atmosphere of the den. Even the pending move of two sons out of the house these last weeks of summer has not eased the suffering -- one is actually going to NY and will have no hope of avoiding the citywide malaise that is sure to exist if the Yankees once again fail to live up to their payroll destiny.
The Yanks beat Boston last night (and Seattle lost) so the guys did wander into the kitchen for a while to graze and I overheard a conversation about a non-baseball subject that had me mildly interested. But this lull, I suspect, is merely temporary.
I just want to say to George Steinbrenner with his admittedly aging brain and Brian Cashman nervously pacing in his glassed-off cubicle and Joe Torre, who if his walk gets any more sad sack I will throw a sponge at the television, I DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR YOU! All this money! The cutest captain in the whole league! Resurrected pitching heroes imported back after you let them go! Mid season replacements that have no added value!
After you all get fired you can come here for homemade gnocchi and roasted cherry tomatoes and caramelized onions. Lord knows, there will be plenty leftover.