The Element Of Surprise

Hello World, Happy Autumn! We welcomed the autumnal equinox on Wednesday, which like its vernal counterpart in the spring, is when the daylight hours and the night time hours are exactly the same. It isn't technically accurate to say that the days start getting shorter from here, because they've actually already been getting shorter since the first day of summer way back in June, which has the longest daylight hours of the entire year. But it does seem that they get shorter faster at this time of year - and then they toss the nefarious specter of Daylight Saving Time at us in November to really louse things up even further, thanks not - so a word to the wise is to hold onto your hats, because it's going to be a bumpy ride. And that's not just the Druids talking, believe me. And so here we find ourselves at the very last weekend in September on top of everything else, believe it or not, and nothing to show for it but blood, sweat, and tears, and plenty of it, by golly. Speaking of tears, there's been no lack of that in the swamps of East Rutherford, as the under-whelming Giants stumbled badly out of the gate, racking up a woeful 0-2 record to start the season, before grinding out a win over Washington on Thursday, and thanks so very much not. Meanwhile, their cross-town rivals in green, the unheralded Jets, roared out to an impressive 2-0 start right off the bat, leaving the pundits and prognosticators shaking their collective heads, and the odds-makers cursing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, I shouldn't wonder. In other sports news on the local scene, and also having their ups and downs on both sides of the ball (as well as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it goes without saying) last weekend's Subway Series between the Yankees and Mets made at least half of the pinstripe faithful happy, while the other half (of the junior franchise) did not find much to their liking, alas. The vaunted Bombers won 2 out of 3, and handily at that, outscoring the Amazin's 17 to 7 overall - including an 11-2 drubbing to close out the series on their home turf, that left their disappointed fans decidedly not singing the praises of inter-league play, I dare say. On the positive side, the surprising Mets lead their division by 7 games over the Nationals with 10 games left, while the Yankees either have to make up 3 games to catch first-place Toronto, or stay ahead of the Astros for the AL Wild Card spot. Of course, being in the playoffs is old hat to the Yankees by now, heaven knows, but it was a sort of wistful observation on the part of Mets' announcer Ron Darling when he remarked that it's nice to be able to play games in September that mean something for a change. It's been a long time coming, and in the immortal words of the late, great Tug McGraw: "Ya gotta believe!" And incredibly in even more local sports news, I was more surprised than anybody to find the New York Rangers playing the New Jersey Devils on television in a pre-season game last week, big as life and twice as scrappy, as impossible as that might seem. Considering that this is only September, and they don't award the Stanley Cup until June, with only 82 games in the whole season, it certainly seems like an awfully long time from beginning to end, I don't mind saying. I was going to point out that MSG was running the game on their network, apparently without a hint of irony at this time of year, when the Boys of Summer are still tearing up the diamonds, for heaven's sake - but on the other hand, I couldn't help but notice that everyone on the team was someone whose name I didn't recognize (Brian Gibbons? Jayson Megna?? Antti Raanta??? And these are the goal scorers in a winning effort, mind you!) so maybe this was nothing more than a huge practical joke after all. And speaking of huge, it would have been impossible to miss the colossal announcement that zoomed into my email last week, with the screaming headline: ============================ WANT TO RIDE THE ZAMBONI AT YOUR NEXT RANGERS GAME? ============================ Personally, I have only one thing to say about that, which is, "HECK, YEAH!!!" In fact, I think that riding on a Zamboni brings a whole new meaning to the word "cool" on so many different levels, and that's not just a lot of hockey pucks, believe me. It goes on to say "Zamboni rides are available during select Rangers home games with a donation to the Garden of Dreams Foundation for each ride." Sign me up! This charitable organization from the self-appointed World's Most Famous Arena is well known for its good works in and around the community, and I am totally on board with that. Unfortunately in the fine print (there's always fine print, don't you know) it specifies that rides are limited to youngsters between the ages of 6 and 12, confound it all. So much for my moment in the spotlight, skimming across the storied ice, and drinking in the thrill of the chill from one end of the rink to the other. I tell you, George Bernard Shaw wasn't kidding when he said "Youth is wasted on the young," and I ought to know. Meanwhile, at the temporary job I'm doing now in the real estate office, I had occasion to show a prospective tenant some vacant space in one of our buildings where I had never been before. We poked around for a bit, checking over the walls and carpet, windows and alcoves in the small space, and taking note of the salient features. Then we spotted a door in the back corner with a sign that said LADIES on the front, so we opened it up expecting - I might say, justifiably - a bathroom, but were instead confronted with a tiny closet, without so much as a shelf, hook, or light switch to call its own. The prospect was obviously taken aback at this startling turn of events, although much too polite to stare, and I found myself saying in a jovial manner, "I suppose this is where you store your ladies." He laughed. Frankly, I think it's just as well that we didn't open that door and find a closet full of ladies already being stored in there - although if they came with their own Zamboni, I'll admit that they wouldn't be able to get me out of there at gunpoint, and I am unanimous in that. Elle