They are the center of the universe

2003-10-05 - 10:45 a.m.

I'd just like to wish Boston a very merry Christmas. But seriously, when it takes three consecutive errors for a team to score a run, you have to wonder a bit about their suitability for the playoffs. But on the other hand, the A's had to make some pretty tough decisions last night. For example, Byrnes had to decide should he touch home plate or just run by it and then walk off towards the dugout? Similarly, should Tejada actually run all the way to home plate or should he just stop halfway there? And then of course the rest of the team had to deal with the ever-present question, should we actually catch this ball or just let it land about a foot away? Thank you to A's manager Macha for putting in their rookie pitcher in the bottom of the 11th and putting both teams out of their misery.

But that was last night. This morning the A's and the Red Sox are at it again. In all honesty, I'm not much of a baseball fan. I could take it or leave it, but if there's someone around who's interested in it, I can muster a bit of enthusiasm. Grampa is an A's fan. He's anti-Giants, though, and was happy to hear the Giants are out of it. I tend to root for both the A's and the Giants so I was a little disappointed, but oh well. The Raiders are also playing right now, so Grampa is switching back and forth between the Raiders and the A's. I'm rooting against the Raiders, though, sorry Grampa.

OK, enough about sports. I'm going blind. Well, blinder, anyway. I realized last week that my left eye is really blurry. I can't notice the difference without my glasses or contacts--blurry is blurry--but I've been noticing recently that even with my contacts in, things are blurry in that eye. That in itself isn't too unusual, actually, because I have astigmitism in that eye so I have a toric lens to fix it. The toric lens is weighted at the bottom so that it will stay perfectly in the right position and not rotate around because if it rotates it doesn't work. Unfortunately, whenever my eyes are dry it rotates. That happens with any wind, including air-conditioning or when I run, or when I'm tired. So really, my left eye is blurry much of the time. But when I wear glasses, that's not an issue, and I've noticed that my left eye is blurry even when I wear glasses. I'm thinking I might have to break down and see the optometrist even though I don't have insurance. Hmm...we'll see. Or not see, as it were.

I had some interesting dreams last night. I dreamed that I was walking around in a hospital and my mom was an ICU nurse. She had a patient who was really wild and I suggested that she give him a dose of Ativan. She gave it to him intrajugularly as he screamed, but then he immediately got better and began walking with me through the halls of the hospital. The halls were really convoluted and had odd slopes. At one point the floor was so steep that I had to get a running start to make it up it. Then I got in an elevator to go down a few floors. But for some reason I couldn't get down to the bottom. It kept going from floor 5 to floor 4.9, 4.8, 4.7, etc., and I didn't think I would ever get there. Next thing I knew, I was a starship captain walking into a conference room to meet my new crew. We weren't on the ship, we were in spacedock somewhere. In the conference room there was an 'L' shaped table with people sitting around the outside of it facing each other. I walked in in front of them. Some of them I already knew from prevoius voyages. I nodded to them in acknowledgement. Then I walked further and had everyone introduce themselves to me. Until I got to the very end and the last person didn't respond to me. I don't remember what I said to her exactly, but basically I ordered her to stand up and introduce herself. When she stood up everyone else in the room stood up too, and I knew something was amiss. She gave me a wry smile and introduced herself as my far superior. I was embarrassed but she was gracious, so it was all good.

Well, that's it, both Oakland teams lost. The Bears were scaring me for a minute there, but they pulled it off. And at least this time Boston had to work a bit for their win. On to the 49er's. I really could do without Terrell Owens, though.