best Veterans Day - and warm!

This photograph sums up the reason for it being such a success quite nicely, too!

Yes, that's my first niece, flanked on her right by Littlest Girl and on her left by Miss Chlo!

And just where might we be on this glorious day?

At a place which is rapidly becoming our 'usual': Jalapenos of Richmond Hill.

Oh, yes, we are making sure the girls know to love Mexican food as we do!

And, look!

We're outside on the patio!

And Christina is wearing a lightweight, sleeveless dress!

The girls are clad in lightweight clothing as well, with Chloe in shorts!

That's because, for the the first time in over a week, the day 'twas brillig to the max!

It actually almost reached 80 F - i thank You, God!

I so needed a break from the cold, as did they, and Christina had taken them over to the park to burn off some energy before I got there.

Not that it mattered!

They ate chips and queso and then ran and danced outside, leaving us to entertain ourselves with face-to-face conversation, as we are wont to do - i thank You, God!

On Saturday, we'll all be reunited again, for the wedding of their Aunt Chelsea to her Dillon, and that's going to be quite a busy day...

so, it was extra-special to have this lull in the action today, for just us.

Almost three hours, too.

And lots and lots of hugs.

i thank You, God.

hitting a triple without even trying

Just how did I do that, you ask, and what am I talkin' 'bout?

Well, let me say this about that: I had a double header today and it was done at two cinemas in two towns.

As a reminder, the GTC in Pooler has cheapie movies on Tuesdays, and today was Tuesday.

As I-16 is under construction still/yet again/as always, I am not driving it at night.

So, I began my movie-hopping in that locale, seeing "The French Dispatch", a movie AMC had promised us, but had reneged.

As a Wes Anderson film, it was chockablock full of name brand actors, per usual, and I had very much looked forward to it.

It didn't quite deliver, though.

About halfway through, I suddenly realized that it seemed very familiar... and then it hit me what the issue was.

He had used the same format as he had for "Isle Of Dogs".

Yes, I realize that was totally animated and this one was not, though this did have some animated portions.

I'm saying the pacing and the block storytelling was the exact same for both movies.

That means that although I enjoyed this latest effort, I didn't love it.

I had loved "Isle Of Dogs", from the first time I saw it to the last time.

I'd gladly pay money to see it in the cinema again!

Yes, that's how strongly I feel about it.

I even wrote a game using several scenes in the movie!

(smile!)

So, where was I before my train jumped the track?

Oh, yes, heading back to Savannah for my second movie, to which I knew I would be late, but that was just fine.

I had already seen it once and so I knew I could easily miss the first twenty minutes and not miss any of the actual movie.

No, I am not referring to the block of previews AMC runs before each and every movie.

I'm talking of the "007's in love" prologue tacked on to the start of "No Time To Die".

And guess what?

Even with me walking in and buying my ticket at 3:49 pm... 

for the 3:00 pm screening of the movie...

I was perfectly in time to see the movie title and hear the movie opening song as the opening credits rolled into view.

How about that for perfect timing!

(smile!)

And as I watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, the exploits of Bond, James Bond, I came to realize that this was the perfect movie to be paired with the first one!

How so, is that the query?

Well, the two share three actors!

Seriously, I'm not making this up.

I know, it seems preposterous on the face of it, but... there you have it.

Jeffrey Wright is a food critic in the first and Bond's favorite CIA field agent in the next.

Christoph Waltz is first an art collector and then the Spectre mastermind, Blofeld.

Léa Seydoux is a prison guard/nude model for the first movie and then the pouty daughter of a hitman/psychotherapist for the second.

Very nice range, y'all!

And a surprisingly nice, better than expected, afternoon at the movies for me!

(smile!)

guy and gal with a rock

Oh... and did I mention there was bingo, too?

"No, dearie, you did not."

Well, there was, but it was a little later. You know, this being the first Monday of the month.

"Sure, if'n you say so. Let's get back to the title, shall we?"

You mean about there being Guy and Gal...

"Yeah, that. You were watching two kids playing?"

Hahahaha, that's funny! No, I was watching a movie. It might as well have been a travelogue! First they were in Italy, in Roma. Then the scenery changed, because they'd bounced over to Bali in the next 56 hours, or something like that. Then we were all whisked back to Rome and, from there, to a frozen prison out in Russia. All in less than four days!

"Good Lord, that's a lot of jet lag to get over!"

I know, right? But they went straight from there to Valencia, Spain - which I'd like to see, for its science museums - then into the jungles of Argentina. Oh, and they ended up in Eqypt and a wedding that rivaled the one in "Crazy Rich Asians"!

"Wow, that's a lot of travel going on!"

Yeah, and I think it was all done in less than a week!

"And just what was the reason for all that rushin' 'round?"

They were trying to find some loot from Cleopatra's tomb. It was like some crazy Mad Hatter version of an Easter egg hunt. Really quite humorous!

"Are you talking about "Red Notice"??? Did you go over to Hilton Head to see it after all?"

I am, indeed, waxing on about that one! And, no, it was playing over at the GTC in Pooler. I do so hope that new cinema being built on Eisenhower is a GTC! I am so tired of AMC showing previews that whet our appetite, then never, never, ever giving us the movie. In fact, there are two that fit that description, seen as tasty tidbits on an AMC screen, but not brought for us. "Spencer", about Princess Diana, and "The French Dispatch", from Wes Anderson, are in Pooler at the GTC, but not in Savannah. My A*List last week had only two movies on it, thanks to AMC selling us short.

"Calm down, g'friend, it's gonna be alright."

It's just a bit frustrating. It's especially so when I see that Statesboro has two movies - two! - at its AMC that are not playing at either AMC in Savannah. I'm toying with the idea of driving there for the Anderson movie, even though that's going to add at least three hours' drivetime to the movie venture.

"Let's get back to this post title, dear. A guy and a gal with a rock?"

(smile!)

Well, that's my little joke, you see! And it isn't "a guy" and "a gal", by the way. It's "Guy" - as in Ryan Reynolds, right? And then there's "Gal", last name of Gadot. Last of all, there's Dwayne Johnson, who will forever be The Rock in my book. So... Guy and Gal with a Rock! It was definitely right place, right time, too. My odometer told me so! The mileage had rolled up to 220 330.

"Hahaha! You really enjoyed it, didn't you?"

I did, I really did! It offered a puzzle to be solved, with twists in alliances along the way, and took place in so many different locales! Honestly, it had the feel of "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard", but without all the coarse language. And like in that one, Guy's character didn't use guns, even when everyone else did. I wonder if that's a personal choice that Ryan Reynolds is pursuing?

"I'd think that would be a hard restriction on the director and the script..."

Hey, just surmising here, don't fret about it! Oh, and one more thing that's similar to the other movie: he ends up on a yacht with the other two! Funny, right?

"Most def! I hope to see that one again some time."

That would be nice. Maybe it'll stay through next week, but we'll see.

"Not to change the topic..."

You're wondering about the B-I-N-G-O games, aren't you?

"Hey, you mentioned it way back when this post started..."

So I did, so I did! Yes, tonight was time spent with the kids in Kansas City, aka the KC Crew. It's still the fastest 90-minute online event ever!

"I'm so glad you have this to look forward to every month! But who's this fellow?"

That's Logan, with trainee Julie off to the left. Logan was new to me, but he caught on that I was an active regular and pretty soon he started reading my chat quips aloud to the other 150 players tonight. Yeah!

"That's a good way to encourage others to have fun, isn't it? To be a participant, not just a wallflower!"

You've got that right! That's me, balls to the wall or not at all! (smile!)

"Hey, I recognize her!"

You should! That's Audrey and she's usually with Katie, but not this time. She even greeted me, saying my name! By the way, she and Logan share a birthday, and she'll be 28 and he'll be 30.

"Oh, they're not that young, then. Yeah, but they're still kids to us, eh?"

For sure. And here's a funny story! She read the trivia questions for that sixth game, and this particular one was "What kind of animal is Bambi?" Well, everyone knew it was "a deer"... but she thought Bambi was a girl! As I told her: "Bambi is a boy and he has a nice rack!"

"Hahahaha! I bet she caught some kidding about that!"

Oh, she did! But it was all in good fun and she took it like a real trooper!

"She's really a sweet girl. I can't imagine she'd take it any other way. Now, what's that you've whipped up for dinner?"

Well, it isn't soup! I've had soup, soup, soup for the last three days and I wanted something I could sink my teeth into tonight! It's that stir-fry Asian I make from the Chopped Salad kits, only I added some broken sketti noodles for crunch. So, you know what's next, right?

"I do! Bye! Enjoy! Later!"

(smile!)

b-o-f-f

Okay, before you mistake that acronym for anything else, kindly take a gander at this photograph of the weather in these here parts for the last few days, eh?

Right bleedin' miserable it's been here at Latitude 42 North, and for no good reason that I've been given.

On Friday afternoon, the temperature I already slithered into the 40's F and would show no signs - like, none at all - of trying to be decent until two days later, and then only for a few hours.

i thank God for free movies that I was only too glad to go in search of on Epix On Demand.

I've dubbed this tenner the Brrr Outside Film Festival, as apt a name if ever there was.

As I told Carolyn and Barbara, I was not venturing forth into that cold air for any reason, even though Tomasz had brought in a screening to jumpstart CinemaSavannah.

No, as enticing as it had sounded, I was not going.

So, which movies to watch here at home?

I'd originally intended to only watch movies that I know and love, and that was true for the two I started with on Friday.

The first was "Sonic The Hedgehog", a cinema favorite for me, one that I had seen, and written about, multiple times. Love the puns and that bit of baseball in it!

With my heart warmed up and my spirit feeling bright, I chose "Bill And Coo", a delightful 1948 piece about two lovebirds. No, literally! How wonderful to see again this all-animal feature that Jim Reed introduced me to!

Yesterday, I wanted to start with a movie I knew and then work from there. "Bill & Ted Face The Music" was ideal! I'd only seen it once, and that was over a year ago, but I'd drunk up every drop delightedly. Why so? The cinemas had been re-opened for less than a month at the time. Plus, I got to see the two boys morph into several ages - great fun!

Then I turned to another from the PFS vault of yore: "Fitzwilly"! What a pure delight to watch the machinations of Dick van Dyke as a 1968 butler trying to keep the boss' manor up and running, with Barbara Feldon as a new hire that might bollocks up his plans - that is, if she doesn't steal his heart first. Delightful! Hard to believe it's been almost five years since I saw it at the Sentient Bean.

Good times, good times!
So, just why was it important to see movies I already knew?

Well, I was cooking, trying to get all that excess sodium out of my body, right?

That meant nothing processed.

So, I made a loaf of soda bread - flour, oatmeal, a packet of sugar, a can of diet Coke languishing in the fridge for months - as a starter, something to chew.

I also had a packet of black beluga lentils leftover from a long-ago Blue Apron shipment, as well as carrots in the freezer and ever-present garlic cloves, so a stew was had.

Both of those took a bit of tending, so a movie that didn't have to be paused was in order.

Quite delicious they were, too, and hearty!

Now I was ready to tackle something new, something different, something that had kept tugging on my subconscious since I first spotted it in the listings: "Valley Girl". Mind you, the 1983 flick of the same name was a favorite, boasting good music and the bedroom eyes of Nicholas Cage - rawr!!! So, I took a chance on this remake of last year. Good songs? You bet, taken straight from the 80's pop & punk songbooks! Hot guy? In a sweet way, but without the come-hitherness of Cage. But get this: it's a MUSICAL! Hooray!!! Taking its cues from "Grease", the movie delivered on action, dance, teen angst, and enthusiasm! Wow!

Time to settle down before bed! I turned to "In A World", the film that Lake Bell wrote, directed, and stars in, one I'd seen a few years back that made an impact. How so? Well, I offer two reasons. First, I was married to a radio guy for 15 years and this movie is all about voice-overs. Second, I have been in male-dominated careers most of my life and can fully appreciate how difficult it is to break into such a field - and that sometimes you have to accept being a token hire and then proving your worth. Love Geena Davis' cameo!

This morning, I again started with one familiar and fun: "Monster Trucks"! God knows I love a good pun, and that's got one right in the title! Sure, maybe these alien denizens of the deep aren't as cute as a blue rodent, but they're every bit as smart as the octopus they resemble. Plus, Rob Lowe was in it, and, even as a bad guy, he's easy on the eyes. Oh, and lest I forget, Danny Glover was there, too, helping the kid with the beasts - nice!

Then I was free to watch movies new to me... and I did!

 

That's because I cheated and used a can of Progresso Chicken And Orzo With Lemon - a Greek favorite - as the basis for making a big pot of ribollita, a food first had in Siena in 2012.

Two slices of my crusty homemade bread served to soak up some of the liquid, as called for by the recipe. 

That was more than one bowlful - actually eaten as three small meals - and set me up for the day quite well!

And why had I felt comfortable using that canned comfort food today?

Well, it was good news: my weight had dropped almost five pounds since Thursday!

My salt-free change, coupled with glass after glass of water, had done the trick, as I'd hoped, ridding the excess sodium from my cells.

I even felt my rock-steady pulse this morning!

So, just what new movies called to me?

The one with Tom Hanks, "A Hologram For The King", certainly did, and proved to be quite excellent! It began with him singing the words to the Talking Heads' tune, "Once In A Lifetime", while his worldly belongings vanish - very funny! He's a sales guy on the skids in every area of his life and he gets sent to Saudi to arrange  deal based on a sketchy link he has with the King's nephew. How sketchy, you ask? They just happened to both be taking a piss at the same time and, as an ice-breaker, the salesman asked a joke? "What do you call a fish with no eye?" The prince shrugs his shoulders and the saleman says, "ffffshshsh!" The prince had cracked up laughing! No names exchanged... he had just made the nephew laugh and then used that tenuous thread to parlay a trip and a possible chance at a big deal.

The movie is five years old and never got a screening here.

Trust me, Savannah missed out on that one.

The next one, though, surely came to a drive-in around here! The 1979 "Gas Pump Girls" featured lots of bare tits at every possible chance, but all was done in good fun! No, it really was, and the music was fun, too!

Then I took a "Monk" break before breaking into this grand finale film. First off, it's a foreign film, in spoken French, with English subtitles. Secondly, it's about a playwright, Edmond Rosland, so I knew there was going to be great amounts of talking, meaning steady subtitles. Third of all, it was rather lengthy - more than two hours - and I needed to psych myself up to concentrate for that long.

I'm so glad I watched it! "Cyrano, My Love" was utterly fabulous and beautifully paced! Edmond had to placate his favorite actress by writing a play for her friend, he had to help his brawny buddy Leo to woo a fair maid, and he had to do both simultaneously, naturally. Serendipity placed him at a bar when the owner, a very well-read black man, proceeded to berate a mouthy patron who had just called him a "Negro", giving the lout a litany of alternate words that could have been used instead. Eureka! Next thing you know, I'm watching the origin of Steve Martin's "Roxanne" bloom right before me and I could barely read quickly enough as the delicious story unfolded. What a way to end a film fest!

And Monday will bring much better daytime temperatures, to encourage me to get out and about and replenish my larder, among other things.

i thank You, God.

zombies cannot donate blood

kicked out
of the Red Cross -
feeling
like a fool -
that Nam Sod
yesterday
made me a ghoul

no pulse, no pulse,
i'm in misery
thought i ate
all the right foods
but my blood's no good, you see

pulse has jumped
no steady pump
it skitters all
a-round-round-round
those
processed foods
have me
feelin' down
 

- words my own, song to be sung to the tune of "Alone At The Drive-In", from "Grease"

 

"Did that really happen? You were dismissed from the American Red Cross?"

 

Sadly, yes. Today, in fact.

The new guy was checking me in and couldn't find my pulse. Like, for real. He checked the right wrist... had it... and lost it. Three times. So he switched to the left, but same deal. 

He called for someone to second his findings and in came Whitney, but she had the same issue. My pulse was there, and then gone... there, and then gone. 

So they had to deny allowing me to donate today.

I tried to joke around, first with Tim, then with her.

"Hey, I know I've been watching a lot of zombie movies lately, but I couldn't have caught anything from them!"

Nope, no impact.

Drats.

"You've had Nam Sod before and not had this problem of vanishing pulse."

 

Well, that's impossible to verify.

It isn't like I've had that salt-laden dish and then donated blood the next day.

Plus, it's been quite a few months since I had that food at The King & I, as my luncheons with Dawn had been curtailed due to her phone issues.

So, when we finally got together yesterday, and I ordered my "usual" instead of a lunch special, I went at it full-tilt boogie, even forsaking the chopsticks near the end and using a spoon to get most of the juices.

That was probably a mistake.

And, to be honest, I'm naming the Thai food as to blame, but the truth is that I've been eating a lot of dinners from freezer bags and cans.

It's quick, it's easy, and the calories and protein content are in print, right there.

Since I'm keeping a food journal for the VA nutritionist, I'm trying to have an accurate accounting of those two variables, both for her and for me.

The most sure way to do so is with packaged foods.

 

"Wow. You may want to track sodium, too.

Just saying.

I know you pride yourself on the use of Mrs. Dash for seasoning, but for manufacturers trying to stock the shelves and freezers of grocery stores, sodium chloride is the preferred seasoner, as it also serves as a preservative. "

 

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you'll be happy to know I'm minimizing my use of processed foods for a few days.

For starters, dinner tonight is from bagged, uncooked, pinto beans.

The makers of the Pappy's Pantry foods have recipes online, so I'm trying my hand at making my very own refried beans.

Get this: they aren't even fried once!

LOL!

 

"Oh, that's funny!"

 

The recipe didn't call for soaking overnight, just cooking a pound of the legumes for 90 minutes with garlic and six cups of water.

 

"And no salt was needed for the recipe???"

 

Well, it specified 1 1/2 teaspoons of it, but I did about a 1/4 tsp and called it enough.

After all, I'd minced up five large cloves of garlic, so I figured that would do pretty well for making them tasty.

 

"And it did the trick for you?"

 

Well, I added a generous helping of salt-free Southwest Chipotle flavoring and that spiced them quite well!

I added a little shredded cheddar, too, but that meant less than 300 mg of sodium for both of the burritos I made.

Specifically, I added 1/8 cup of the cheese for each 1/2 cup of beans.

Yes, quite tasty... and I plan to have two more for dinner.

 

"Well, be sure to drink plenty of water to help flush out your bloated cells."

 

Oh, for sure, in fact I've had three glasses since I got home.

Time to free some of that from my bladder!

 

"You take care, you.

And please try to eat smarter, not just easier. "

 

Yes, ma'am, will do.

(smile!)

lack of control is getting old

Yesterday, the physicist and I dined at Kayak Cafe Midtown.

I had already looked at the menu and brought two Lactaid tablets to allow it.

Yes, I had not had eaten cheese in what felt like forever!

So, the Olympic Greek Salad - the large, at that - was what my taste buds longed for!

That's what I had, too, feeling that I had taken precautions to overcome any repercussions from that lactose-rich choice.

How silly of me to think I had complete control!

By the time we left, I had wondered if I should have hit the bathroom before rejoining my car, but did not.

Sure, I made it home in time to prevent an abdominal mishap, and the glass of Lactaid milk I immediately drank did settle down those beginning twinges of intestinal distress - but not before having a cramping session with the carbon dioxide released as the bacteria in my gut rejoiced in the feast of milk sugar from that cheese.

Still worth it, in my book - just look at all that feta, scattered so liberally on top!

With the two pots of lime cilantro dressing, it rather looked like a robot, didn't it?

Maybe that's just my take on it, as I've indulged greatly in science fiction of late.

(smile!)

The bfe told me that the students were aggravating him, the other faculty was aggravating him, and the school was aggravating him.

"I'm sure," I said, "everyone is ready for life to go back to normal, whatever that ever meant. More than anything else, folks miss that sense of control over what is happening around them, and right now, everyone just feels that everyone else is out of control."

"Control," he replied, "that's it exactly."

I had nodded. "Exactlly. Even though in truth the only things anyone has control over are their actions and their reactions to events around them."

That settled, we had gone on to talk of tv shows (he really likes "Turn", about spies during the Revolutionary War; I spoke of "Alter Ego") and movies (I really talked up "The Wolf Of Snow Hollow", hope he'll see it). 

I told him about the two comedy-horror films I'd watched that had absurd amounts of nudity that I thought he'd appreciate (those would be "Graveyard Tramps" and "Deep Murder").

As this is November, I brought up NaNoWriMo. Apparently he had a girlfriend once that did that and it wasn't a fond memory. So I told him of the Southern Hemisphere's alternative, Kiwiwriters, that takes place in July and that I participated in. I also told him the characters pretty much did whatever they wanted to every time I sat down to write and that I had ended up not liking any of them.

He's a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut's work and we started talking about novels and characters. Kurt had a character that appeared in several of his novels and he decided he'd "like to meet that character as himself"... and so he wrote himself into one of his novels, for the express purpose of conversing with this character he'd written of so many times!

How very cool is that, right?

Surprisingly, the bfe's a fan of Tom Robbins, too! He was talking about "the book where all the action takes place inside a pack of cigarettes" and I recognized it at once as "Still Life With Woodpecker", one of my favorites (for more reasons than just because of the Camel cigarettes on the cover).

Before we separated, I dug into my butterfly tote and produced: a t-shirt bought years ago! I remember asking his size and he'd said XL; so I'd ordered it and put it away "safely". I'd recently run across it and wanted him to have it - no one else I know would understand it. As it is, it's long enough ago that I don't remember the details, but I remember a few things:

each of the 16 colorful symbols spread all over the shirt mean something in a grand unified theory of everything that is based on symmetry.

That's all I've got!

He was touched to (finally) receive it; I hope he'll wear it next time we meet.

Maybe he'll even explain it to me!

(smile!)

Today, I had lunch with Dawn!

Remember that her phone was not receiving my texts or calls?

Well, that's in the past, and we were finally reunited!

Back at The King & I, too, and back to our Wednesdays!

I asked about her and Koz's BYOP; nope, they decided the numbers of COVID infections and people dying in September were too scary and had abstained from the party.

They hadn't even decorated the house and yard, something they've done with great joy for the past decade.

I asked about her and Michanne's planned trip to Chicago; nope, the trailer they were going up to fetch was no longer available, so they scrubbed the mission.

Dawn had made a trip recently, though, down to Florida to help out a friend and former coworker who was going through a messy divorce and was utterly overwhelmed (my words, based on the description Dawn gave of the situation).

(I love that phrase: utterly overwhelmed. Every time I unsubscribe from an email list, and they bother to ask why I'm leaving, utterly overwhelmed is what I type in. I should have mentioned that to Dawn; I think she would have liked it.)

Dawn was there for a week, helping her friend get paperwork organized, get the preteen kids organized, get the house organized, get meals organized.

Organization is where she truly shines and this was an opportunity to do so and help someone feel more in control of her life and her situation.

As I told Dawn, this was also an opportunity for Dawn to feel more in control.

She has not worked for over a year now and is more than ready to have that part of her world back up and running. Now, she does food-related volunteer work: making meals at the homeless shelter, being part of Meals On Wheels.

After our long overdue luncheon, after we parted with hugs, I walked to my car, looking up as I did.

Justthatfast, a song popped into play on my mental jukebox!

"The Simpsons... do doodo doodo doo do, doo doo doo do!"

I just had to bust out laughing!

What a marvelous release!

Right place, right time!

That blue sky -

those swirly, fluffy white clouds -

what else could it be than a joyous reminder from the universe that life was moving as it should, 

no matter how we silly humans preferred.

Here's hoping we all have a better sense of control of our worlds in 2022.

(smile!)

for love of a useless thing that brought joy

When he first arrived, he had a purpose: to gather information about the flora and fauna of the planet they had been sent to explore.

That mission was useful, as were the tasks assigned to him and his shipmates, and he performed them faithfully and in accordance with expectations.

Then, he discovered the game of baseball.

The others declared it "a useless thing", not a subject that would further their goals or enrich their knowledge.

And, even knowing what the others said, he disagreed and followed his heart.

Baseball - specifically, the playing of the game - brought him great joy, like nothing else ever had.

He became known to the people of Earth as Josh Exley and he played for the Roswell Grays.

He was the best hitter on the team, dinging balls over the walls routinely for home runs.

He was beloved by his teammates and adored by their fans, white and black alike.

And why was he playing on the Negro Leagues?

When he had forsaken his mission and taken up ball playing, he became an outlaw to his fellow shipmates, a person to be tracked down and eliminated.

So, he had done his homework and knew no one would seek him out as long as he stayed out of the big leagues and off the media radar.

For a while, his plan worked, allowing him to bring joy to others and to have joy in his life.

Eventually, however, he was found by the assassin, a shape-shifter like himself, after a night game in which he had scored his 61st home run and won for his team.

The assassin did not care about such useless things and plunged the pick into the back of the baseball lover's neck, the one spot for ending their lives.

And the alien known as Josh Exley did die, but not in a pile of green goo that would be expected in such cases.

No, he died in the lifeform he had adopted during this period of joy: he died as a human.

Of course I wept; I cried as though he had been someone I loved dearly.

"The Unnatural" - get the reference? - is one of my favorite episodes of "The X-Files".

I don't know if the World Series game added to the experience for me this time or not, but I do know s6e19 has one of the most cherished moments between Mulder and Scully.

It's her birthday and, to celebrate it, and to celebrate the brief time on the field of the baseball player he'd just found out about, he has her meet him on a local diamond, with a boy to pitch for batting practice... and he teaches her how to play.

And although she had never given much thought to the game, she was hooked by that first contact as her bat hit the whirling leather sphere.

Magical, just as the alien had found it to be.

Baseball - the game spread round the world by our military and our best export, ever.

Now, there's the end of this game in the World Series to watch -

more baseball, until the summer comes again.

i thank You, God.