Sunday, April 03, 2005

Not much to report from League HQ.

Jamie and I had an entirely uneventful weekend. One of the nice features of our neighborhood (and most neighborhoods in Arizona) is that they do not use a sewer system for rain run-off. Instead, most newer neighborhoods designate a green area in the middle of the nieighborhood that serves both as drainage and as a park. Ours happens to be large enough to play host to a sports field, which of course nobody ever uses as all the kids are inside playing their PSPs.

So, having no kids but having two dogs who are infinitely more entertaining than most kids, we went to the park and walked the dogs. It's lovely here these days. 85 degrees and low humidity. Nice day to get Lucy used to the leash. And it was nice day to take Mel off the leash and let him run in circles out in the grass.

In the afternoon we went to see Sin City, which I will not belabor you with a review. It was fun and interesting, and I look forward to seeing it again at some point.

Aside from that, we went to the gym and watched some of the coverage of the goings-on at the Vatican. Having just sat through the audio book of "Angels and Demons" it was interesting to hear the description of the steps to the Pope's funeral carried out.

My memories start to really kick in about age 4 or 5 when we moved from Michigan to Dallas. And I do recall my mother booting me out of the house on the day the Pope was shot. She wanted to watch the footage, but she didn't want me to get scared, so I had to go play out in the back yard.

I should mention that the Steans family is not Catholic, but that evening, when I was told what happened and what was going on, I sort of kind of understood the gravity of the situation.

This memory is tied up with three or four other media events.

1) Reagan being shot. I recall that one as The Admiral explained that GHWB would take over until the President was on his feet again.

2) The wedding of Charles and Di. I recall watching the footage with my mom and being astounded that she could stand up with a train which most surely weighed hundreds of pounds.

3) The freeing of the hostages from Iran. I don't remember too much about it, but I remember the news people being very excited and The Admiral sort of talking in vague terms about what we were seeing on the screen.

All in all, John Paul II is the only Pope to have been around while I've been conscious of such a thing. And not being Catholic, I have no idea what sort of Pope he was in comparison to the Popes before him.

It does seem if anyone would have a golden ticket to get past the pearly gates, it'd be this guy. But we won't know until we're all pushing up daisies, will we?

Next weekend we have tickets to see the mighty Phoenix Suns play the Houston Rockets. If McGrady shows up for the game in spirit as well as body, Phoenix may have a match on their hands. Yao seems to finally understand how to play in the US and is finally becoming the formidable player he was promised to be three years ago.

Anyway, hope everyone else had a good weekend.

I really need to go to bed.

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