Ride my see-saw

I am all over the place lately, taking the good along with the bad.  My first Father's Day was wonderful.  Desmond got me a coffee mug with his mug on it, a great picture of my son smiling.  I love it, and it makes the coffee taste better.

Desmond is going to be six months old Saturday.  Time is starting to pass by quicker, and he's becoming more of a "person" instead of just a baby.  He grabs things now, and loves my ears.  He can't sit up yet but he moves around and we can't leave him on a blanket by himself anymore.  He babbles constantly.  From the moment he wakes up he is non-stop, chattering to himself and anyone who he can see.  He has no teeth yet, but he drools like a fish, if fish actually drooled.  I've never seen a kid that drools like my son.  If I can figure out how to harness it, I might be able to end the drought in the southeast.  Every day is an adventure, and it is so much fun to be a part of it.

I am bummed by two things that happened over the weekend.  The first was the death of Tim Russert last Friday.  I'm not much for watching political television shows, but if I came across Meet the Press on Sunday morning I would watch it until the end.  I also enjoyed watching him appear on cable shows from time to time, and on election nights.  It's completely unfair that he won't be around to see how this year's election plays out.  But what I most admire about Russert is how he honored his father.  I'm a complete sucker for good father-son moments and he did a great job of relaying stories about life with his, "Big Russ."  I never got around to reading his two books about his dad, but they have been added to my list.  Russert seemed like a genuine guy, and it's a shame that guys like him have to go early.

Second, I went to the University of Iowa from 1987-1991 and took full advantage of the beautiful campus, especially the area along the Iowa River, which cuts the university in half.  The Student Union backs up to the river, as does the English-Philosophy Building, which was my salvation for the last year of my time there.  With all of the rain in the Midwest recently, the river has risen to record-high levels, and the campus has suffered some extraordinary damage.  I've seen photos of the damage online, and it's unbelievable.  They'll fix things, of course, but some parts will never be the same again.  It's pretty depressing.  In the irony department, Kristen is a graduate of Kansas State, and their campus was seriously damaged by a tornado last week.

There are other things, of course, but those are prime examples of the up/down see-saw state of life right now.  I ain't complaining.  I'm never bored.

And how 'bout those Cubs?  They are 45-25, the best team in the majors.  I've seen a lot of Cubs teams, thirty-five years worth, and the only one that measures up to this year is the 1984 squad that won 96 games.  They broke my heart of course, losing three straight to San Diego when one more win would have put them in the World Series.  Yeah, I'm still not over that.  Only four other teams in my lifetime have made the playoffs, and they all let me down.  1989, 1998, 2003 (we shall not speak of Game 6 ever again), 2007-all the same result, sucking us in and breaking our hearts.

I'm optimistic about this team, because nothing seems to bother them.  They lose a game and then go out and win three.  They are almost impossible to beat at home.  They pitch, they hit, they defend.  No other team is playing as well as they are.  The season is almost half-over, so I find myself getting more and more sucked in with every passing game.  I know that as a long time Cubs fan it would be idiotic of me to get cocky and think that this will finally be the year-one hundred years of disappointment tells me otherwise-but I also know that this team is beyond the legacy of ineptitude that follows the franchise.

As with many things in my life, my feeling about the Cubs can be summed up by something by The Beatles. 

EAMUS CATULI!