I Love That Dirty Water

Yeah.....This is my 2013 X-Mas card. 

"Peace and blessings, 

Love, Candy and Tommy."

It turned out to be a "wikid pissa" Boston weekend, but I didn't intend it to be:

• Celts playoff game Friday night in the sky box. The Celts looked AWFUL, and I'm telling you they were awful from the opening tip off. We knew early on it wasn't going to be a great night for the Boston ballers. Up in Luxury Suite land, the walls are lined with a mini museum with all kinds of Boston Sports memorabilia. While I was walking around I spotted My Tommy all alone and I seized the moment for a photo op. *sigh* I love that photo. It made the Friday night loss to the Knicks hurt a lot less. 
• Sox game on Sunday in My Guy's new season tickets. LOVED the new tickets and LOVED the game. Sox won and ended up sweeping Houston and are sporting the best record in baseball right now. 
• Never one to miss out on a fabulous retail opportunity, I bought awesome Celts gear on Friday night and a killer Pats t-shirt and Red Sox hat on Sunday. I bought them from the BEST BRAND FOR TEAM GEAR ever. Super cute and sexy, and the quality is amazing.  
• Then last night, I attended a local fund raiser for Boston's One Fund. The party, held at a local restaurant called Tempo, did an amazing job! The staff, the food, the silent auction items, the raffles and the entire evening was so well done. They had a band playing and passed hors d'oeuvre's and the guests were feeling festive. I have no idea how well they did, but I know they raised a lot. It goes to the injured people in the marathon bombings to help with medical costs and funding. Right now it's a cause we can all get behind.
• The icing on the cake was a win by the Celts and another day to live in the NBA playoffs. I think I love all of my Boston teams equally, but I'm rooting passionately for the Celts right now. Saying for sure which team I like better would be like choosing a favorite child which would never happen and just not realistic. But one thing is for sure:

We all know who my heart belongs to....*sigh*

The Silence Is Deafening

It was one hell of a week, and I feel like I have been on vacation forever. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's slowly back to the drawing board today.

How was your week bloggers?

A few observations:

• Ray Allen signing with the Miami Heat for 3 million LESS than what the Celtics offered was like a knife going straight through my heart. I feel terrible and every time he hits that crucial outside shot wearing a Heat uniform I will feel the pain of that deal.

• Being back is great but being away is better. Food tastes better when you are away. Your clothes somehow look better and the time spent with family doesn't get any better when you are all away from your own surroundings. Believe it or not there was no drama! There were even a few miracles. How about that?

• A true sign of summer here in Boston; Adam Sandler and his crew have been out and about filming the movie, "Grown Ups 2", The always gracious Sandler poses with local kids for pictures and his crew and cast bring Hollywood  $$$ to the city. Last year they filmed this years, "That's My Boy" in our own sleepy little Cape Cod town. I have yet to see it. Anyone out there see it yet? 

• Frack comes home tomorrow night from Africa!! I can't wait to see his little face.Nuf said.

• The weather? I can't say enough. It has been glorious and summer in New England is truly a beautiful thing. Years ago, I met an old woman on the beach. She was sitting next to me and we struck up a conversation. She was fascinating. We talked about a lot of topics, kids, family, life, literature and world events. I really enjoyed talking to her. I told her I was divorced and I summarized my awful divorce for her, but told her that I was lucky to have found someone new to love.(this was before I got married) When we had packed up to leave, she left a note on the windshield of my car thanking me for the lovely conversation and she left me with something I never forgot. She wrote. "A life without love is like a year without summer." I often think of her when I am sitting at the beach. 

• Why is it that a hot dog tastes better at a hot summertime BBQ than any other place in the world? Well, it maybe better in Fenway Park, but that's in the summer too! A hot dog with mustard is quite possibly the summer's most perfect food. That, and some juicy watermelon. Then there's a S'more on a beach fire under the starry sky. Ahh, these glorious days of summer are truly a joy.

• Today, being the first day back to normal after a week, will be great. I still have that vacation glow and life's little problems won't seem so bad. I can't say the same for tomorrow, but for now I still have today. 

Magic Bird

Back in 1984, I was a bright eyed college freshman who arrived to my first day at my freshman dormitory and met the girl who would be my college roommate. I was as excited as I had ever been. My mom had planned my dormitory supplies well. I had new bedding, flashy new pillows, coordinating blankets and sheets, tons of toiletries (it is me, after all) new clothes and big dreams. My roommate and I, shook hands, met each others families, then said our goodbyes to them and immediately got busy setting up shop on our own "side of the room."

For me that was a bed, a bureau, some shelves, and a desk. My mom and I had picked out together almost everything, except for the wall art. That was my job alone, and I could only imagine what my roommate thought when the first thing I did was hang two enormous posters, side by side, over my bed. One poster was of Larry Bird and the other was of Magic Johnson. A huge Celtics fan, then now and forever, back then Larry and Magic were the show and I was besotted. And so was the nation.

Their rivalry was legendary, and in that shared history they ultimately became friends. The learned about the game from each other, they learned about themselves from each other and Magic says that Larry's presence on the court made him a better player and a better man. The great Boston Globe sports scribe, Jackie MacMullen, (who is from my home town of Westwood, MA, and who I know) had the incredible opportunity to co-author a book with these two legends. "When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson" tells the tale of how these sports legends basketball careers coincided from college; Bird at Indiana State and Magic at Michigan State through to their NBA careers. Both men always observing the other, often time obsessing over achievements.

It is no surprise to me that on this Wednesday a new show on Broadway opens up entitled, "Magic Bird". It's a show that gives me goosebumps because it takes me back to a time when these two were Kings of the parquet and I was buying whatever they were selling. While sport and theatre may mirror each other in their spectacle, the real story here is of mutual respect, admiration, determination, perseverance and show business. Win or loose, we wanted to experience every second of it because we knew they wouldn't disappoint. We loved the show.

Here's hoping Magic Bird on Broadway doesn't disappoint.

LINsane In The Membrane

You shoulda heard all the hoopla. All weekend long it was all most TV, radio and newspapers could talk about. Jeremy Lin was returning to Boston, home of Harvard, where he began his basketball ascension to greatness. You couldn't miss it. Heck, I even got caught up in it all. Who doesn't love a great Cinderella story like Jeremy Lin's?

Boston Herald Sports scribe Ron Borges put Linsanity into perspective for me with his Sun morning Page 8 article in the Boston Herald. Borges wife, a Taiwanese American, and her family, including his 5 year old son, described how Jeremy Lin and his recent NBA success has "rekindled and old flame". Suddenly, yesterday's game was more about Lin and less about the Celtics.

What's even more amazing is that in a place like the Boston Garden, where Celtic greats like Bird, Cousy and Bill Russell were worshiped and glorified, and where 17 World Championship banners hang in the rafters, and where it's storied parquet floor has played host to some of basketballs greatest rivalries and where Celtic fans bleed a proud and deep green, the crowd was cheering a hometown cheer when ever Jeremy Lin touched the ball in the opening minutes of the game.

Now that there is some powerful Linsanity!

Let's not forget that this guy has been Lin-sane for only about a month now, and has revitalized a New York Knicks team that was literally flat lined. Dead. In the time since his Feb 2012 emergence that made him a household name, he has led the Knicks to winning streaks, major media coverage, and been on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice. To say that Lin controls the flow of their game is an understatement.

But Jeremy Lin is not invincible, and his play as of late has been humbling. Yesterday was no different. But hard core Lin fan's don't care. Even the big guy himself, the POTUS, Barry Obama who sat down with Bill Simmons, aka ESPN's The Sports Guy, last week. When asked about Lin, Mr. President claimed to have been in on Linsanity long before all of us. Arne Duncan, his secretary of education, was captain of the Harvard basketball team, who told POTUS that Jeremy Lin was one to watch.
"So I've been on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon for a while...I can't take credit for (Linsanity). but I'm just saying I was there early." Obama said.

WOW. The leader of the free world claiming to be a big fan.... Now that's some serious Linsanity.



Simmons entire interview is available on his website Grantland.com

Dang That Hurts

It's a good thing I was so flat out busy this weekend, that I couldn't watch my beloved Celtics open up a can of whoop ass on the Heat Saturday night.

I say it's a good thing because I missed this happen live.

That's our very own Rajon Rondo hyper extending his elbow in a crash collision with Duane Wade. How gross is THAT??

I gotta tell you though, I really didn't miss it because it's been replayed so much, that I have sworn off Sports Center till the Celtics play again. It brings back all kind of painful memories that I still haven't gotten over.

I still haven't gotten over this:




It was 1985 and I was 18 years old and watching that game with my dad and my brother. I'll never forget it, and I still haven't got over seeing Theisman's leg break right before my eyes. So watching the replay on Rondo this Saturday night was almost as painful.

Good thing for Rondo, he didn't break anything. In fact our own Rondo came back into the game later and was able to still be a factor in the win.

And it has been reported that he will play tonite.

Unbelievable.