A Few More Thoughts About a Few More Things

So, I was reading Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy's article today on ESPN.com, and before the football season started, he assigned his lovely wife, the Sports Gal, to pick the winners against the spread for each football game so that he could know if someone who knows very little about sports could do a better job than him. In exchange, he agreed to let her write a short column inside of his football column each week. Just to keep you updated, The Sports Gal is 35-23-2, and the Sports Guy is 29-29-2. But she said the funniest thing in her column today. She said that they had to get a second phone line in their house just for Hench's phone calls, because he would call all the time to talk about their fantasy baseball team. She claims that Hench and Bill refer to that phone as the "Bat Phone." That cracks me up.

Something else. As a Mets fan, Ocbober is a very hard month. When you're a Yankees fan, and you get to watch them in the playoffs every year it just seems like an extension of the season, so it's only slightly more nerve-wracking than the rest of the year. But for us, this month is impossible. Every pitch makes you sweat. If your pitcher throws a strike you celebrate like you just won the World Series, but if he throws a ball you cry like you just lost it. The last time my team was in the playoffs was 6 years ago, so now I'm 6 years closer to dying from my first heart-attack or brain aneurysm. I need to ask some Yankee fans for their advice on how to cope with this. I promise you that I will not be able to sleep tomorrow night because the Mets will be playing and I won't be able to watch. My hosts might as well just bring the newspaper up to my room the instant it gets delivered and wake me up by rolling it up and smacking me upside the head with it.

More. I think when I'm talking or writing about things that are happening "today" or "tonight," in order to better emphasize the importance of my words, I should replace "today" with "this day" and "tonight" with "this night." Watch how much how much better this reads: "The Mets are destined to win on this night." That's so much more dramatic than "The Mets are destined to win tonight." The latter makes me sound like a fan who can only name half of their starting lineup, while the former makes me sound like veteran sports caster. Please remind me to do this, but if it gets annoying, please ask me to stop.

A few thoughts about Sukkot, my favorite holiday. I realized that Sukkot is my favorite holiday for several reasons. Even though you might not want to hear them, I'm going to share them with you anyway. This is my blog, and I can do whatever I want, so tough! Anyway, this is the only holiday I can think of where you are actually holding onto objects while you pray, excluding the prayer-book of course. I really feel like I concentrate better while I'm praying when I'm holding onto something, especially something like a lulav. I hate to use meaningless metaphors, but I feel it's like an antenna broadcasting my prayers to the radio in the celestial family room. I get to shake it at times, and at other times I can just hold it close to my body while all of us in synagogue are singing our prayers aloud. Now, I'm very particular about which Lulav I pick, which is really fortunate because most of the judaica stores sell their Lulav and Etrog sets based on the beauty and condition of the Etrog. I try to get a small Lulav if I can, and if it still has the brown jazz towards the top of it, which holds the "leaves" together, then that's even better. So, if you need to borrow my Lulav and Etrog this week, please don't shake it around like a grogger. It is a holy item and should be shown due respect. Anyway, I also like Sukkot because the theme is futuristic. We pretend that the Sukkah is covered with the skin of the Leviathan, which will be eaten by the sages at the end of days. I really appreciate that sort of stuff.

Okay, that's all. Thinking about the holiday has gotten me in a good mood, so I know it will be a good one. Plus, I bought some nice Scotch. I deserve it.