Sunday Farewell

Youk Leaving the Field as a Red Sox For Last Time

How I'll  Remember Him

Yesterday was a decompression day from the great Saturday up in Keene.  We started our trip home having to reconfigure the car to fit in Buddy and my wife’s purchases from her Saturday adventures.  This included a lot of flowers which couldn’t just be shoved into any convenient spot (my normal technique) and certainly could not cohabitate with Buddy in the back.  My friend watched bemusedly as my wife and I “discussed” how the car should be packed.  She won and everything made it back safely.  I headed out to mow the lawn, my weekly Zen session. My wife came out and took a picture because she thought I looked cool – still trying to figure that one out.  I guess being married as long as we have you start seeing things that aren’t really there (see picture).  She came out a while later and motioned for me to hurry and come in.  She wanted me to see the send off the Red Sox fans gave Kevin Youklis.  It was common knowledge that he was going to be traded and in his last at bat he tripled and then was replaced on third base.  You can say how jaded the Fenway faithful have become with all the recent success but this was a real moment between the fans and a player they connected with.  He received a long standing ovation and a curtain call from the fans – richly deserved.  Youk always played hard and he played hurt which is something some of these nancy boys could take a lesson from.  I’ll miss Youk but it was obvious that he needed to move on, a younger, cheaper, better player beat him out for the job.  As with any member of the 2004 or 2007 teams he will always occupy a special niche in heart of Red Sox nation.  I wish him well and I know he’ll terrorize the Red Sox every time they play each other.  My wife spent a long time working on the flower pots that she’s creating for my sister and they look awesome.  I was out back talking with her and the neighbor until we both realized that we were getting destroyed by mosquitoes while she blissfully worked on the flower pots.  She opined that they must not like Panamanian blood.  Five minutes later they discovered that they did and she joined me inside.  A really weird thing yesterday was Buddy’s behavior.  Usually he’s all over the place, rigorously guarding everything in sight.  He spent the entire afternoon and evening terrified of something.  I’m glad I hadn’t just seen a scary movie because I would have been spooked by his behavior.  I kept expecting the sky to come crashing down or the earth to start shaking because this was not normal.  He was crawling under the desk and refused to stay outside which is totally outside his normal MO.  Dogs have such acute hearing that maybe he heard a distant thunderstorm or fireworks – which might explain his fear.  By the end of the evening he had me looking over my shoulder.  Must have been how Youk felt the last few weeks. 

My Wife Multi-Tasking - Working on Flowers While on Phone to Panama



On My Trusty Steed Yesterday