No matter how Mariano Rivera I try to be, I always end up more Lou Gehrig.
If you aren't a Yankees fan, you'll have to bear with me.
There's something bombastic, awe-inspiring and deadly in Mariano. I hate Metallica, but the opening strains of "Enter Sandman" are cause for my own mini celebration. It means, as John Sterling would say, "Ballgame over. Yankees win."
As a closer, Mo comes in when the lead is threatened. When it's a tight game and the Yanks need a pitcher who'll slam the door on the opposing offense. And he's automatic. He's got ice water running through his veins, it seems. Nothing flusters him...

CATEGORY: Baseball

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You're never prepared for some phone calls. Not ever.
I got one of them last week. My dad was rushed to the hospital from work. He was dizzy and sick. His work told my mom it may have been a stroke. I was scared to death. And working 45 minutes or so away, I wasn't exactly sure what I could do about it.
I asked my mom to call as soon as she knew something. She was on her way to the hospital.
There's a lot that I don't ever say, particularly because I'm just not that type. My mom told me just Sunday that I was a terror up until the age of 8, when I suddenly became way too serious. And I've been that way ever since. Very few things are allowed to show on my face. And my dad's the same way. We never sit around and talk about our feelings...

CATEGORY: General Family & Home

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I lingered in the car a few extra moments when I was out to get lunch today. I was, like a 5-year-old, watching a butterfly flit around by a line of bushes, looking rather lost.
I felt bad for it at first, because it looked like it had nowhere to go and nobody to keep it company. I kept watching.
It wasn't flying in circles, or any pattern at all. Just looping and lunging the way butterflies do. And I couldn't stop watching.
In and out of shadows and light. Skimming the grass tips and then hurling itself toward the clouds. I realized it wasn't lost at all. And even if it was, it didn't matter. Not to that one butterfly.
We see so much joy in stability -- in knowing we have a place to work, a mortgage, a car payment, appointments. But there's joy in freedom, too...

CATEGORY: Observations

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