Got your brooms ready, Red Sox fans?

I'm posting very late tonight because I wanted to talk about the World Series. Yes, the World Series. Like we have anything else on our collective minds these days.

This has been, as of tonight, an amazing series for us Red Sox fans. More than we ever imagined, especially with the Rockies recent win loss record of 22-1, we're just creaming those Rockie Mountain boys. I thought that they might win a game or two, but it looks as if they might not win anything at all. We're out pitching them, our defense is better, and overall we're just a better, stronger team.

I've never been a fan of the national league. I like the designated hitter, I love that pitchers don't have to hit. I don't quite get why the two leagues can't seem to come to a compromise on those two playing points, but evidentally they can't. And, if they can't even decide how to play the game uniformly throughout both leagues, they certainly can't make every playing field uniform as well. Baseball is the only game where every playing field is different, not only in size but in shape as well.

Watching the Sox play in Coors Field (I HATE THAT NAME!) tonight was amazing. DiceK? Could he have been better? I don't think so. His pitching was fabulous. He actually got a base hit. Did you see him running the bases in his jacket? Then he walked to 1st carrying his bat with him. How cute is he? It's like watching a big giant little league player that's incredibly talented.

One thing we noticed watching the game tonight was the number of shattered bats. Do you think that has something to do with the dry air in Colorado? I've never seen so many split bats in one game.

How about our Rookies? Jacoby Ellesbury? What a fabulous player. Dustin Pedroia? How cute is he, and what a huge boon to our team. He was a real find. DiceK? Who would have thunk, after watching him last spring, that he would end up as such a powerful pitcher in October?

Tomorrow, Jon Lester is pitching. He's come back from cancer last year. What an amazing story he is for our Red Sox. I'm counting on him to sweep the series. I just cannot wait for the parade. I went in 2004 and end up sobbing I was so excited and relieved. My whole life I've been a Sox fan. I'm a third generation fan, my kids are 4th generation fans. My father lived his entire life never having seen his team win the series. It took 52 years for me to see that win in 2004. My kids, they have always seen the Red Sox on top. They've never experienced years and years of being in the basement. They're going to see another World Series before they're even 16.

It doesn't seem quite fair.

I do have a hint for all you watching tomorrow. Turn the sound way down so you don't have to hear Joe Buck and Tim McMoron chattering on about nothing nonstop. The game is so much more enjoyable without them.

See you tomorrow night!

Preschooligans

My oldest son will officially be ready for preschool next fall. He currently goes to a toddler program and I'm pretty happy with it - except for the fact that he has to go for six hours a day. That means that I'm paying for him to nap there when he could easily nap at home for free. I tried to see if the center had any flexibility on that six-hour minimum - like could he attend for four instead?

"Sure. You can pick him up whenever you like. But we have to charge you for the full six hours."

I'm also free to set a pile of money on fire every month, but I'm not about to do that either. So I foolishly thought we'd just send him somewhere else. How hard can it be to find a preschool? My requirements are pretty simple:

1. It must be safe
2. It must be clean
3. It must be a happy enviroment - smiling teachers, happy kids
4. It has to be within a 15 minute drive from home (why add more stress to my life?)

I'm happy to drop him off at any school that meets those basic requirements so that he can glue leaves to construction paper and kick balls in the playground to his heart's content (as far as I can tell this is the bulk of his school day - save for snack time - snack time is HUGE at his school).

So I start calling and visiting the local schools, checking to see if they had any room for my son. Surprise! They're all full! And the waitlist? Full as well! Did you know that you have to apply at least a year in advance in order to get into PRESCHOOL?

Let's take a minute here for a reality check: My applications to graduate school were due in January and by April I was looking for an off-campus apartment. It takes 3 months to get into business school, but it takes 13 months to get into PRESCHOOL.

My mind. It is boggled.

Thankfully, none of the preschools I'm considering are on Boston Magazine's list of the "finest preschools" or I'd be in real trouble.

White Knuckles, Knotted Shoulders

My daughter Olivia has type 1 diabetes. She's had it for nearly 10 years and for 8 of those 10 years, we've made the drive in to Boston so that she can be seen four times a year at Joslin. It's one of the leading diabetes centers in the country and they take top notch care of her and her diabetes.

But, and there is a big but (and not just mine), the drive in, from the hinterlands of western Massachusetts, is most decidedly Not Fun. It's all smooth sailing until you hit the illustrious 95/128 interchange on the Mass Pike. That's when all hell breaks loose. Invariably, some moron, usually from out of state *coughNewYorkcough* gets in the Fast Lane when they don't have a Fast Lane tag. There's usually a couple of confused tractor trailers trying to figure out if they need to go north or south. And me, cursing 'em all out, like the good little Masshole that I am.

Then there is the garage. Any of you familiar with the Pilgrim Street Parking garage in the Longwood area? It's over there behind Children's and Beth Isreal. Turns are so tight that every ramp has dozens and dozens of bumper scrapes on it. The up and down ramps are about six inches apart, so you need to have quick reflexes and new brake pads when you use this place. I don't know how people with honking SUVs manage - I have all I can do to get my little Honda Accord thru there unscathed. The rates are ridiculous, even for Boston and Joslin no longer validates parking tickets. Between the tolls, the gas, lunch and parking, it's easily a $60 day. Olivia's currently involved in a study there, so we get free parking (yay!), but once that's over, we'll be taking the T in again. Much easier. And I don't have to navigate the car-killing potholes that pop up along Route 9 in Wellesely and Chestnut Hill. What's up with those things? Rich suburbs like that and you can't keep the potholes filled? Or is that your way of saying "Come, shop at the Atrium, wander thru Chestnut Hill Mall, but don't even THINK about going anywhere else or your chassis is ours. Suckahs!"

I'm glad to be back out here in the Happy Valley, behind the Tofu Curtain, but now I need a massage. And a drink. Thank all the little fishes I don't have to do that again for another three months.

Pay now or pay later

I subscribe to an educational news feed that sends me stories from all over the world. In today's feed, there was an article about a failed initiative in Scotland as well as notes on programs from California, New Jersey, and the bus full of kids who escaped from the Minneapolis bridge collapse, just to name a few. What struck me about today's brief is that three of the articles related directly to Massachusetts. One reported that the residents of Bridgewater voted to fund their schools and cut from the budgets of other programs another praised a program for aspiring engineers. I skimmed the first two but I paid close attention to the third: Hub weighs dorm for 'couch surfers.'

Nearly 50,000 children of school age in Massachusetts are homeless. About 10% of those kids are teens who leave home to escape abuse or as a result of their own emotional and addiction issues. Now, school leaders are considering adding a residential program to an alternative high school in Roxbury.

There aren't many people who wouldn't be moved by the stories of the kids profiled in the article, many of whom live in extreme poverty and spend their nights couch surfing:

"In some ways, a school doesn't have any business getting into housing. But what some of these kids may need most is a consistent home where there is order and people around who they can trust and who have their act together," said DeWitt Jones, chairman of the board of trustees for Boston Day and Evening.

Shaquillia Meadows, 16, who spent the last school year bouncing among friends' homes, sleeping on air mattresses, said she would benefit from a residential program at the school, where she is a sophomore.

"I felt like dropping out, but, honestly, I don't want to end up like my mother," said Meadows, who wants to study forensics in college. "If I had somewhere to go home to and eat and shower and rest my head, I would be like, 'Ok, now I could finish school.' "

As Dickensian as some may perceive boarding schools to be, I've spent time in residential schools and that are, for some kids, the first time they've been in a stable environment with a routine and predictable rules and boundaries. Sure, the lure of the street is powerful and these kids arrive with more baggage than they can carry but for these kids, the presence of one steady, charismatic adult can change them forever.

"...some educators and advocates for the homeless say the program could be risky for the school because it might distract administrators from their primary mission, education, as they take up the role of a social service agency." Of course the program will be risky. Of course it will. But I'm not sure a well-run residential program is any riskier than a teenager living on the street. Funding for education is always controversial. I happen to believe that the best programs aren't always the most heavily funded and that towns, such as Bridgewater, need to decide where their priorities lie when writing budgets.

But when you take into account all the risks that homeless teens face- pregnancy, addiction, incarceration, dropping out of school- and weigh them against the expense of a program that has the potential to provide a chance to right the ship. I vote for the ship.