Derailed

There was this thing that happened and for whatever reason, it made me totally lose track of my life for a couple of weeks. So here I am. My life has been given back to me and now I hardly know what to do with it. Where did I leave off? Ah, yes...

I wrote about how I took my dad...and my husband and son to the Giants' first game of the postseason against the Atlanta Braves. They won that game and ended up beating Atlanta in 4 games in a best-of-five series. They clinched in Atlanta and won the privilege of playing the Philadelphia Phillies for the National League pennant.

We'd entered the lottery for tickets to on of the best-of-seven NLCS series, but we weren't chosen. And, so, we had to watch from home. The Phillies had home field advantage anyway, so our opportunities were limited. But on October 16th, the first game of the NLCS, we decided that if we couldn't go to the ballpark, we'd have to bring the ballpark to us. So, we dressed upand went to Gram and Grandpa's house for the game. There were peanuts.There were crackerjacks too, but Smunch couldn't eat them with his braces. There were ballpark-style nachos.And, of course, there were hot dogs...although several of the adults opted for chili dogs.I'm not sure they have these at the ballpark. When you go with young children, there isn't a whole lot of opportunity to shop around for your food.

The pitching match-up could not have been more exciting. Tim Lincecum, the Giants' ace vs. the Phillies' ace, Roy 'Doc' Halladay. When the score was tied 1-1 at the end of the 3rd inning, it was too tense for Smunch, who opted to go hit whiffle balls in the front yard. Well, O.K. he threw balls on the roof for a while, until Grandpa went out and pitched to him. Er. Ehm.

But sometime before the sixth inning, he came back in. He got to eat his requisite Dibs, while watching the Giants win the opening game of the NLCS series 4-3. Cody Ross, a late season, waiver wire acquisition hit two home runs off Doc that day. What a win it was!Happy boy.

The rest of us, while watching the national pastime, well, we had homemade apple pie.Don't think they sell that at AT&T either, but it seemed appropriate anyway.

To be honest, I didn't think the Giants had a great chance to win the series against the defending World Series champion Phillies. But what do you know? Although they lost the next game in Philadelphia, they came home, won two of three and went back to Philadelphia to finish the Phillies off in six games.

We've been to a lot of Giants games this year. I mean, considering that there's school and we don't live near the ballpark or anything... I often thought about how much I loved this year's team with all it's funny cast of characters. But I can't think of a single time when I thought. This team...this team is going to the World Series this year.