Journal of a Sabbatical

October 9, 1999

it ain't over 'til it's over

American League Division Series
Game 3

Today's Starting Pitcher: Ramón Martinez

Today's Reading: Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, Danube by Claudio Magris, Thirty Years by John Marquand

Today's original plan was the annual tuba festival at University of Rhode Island. This plan was short-lived for two reasons: Nancy's still getting over the evil flu she had last weekend, and Ramón Martinez is pitching the deciding game of the division series. Nancy firmly believes that unless we watch and concentrate on every pitch, Ramón will falter. He needs our support.

For some reason, I was reading Eugene Onegin while I was eating breakfast this morning - the part about how Tatyana wrote her love letters in French rather than Russian. I think listening to the Kerouac passages about how French is such a "languagey language" stuck in my mind. The idea that there was an era in which educated Russians wrote in French seems so weird and archaic to me.

I have a wicked headache and my knee hurts, so I'm just as glad to watch the ball game instead of driving to North Kingstown no matter how much I like tuba music.

We had fun watching the game together and cheering them on. Afterward we went out to dinner at Taste of India.

I read aloud to Nancy a wonderful story about a Mongolian Prince and a Buick from Thirty Years, and we plotted how to bring about the great John Marquand revival.

Now hear this in Cleveland: It ain't over 'til it's over.