sweet...

dodger stadium
how sweet it is!!!
baseball at it's best!!!
the dodgers vanquished the hated giants yesterday afternoon, in the home season opener at dodger stadium, and did so by overcoming a three-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning, with a four-run rally against the giants new 21 million dollar closer...
go blue!!!

it just doesn't get any better than that!!!
(well, except for the kirk gibson walk-off home run against the athletics in the '88 world series)
assuredly, professional sports have become less gratifying in the last ten years, with the exception of the NFL and MLB - college sports seem so much cleaner, more emotional, less predictable...
however baseball, at all it's levels (pro, minors, college, little league) has somehow become more enjoyable at this stage of life, and, for a number of reasons; starting with a more complete understanding of it's complexities and nuances, the statistics, the solo nature of batter vs. pitcher (mano y mano so to speak), the informal social nature of attending a game with friends (a baseball game in summer, with beer and hot dogs - a high-grade adventure), the sportsmanship qualities that seem so sorely lacking in other sports, the relatively limited number of self-absorbed, spoiled, ego-centric jerks (though we still have barry bonds), the pure american nature of it's roots, and the list goes on...

in addition, there is a certain perverse thrill/joy in being a contrarian here in northern california, being the LA guy amongst all the giant, 49er, cal and stanford fans, totally outnumbered and surrounded by them - but what a terrific venue from which to torment their misguided little success-starved souls...

zeus...

zeus (10 years old - 4 of 9 lives remaining)

don't start - I know it's a cat, and cats are not guy things, dogs are guy animals; cats are most often associated with females, though god knows why - I mean really, who can fathom why women love cats - cats are independent, they don't listen, they don't come in when you call, they like to stay out all night, come home and expect to be fed and stroked, then want to be left alone and sleep - in other words, every quality that women hate in a man, they love in a cat...
from a male standpoint however, the physical skills of a cat can be appreciated; their speed, strength, eyesight, hearing, tree-climbing ability, indiscriminate and random sexual prowness, primal killer-instinct, and ever-present attitude...
so why write about this particular cat??? well, this is an unusual cat, very cool, very large (about 25#'s), a real hunter and gopher-killer extraordinaire, makes very little noise, is somewhat trainable, at least to a relative degree that any tomcat is trainable, an excellent listener, and he happens to live here...
we have millions of gophers out here and even with his remarkable skills, he will never catch up, let alone make a dent in the overall population, yet he continues to try - and he actually eats the whole gopher (after an appropriate period of playful rodent torture) with the exception of the liver - bites off the head first, and then feasts on the rest, crunching away, usually right outside the dining room window, right about dinnertime, which, of course, adds to the ambiance of the humans dining experience...
he is also generally self-supporting, meaning he can be left for the weekend outside, and will fend for himself - this is an improvement over other pets or small children, which have to be either provided for or taken with you when you travel...
however, he can also be incredibly lazy, eating and sleeping all day, after assumedly partying all night...
which brings up an old polish proverb:
dogs have owners; cats have staff...