The Moment

The Moment
Originally uploaded by brianmc94

We're back. It was a wonderful, fun and exhausting week, and it's good to be back in the real world. I'll post more later, but I'll leave you with a picture for now. Click on it to see more.

Red in the Face

Last night marked the return of softball.

I may not be the most athletic person in the world, nor am I the most coordinated. I'm slow as a turtle in the outfield and have no arm to speak of; however, I can do one thing well, and that's hit the ball.

So needless to say, as I swung and missed at the second pitch I faced, I wasn't remotely concerned. Even though I started thinking about it. The sight of my bat hitting empty air mere inches away from the ball as it floated back to earth on the downward side of its gentle arc must have rattled me more than I thought.

Because I did the same damn thing next swing. I struck out. At slow pitch recreational softball.

Slow.

Pitch.

Softball.

Egad.

I'm not sure what was worse - the desire to go beat myself over the head with my bat, or listen to the snickering from my own bench . . . and believe me, I deserved it. That pitch had a wicked - and I mean wicked - twelve-foot arc. From the time the pitcher released it to it reaching the plate, I could have walked over to the drinking fountain, sipped some water and returned.

Fortunately, I'm not a professional . . . because, let's face it, if I was, I'd starve.

The beauty of recreational league sports is that all is forgotten - usually by the next inning. The problem is that I won't forget. Maybe they have batting cages in Jamaica . . . I'll have to check into that . . .

Little Girl Lost

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are private detectives living in Boston. In Gone Baby Gone, they're hired by a desperate aunt and uncle to locate their missing niece. Hindering them is a strangely disinterested mother, a resentful police force and the nagging question of whether Amanda MacReady is really better off with her own mother in the first place?

I read this book before I saw the movie, and found both to be well worth the time. Dennis Lehanne clearly loves the view of Boston from the bottom, and like all successful series (Gone Baby Gone is the fourth in a series of five novels) he creates a memorable cast of characters to populate his version of the city.

If you're a fan of The Wire (which Lehanne wrote several episodes) or crime noir stories, or even the movie, you won't be disappointed by the book.