My Sunday Feeling

We have started back up with the Miracle League kids. You may recall that ML is a baseball league for disabled kids. We started up for the Fall season last Saturday. Last Saturday was just awful. The high was around 88 and the humidity was close to 90%. It was awful. However, yesterday arrived with lows in the sixties. I actually wore a sweater out to the ball park for the first time since April. It was wonderful.

Despite the fact that I suffer from allergies, Fall ranks right behind Spring as reasons to keep living. Football season has started, the baseball playoffs are right around the corner. And right on schedule, killer bees have invaded the New Orleans area. That along with the murders will help keep the brand in the public zeitgeist. Right, Mayor Nagin.

Last but not least, as you can see by the interesting signage on the door, the Discovery Lounge, a notorious drag bar over by our ball park where I park my car, has announced a seasonal change in policy regarding the patrons' footwear. That shows you how much I know. I just assumed that everybody in there wore 6 inch stiletto heels. Even the women.

There's not much to report in this Sunday's edition. I have been forced to lay low for the past week or so because the fall sinus infection with which I was smote a week ago damn near turned into pneumonia. So I have been staying home and falling asleep around 9:30 or so depending on when I take the codeine. You can't be aware of too much going on in your surroundings when you are on narcotics.

The good news is that, as far as I know, no new houses have been torched in the neighborhood since last weekend. This is the kind of lull for which we are grateful. One of my brothers has offered to sell me a handgun. I am not sure whether he thinks my owning a pistol would keep my house safe from an arsonist or whether he thinks the People's Republic of Hillcrest is now sufficiently dangerous and that I need the protection. Most likely he just needs some money and is selling various objects of varying degrees of lethality to accomplish this goal. I'm not going to take him up on this offer. I don't feel the need for a weapon in the house. Besides, I would be afraid that I might use it on myself.

That was a joke.

And I shouldn't make jokes like that. Another person I know tried that avenue about a week ago. She took a bunch of pills. The only reason that she is still around is that she likes her shrink and called her to tell her goodbye.

Being polite saved her life.

She is now over at the Bridgeway where they know how to handle these situations. I hope that she profits from the experience and can learn some coping skills or otherwise get a handle on whatever possessed her to try to go gentle into that good night.

The thing that I have learned over the years is that you really need to try to treat others with kindness whenever you can and to be fair at all times. There are people out there in our offices, our neighborhoods and on the streets that are cauldrons of pain and loneliness. My friend PM has often wondered how much of human history could have been reshaped simply by the intervention of a kind mentor or friend. Who knows? Maybe Tim McVeigh could have been turned around if a superior somewhere in his unit had taken an interest in him. Maybe so, maybe no.

We are surrounded by fragile people. You have to be open to the possibility that you might be the one that keeps somebody from getting away. Last week's episode is proof that I need to do a better job myself of keeping the antennae up.

As for me, I am fortunate to be reasonably content. I cannot imagine any scenario apart from the diagnosis of a fatal disease that I might consider snuffing myself. Besides, it's Fall. There's football to watch, chili to make, and whiskey to drink. Though I do not deserve it I am the locus of unconditional love from my kids at the Miracle League. It is a good thing when a 9 year old with a bad ticker asks me to be in a picture with him. Life is good. Really, it is. Even if I can't quit coughing.

Life is good. So what if Discovery draws the line at filp-flops after Labor Day? You can't have everything in this life.