Sporty Spice

Few people who know me would mistake me for a jock. My eye-hand coordination leaves a lot to be desired, and I am proud to have earned my high school varsity letter by serving as a manager for the boys' swim team.

You wouldn't know that based on our social calendar lately, though.

We've been at the Park Avenue Country Club the last two Saturdays to watch Michigan football with hundreds of other U-M alumni. This Saturday I felt a mixed allegiance since U of M was clobbering my undergrad alma mater Central Michigan, but at least we got to hang out with fellow MAC undergrads Rick and Gladys, and we got in our first euchre playing as New Yorkers while we killed time during a rain delay of the game. (We split 1-1 with our uber-competitive real estate agent Brett and the partner he drafted, Aaron. A tiebreaker will come when Brett rounds up a partner who won't confess to reneging before he's caught.)

Jim and Courtney gave me an extra bleacher ticket for one of the Detroit Tigers' games at Yankee Stadium. They got their tickets through the MSU alumni club, so it was a thrill to be surrounded by Tiger fans as our typically lousy Detroit team beat the Yankees.










Last night we took the subway out to Flushing for the women's finals of the U.S. Open. When John opened our bank account at Chase, the staff was slow and unhelpful and not terribly bright but the upside was the free U.S. Open tickets they gave us. We didn't realize at the time they would be for women's finals, and we didn't realize until we got there that we'd get a double feature -- the mixed doubles finals followed, including Martina Navratilova playing in the last game of her career. This was after seeing -- and hearing -- the tennis tart Maria Sharapova win the finals.



(these photos courtesy of the US Open web site)








(these photos shot on my Treo cell phone -- can you tell the difference?)









We haven't been all sports and no culture, though.

We took in First Friday at the Guggenheim, including a great exhibit by Jackson Pollack.
















And inspiring massive jealousy, and reminding me I need to finish my novel damnit, we went to a reading by fellow Wolverine Brad Meltzer. Brad is a multi-hyphenate writer, hitting the NY Times best seller list with his novels, as well as writing comic books and the short-lived TV series Jack and Bobby.
http://www.bradmeltzer.com/
If you look closely, you can see me and John in this video of Brad telling a hilarious story about a junket to Bulgaria: http://www.bradmeltzer.com/2006/09/video-book-of-fate-signing-in-new-york.html

This is a cell phone picture so sadly you probably won't be able to make out the guy in the Star Trek Convention T-shirt who asked the first question during Q&A. Yes, as Brad joked, it was a comic book guy.









And finally, in honor of this week's total eclipse of the moon, one of my favorite scenes from Old School:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Vy4Iqu0fU