test blog 5

What we all do. Very clever. Many thanks to our own Wrye.

Ten years ago this week - April 9, 1996, to be exact - I went, as I almost always did in those days, to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. I went with Allan and our buddy Matt. I used to be Matt's nanny, and had taken him to his first Yankees game many years earlier. Now he was in high school, and he scored us tickets to Opening Day. I know the three of us will never forget sitting in the upper deck, watching Andy Pettitte pitch -- in the snow. We sat shivering as snow covered the field and melted the numbers on Allan's scorecard. The Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 7-3. In the late innings, it was announced that fans who were still in the Stadium could get free tickets to another game. You just had to go to a ticket window and choose from one of three dates. Matt and I did that, picking one of the three dates at random. When Allan and I got home, I looked at my calendar and saw that we had tickets to something the same day as our free game. Knowing I wouldn't see Matt befo...

Today there's an advantage to being home sick: I can watch the Fenway home opener. I was so annoyed to have to miss it - grumble, grumble, 9-5 work - and now I don't have to. By coincidence, the Sox are playing the local nine . Allan is unhappy about having to miss three weeks of baseball while we're on vacation. We usually don't travel during baseball season (unless it's a baseball trip), but sometimes it's unavoidable. Going to Peru during the rainy season doesn't make much sense. The last time we were away in April, we visited our dear friends Alan With One L and Frederick in London. A chunk of concrete fell off Yankee Stadium, the Yankees had to play at Shea, and everyone was half-joking that George Steinbrenner did it on purpose to get a new stadium. We missed that excitement, but the Yankees went on to an historic season, what would become the most memorable season of my Yankee-fan life. So you see, being away in April is a good thing. If you're a...

I'm still sick, with what I'm thinking must be a flu or strep or something. My doc has walk-in hours tonight, so maybe I'll go over there, for whatever that's worth. So I have lots of time to blog, but no clear brain to do it with. I'll take the lazy route and point out three international news stories that caught my eye, each for a different reason. First: the French students won. French President Jacques Chirac announced that the new anti-youth employment law will be scrapped. So not only does French culture sustain such huge protests, the government actually listens to the will of the people. You'll understand why this amazes and thrills me, given my background. Next: the election in Peru is too close to call, but it appears that the leftist nationalist Ollanta Humala may have won. If so, Peru seems poised to join its neighbours - Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, Bolivia under Evo Morales and Chile under Michelle Bachelet - in embracing a more socialist economy...

This weekend I'm sending the invitation to our June 17 party. It's a little early, but it can't wait until we're back from Peru. If you're a regular reader of wmtc and don't get an invite, that means I don't have your email address. I did have a glitch while transferring some contacts and files during The Move. ALPF, you still there? I used to have your work email address, but no more. Kyle_From_Ottawa and RobfromAlberta - my first two readers! - I don't have emails for you guys, either. So if you're a "friend of wmtc" and you can be in the GTA on June 17 - or you can't, but you want that warm, wanted feeling an invitation can bring - please email me. Send me some way to verify your identity - a link back to your blog that has your email address, or some old joke we've shared, or whatever clever way you can think of to let me know you are really you. If you're a friend of wmtc but live nowhere near Toronto, and I have your email...

Help is only a phone call away.

This morning I was supposed to meet my brother and sister-in-law at Pearson. They were flying to Vancouver, with a layover in Toronto. Their flight was coincidentally, but perfectly, timed for me to meet them for coffee and have the car back by the time Allan needed it for work. But no. They had to cancel their vacation, because Marcie's dad is having major heart surgery on Monday. Marcie, who posts here as "mkk", emailed me this morning. When I called Air Canada to cancel our reservations, the woman first responded that it would be no problem and that, in view of the situation, she would waive the cancellation fee. She then expressed concern for my father and wished him well, and, of course, I thanked her. I found myself amazed that she did not ask for a letter from my father's surgeon, notarized in triplicate, with a copy of the operative report and of my birth certificate (proving that he is, in fact, my father). It was as though it never occurred to her that I m...