Hot, steamy, late August, summertime.  This year is awfully disorienting, what with the Mets actually winning and all. 

I have a picture of the 1986 Mets in my place, with the $5 I won on a bet from a Yankee fan that year, who told me the Mets would not win the World Series, before the playoffs began.  He put $5 on the line (cheapskate).  He then wrote on the $5 bill "It won't happen again for another 17 years" (the distance in time between 1969 and 1986, the only other Mets World Series win). A little sour grapes from him, no doubt, but it's been more than 17 years since.  Oh well.

Mets fans know what losing is like, and we know what loyalty is.  Sure, there are bandwagon jumpers when we do well, but the real ones like me have had our souls marinated and slow cooked in New York loyalty for the downscale bums who are heirs to the Brooklyn Bums, before Walter O'Malley damned his soul to hell by taking the hometown club to Chavez Ravine, convincing Horace Stoneham to go west with him.

Another thing Mets fans understand is the importance of enjoying and savoring the moment, the great little moments, because God only knows when great moments will come again.  Back when my friend said it would take another 17 years, I thought he was nuts:  the 1986 Mets were loaded with young talent and seemed like a dynasty in the making.  It was not to be.

The clip I've chosen tonight includes one of my favorite, underappreciated trumpet players:  the late Ruby Braff.  I don't know this guitarist and the band he's with, other than by name:  the George Barnes Quartet.  Ruby's appearance in this clip is too, too brief, but it is, for me, a moment to savor in a perfectly good rendition of an American classic in an original American art form.

Savor the good times.

I'll tell you some good times for me just from today:  morning reading the papers here with my partner and some light swing music on.  We did separate errands during the day and saw Talladega Nights late this afternoon, which was like seeing TBogg and Sadly, No! combine to do a script with Will Ferrell.  Then I barbequed some chicken I'd been marinating and baked some sliced Granny Smith apples in brown sugar and cinammon for us for desert tonight.  They are piping hot out of the oven in front of me right now.  I'll eat them when I'm done typing.

By the way, the biggest barriers to noticing and savoring the good stuff, online or in life, are without doubt concern trolls.  People who sow negativity, drama and disunity are the bane of sensible people.  Rather than find and see all the good stuff going on, they find a way to piss on everyone else's party.  Some insist on being martyrs for attention; others are simply dishonest.  They spread negativity like a cancer, some on purpose, some without any self-awareness that their whining victimhood is sucking the life from good people around them.  In my family we usually call them Yankee fans, but I digress.  Heh.

Bob Geiger has some great stuff to help us all focus our efforts more positively as we push back against destructive concern trolls like Lieberman. My more limited reporting this week backs up Bob's conclusion that Joe can't really be stripped of his seniority during the current session by Minority Leader Reid.  That's why I started asking the community last night to target other individual Democrats to state they don't think Joe should be welcomed back into the party in the event he should win another term in the Senate.  We need to make our point through other allies, or others who want to demonstrate their progressive principles to the base, in my view.

Anyway, as Jane points out, Joe is on the ropes.  Rather than let him suck the life out of the Party any longer, we're making real progress in putting his concern trollishness behind us.  For me, that makes for quite an enjoyable summer.  The Mets super season is icing on the cake.

What about you:  are you having a good summer?  More to the point, are you making one?  Or, are you missing the great moments?  As any Met fan can tell you, they're meant to be noticed and savored.